Wow what a weekend !!

I'm still tired and I'm finding it hard to write the words to express what a great weekend we had. Not just because we did well in the competition but because it was just an awesome time. From our next door neighbors to the neighbors across the street to all the freinds I got to spend time with it was just amazing.

We were also able to redeem ourselves in the Brisket category. We took 37th out of 475 teams. I was very happy with that after how it scored the day before. I cooked the same recipe. We placed 8th in chicken officially making it our best category for the weekend. That's quite an accomplishment considering chicken has been a weekness all year long. The ribs placed 118th not great but not bad considering the amount of teams entered. Pork was 29th which I thought was great in that field. So if you add them all together where did that put us overall ? 4th place my friends. That's right !! Oh yeah !! Wooo Hoooo ! 4th out of 475 teams. WOW !!

I just got some bad news. Pat our team member that's doing all the driving is having some mechanical problems with the truck. He's stuck somewhere in Indiana but he sounds like his spirits are high. Hopefully it's nothing major and we'll see him home soon. Pat did all our meat presentation for the Open Contest. He was a big part of our success.

I need to thank all my team mates. Charlie who trimmed all the chicken and kept the fires burning and got up at 5:30am after partying all night to put our ribs on. Carlotta who does all the box prep and dish washing and runs all the boxes to turn in. Carmen that just looks cute when she goes up with us to receive our ribbons. Pat who did all the driving helped us set up and break down and did some first class boxes for the open. Doug who couldn't make it out to the Royal but he trimmed all the butts and briskets before we left and got us some super cheap nice hotel rooms at the Marriott.

It was a blast and we'll be back next year to do it all again.