For the past few years the third graders of Logan Elementary have participated in a beach clean-up and social activity. They clean up a stretch of beach, after which they play in the water and eat lots of good food that "Mr. and Mrs. Wilcken" bring them. This was the last day of school for them. It just happened to fall during our vacation in San Diego so we got to participate too!

Sammie even helped.

The kids had a blast swimming.

Aunt Ilene, Elizabeth and Audrey were wore out after the cleaning and swimming.

Ralphie lovin' on his mommy!

Posted by Krissy

These next few posts are going to be back posts...Like I said before i have a lot of posting to do and so I am going to spread it out over the next few weeks to try and get some what caught up. Oh and yes there will be BBQ related posting and my first ever cook on a WSM !

At the end of July, as we often do, we headed to San Diego. Eli had been in San Diego for the last few weeks so it was time to pick her up and drop Sam off for her week of Grandma and Grandpa bonding time. Since we live so far away the girls really treasure the summers and the weeks they get to spend with their Grandparents.

Some may believe it takes a village to raise a child, well I've never really needed a village my family has always been there for us.

Anyway on to the pics!


This is how you travel, and yes even with the DVD, Nintendo and tons of books they still find time to get on each others nerves. :)


One of the things we like to do when we visit San Diego is to visit Grandmas classroom. The girls love to meet her students and get in on some reading time.

As a reward for the students in her class that have 100% homework for the entire year, Mom takes them up to Oakzanita for the day. The have breakfast in the lodge, participate in any activities the camp has planned for the day and SWIM!!

The girls all enjoyed the pool as well...

Everyone had lots and lots of fun!!

More to come...

Well hello all!

I've got a lot of catch up posting to do with a ton pics and family adventures to post including recent trips to Cali, end of school, funny things the girls have done you know all that family stuff.

I know I've been slacking but time just seems to get away from me. My dad always said the older you get the faster time flys and that might as well be gospel because that is exactly what happens. A month goes by and I look back and I have not blogged anything...I'll try to do better. No promises but I'll promise to try.

In my defense I may just actually be loosing my mind!!! Keep reading you will see why!

Krissy recently noted that I blog a lot about BBQ, and I am sure that is true. Its just something I enjoy doing at this time in my life. I enjoy BBQ and I need to practice so I can produce the best BBQ I can. Besides she never complains when its time to eat it. :)

So with that in mind I was recently asked If I would be willing to cook some pork for a mens activity at church. Well most people have never tasted what I consider to be "true" BBQ so I figured I'd cook a few pork butts (shoulders) and give them a taste to make sure it is what they are looking for. Besides we need to replenish our supply of frozen pork in the freezer.

Well the story is as follows...

Early morning, 3am, pork butt smoke on the UDS!!

This was to be my first attempt at using lump in my UDS. I was hoping for somewhat higher temps and a clean less ash cook. I had some new Kroger Lump that I had picked up at Frys for $4.99 a bag. I was excited to begin this next chapter in my quest for BBQ perfection.

As I got the lump going right away it started smelling really bad, it was poring out a black nasty looking smoke. After the smoke calmed down a bit the flames started shooting out and I noticed right away that were all kinds of weird colors...as I am siting there watching it I decided to take a pic because I was planning on doing a review of the Kroger Brand of lump. As I grab the camera the "lump" (or at least I thought it was the lump) exploded. It was so loud it woke Krissy up! I was like, I am going to die...death by lump!!!

At this point I'm telling my self no way am I using this JUNK in my UDS, its exploding the flames look like I'm burning copper and magnesium in some sort of metallurgical experiment, and the smell!!! The smell would knock over a full grown Yak! I'm thinking to my self I've found the WMDs!!! There are in the bags marked Kroger Lump!! By now I'm getting pretty pissed and mumbling some not nice things about Kroger and their "lump"!!

I decided to dump the starter into a kettle because there is no way I am going to cook anything I'm going to feed my family with this stuff. As I dump out the starter I see a flaming mass of something...what the heck is that?

As the flames died down I began to recognize the oh so familiar shape of...

Yep my razor phone!! How it ended up in the bottom of my charcoal starter at 3AM I still can not figure out!! Talk about feeling stupid, not only burning up my phone but also having no idea how it came to happen. Man I loved that phone!

After all the excitement died down and the cremated phone had been given a proper burial, I got back to the task at hand which was my first cook using lump on the UDS! The Kroger lump turned out to be great and my first lump experience, minus the phone incident turned out very well! I gave the sample to Rick and we will see if it is what he is looking for, if so I will be doing more butts in the near future...lets just hope my next phone can survive the cook.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.