the goose loves the first bbq of the summer

Wednesdays can be tough. You're far enough away from last weekend to remember the freedom you enjoyed, but not close enough to next weekend to get excited about the freedom it will bring. Wednesday is just an awkward weekday, really.

But sometimes you had a memorable weekend and you force yourself to continue bathing in it's glorious sunshine-y goodness, even though it's practically long gone. Here's one such example.

On Sunday afternoon, we had our good friends Dane and Danielle over for some BBQ action. We hadn't seen them for quite awhile so it was great to catch up and even better to throw some good ole meat on the bbq. I even went the extra mile and put a tablecloth on the freshly-wiped table.

We munched on Juanitas (the best tortilla chip known to man) and lime-garlic salsa, a cousin of the tasty mango-peach salsa from Fred Meyer, and drank a few beers.

A few days ago, Billy was showing disdain for a certain brand of microbrew, and I suggested that maybe he's unfairly biased against certain brands, and therefore will disklike whatever he tastes from that brand. I challenged his beer tastebuds to a blind tasting, where I include some of his famous brand biases, to verifiy the quality of his tongue and determine whether or not his bias is rooted in fact or belief.

Since the challenge included 6 different IPAs, I figured it'd be better to do when there's reinforcement for drinking up the beers once tasting was over. Luckily, Dane and Dani were up for joining in, so Dane blind tasted with Billy and Dani helped me officiate.

As it turns out, Billy's #2 favorite beer was from a brand he doesn't enjoy. So ha! But at the same time, tasting six different IPAs all at once is somewhat overwhelming, so maybe his taste buds were having trouble keeping up. In the end, they matched two bottle caps with the right beers, and their clear favorite was an IPA I picked up from a new brand - Uinta from Utah, I think. We'll have to get more of those.

Then we moved onto the good stuff - grillin' meat.

Dane and Dani brought over burgers and skewered shrimp, and it was all SO GOOD.

And the grill is working great - thanks, Mom & Dad & Billy's Dad!

We were so into the food that no photos were taken of our plate-fulls, but let me assure you we ate plenty. Along with the shrimp and burgers, we had grilled veggies that Dani brought and a greek pasta salad that I made. De-lish.

Oh and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Nothing says summer like strawberries and homemade whipped cream. And nothing says fun like whipped cream with creme de menthe liquor.

Thanks, Dane and Dani, for enjoying a super-relaxing and fun bbq with us, and for welcoming summer with us. If only summer wasn't already over. But for now, I'll revel in the memory.