Summer Lovin'

I have a lot to catch up on since I haven't blogged in a few days. The first thing I should talk about is our trip to Monett, Missouri on Tuesday. My grandma, mom, sister, two aunts, and I went along for the ride. Our first stop was going to be a restaurant to eat lunch, but the first one we went to was only open Wednesday to Saturday! In fact, almost none of the stores in Pierce City were open on a Tuesday. Strike One. So, we decided to try this restaurant that my Aunt "Rose" had seen written up in the Monett newspaper, a Cajun restaurant. But when we drove to where it was supposed to be, there was a "for lease" sign on the window. Strike Two. Feeling a bit discouraged and saying that we could always eat at McDonald's (yeah right) we decided to try this restaurant that we had seen driving to the first restaurant. It was called The Bayou, and it actually turned out to be the second restaurant that we had tried to find. The story behind it was that the owners moved up to Monett from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (I think), where they had been chefs. I got this "po-boy sandwich" with roast beef and debris gravy. Although it was extremely messy, with gravy dripping down my hands, it was soooo delicious. While there, my aunt threw up in the bathroom from backseat car sickness (she drove after that), and we saw this sign with the daily specials on it that said "1/2 off whole muff," as in muffeletta. After eating, we went into Monett to see this house where my great-grandparents lived when they were alive. We wanted to take pictures of it, but someone was on the porch. We didn't think that it would be appropriate to take pictures. We also stopped a really cool coffee shop called Mocha Jo's. I didn't get anything, but it was very interesting.

Other than that, there have been a few incidents. There were several spectacular falls off the wave runner. Uncle "Frank" went on it for the first time in two years or so, while doing donuts, fell off. He couldn't get back on, so he tried steering from the water, but he only accomplished going in circles. My brother had to go out and save him. The other one was when my aunt and my cousin went on. For the first few minutes, they went really slow. As soon as they picked up the pace, my aunt, who had the key, was thrown off the wave runner and it stopped immediately. My cousin had to drive it back in by himself while my aunt swam in. It was about that time when I saw lightning, and we had to go in.

Yesterday differed a little from the other days. My sister, parents, and I all drove up to Kansas City to take a tour of UMKC (University of Missouri - Kansas City). It was a four hour drive up from the lake house, but I was bribed with Hi-boy's. For those who don't know what Hi-boy's is, let me enlighten you. It is a 50 year old chain of 3 fast food restaurants in the Kansas City area that have the best hamburgers, onion rings, and tater tots. I got a plain hamburger and a cookie dough cyclone (which is an ice cream treat like a blizzard). The tour of the campus itself was pretty boring, but it was a nice campus. There was some mix-up with the tour, so we got a private tour, which was nice. I got a t-shirt with their mascot the "angry kangaroo" on it. Sounds vicious, doesn't it. We also went by my grandparent's house, but no one was there. That's pretty much the summation of my activities in the past few days.