This Weekend

Or 'French Toast Chaper 2'. This is the creation of our good friend Dave from Grayling. He made this for us a year ago when we visited everyone while they camped (and I worked the weekend) last Memorial Day weekend. We did the same thing again this year: drove up just for breakfast in Bay City State Park.

Dave makes regular French Toast, but then he takes grated milk chocolate and sprinkles it between the slices and lets it melt. Topped with fresh sliced strawberries, strawberry syrup and whipped cream, is it dessert or breakfast? Fabulous eaten outside with a whole gang of friends.

I got to miss Operation Clean Uncle Ottomar's House on Saturday. Sometimes it's not so bad to be working/sleeping while other things are going on. Tim stumbled home around 830 that night and shook his head, saying the only thing he could think of to describe it was Katrina without the water and mud. He says he might go up in 2 weeks to help out some more. He offered me a chance to see it first hand next weekend. I think I might have to, just so I can believe it.

Progress was made, and the whole family got to visit over dinner at Bavarian Inn that night (minus Tim and me). John and Diana and the kids had arrived from Pennsylvania in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Sunday morning I got out of work and drove north to mom and dad Reinert's in Birch Run so I could change clothes. Summer weather is definitely here, and shorts were the order of the day. Tim was already there, having driven from home to meet me, and we took the truck north to Bay City for our camp breakfast. Maybe we'll go camping Memorial Day weekend with them next year or the year after, but this is what we've settled for the last few. With our work schedules, we can't go camping as often as we like. Or should. After we left Bay City we drove back south to Saginaw to join up with Tim's family at the zoo. We were trying to think of how many years it had been since we'd set foot in this small zoo. Probably 25 or 30 years. They've done a lot of nice landscaping to most of it. Unfortunately it was hotter than hell (91 F), and I only had about 30 minutes of visiting with everyone before I had to get home so I could get a few hours of sleep that afternoon before going back into work that night. The fish pond reeked to high heaven (the dead fish floating in it only added to the charm), and niece Jenna was having a spectacular meltdown. I was so out of there. Then there was the scenic treat of driving through the rotted out center of my hometown Saginaw on my way home. It looks exactly the same as it did 25-30 years ago, only with more empty business buildings and crumbling vacant houses. Lovely.

At least I had the AC going full blast and lots of 80's music on all the radio stations to get me home. All the stations bring out the 'oldies' on the holiday weekends...