HELLO AGAIN!

No, I didn't leave town. I haven't been on vacation. My computer's not broken. No one is ill. I haven't even been particularly busier than usual. I just took an extended, unannounced break from blogging. I'm actually quite surprised at how missed my blogging seems to have been. I've gotten so many calls, e-mails, and personal requests to hurry up and start blogging again. I'm really touched! Here I was feeling all boring and uninspired. I guess boring works for a lot of people.

I've been kind of agonizing over how to start again. Should I recap all that's happened in the last 3 months? Should I pretend I never took a break? Should I just jump back in? This last option was Doug's advice, so here I am.

I may end up sharing a couple of pics of the highlights of the past couple of months, but not today. Today, we're talking about TROUT.



Today was opening day of trout season in a neighboring state. Doug and the boys met my brother, Jimmy, and his son Nathan at the stream at 6:30 this morning. The weather was perfect (I think. I was still in bed.) At least it was perfect when they came home at 9:30 after each of them caught their limit of 6 fish.

We bagged up fish from each of their stringers for dinner tonight and froze the rest. We figured on inviting Nanny and Poppop to dinner. Hannah was here as well as Billy's friend Richie. We ended up grilling 15 fish. Aren't they pretty?

My mom and Nana always made homemade french fries with fresh caught trout, so I set about peeling, slicing, pre-frying, frying and salting 5 pounds of potatoes. They were so good. Totally worth the 2 hours that they took me to make!

I steamed up some delicious green beans and made 2 pans of corn bread. My mom stopped by the farmer's market and bought some delicious cole slaw from an Amish stand there. She also made homemade peanut butter tandy cakes and a pineapple rice pudding that my grandfather used to make.

It really was the most delicious dinner we've had in quite some time. This food brings back such wonderful memories for me. It wasn't just the food though. The company was wonderful too! I'm so happy that Doug and our boys have continued our family's tradition of trout fishing.