Taco Cabana meeting *** this is a long one***

Sam and I decided to sit down and hash some things out over breakfast tacos.  We tried to get close on finalizing what we could so that we could sit back and wait for next year to come without any last minute snags.

Since we can NOT get a count of who all is coming we tried to guess ourselves.  This helps us get an idea of how to move forward in planning but we really can’t do much with shirts or how much this is going to cost each of us.  To me, the money needs to be figured out now and is the most important thing for everybody to know.  I know I keep going on and on with the needing a head count/shirt deal but it is truly needed. 

Greg, Becky, and his plus one = 3

Angie and the gang = 8

David, his wife, the smaller ones = 5

Connie and Emily = 2

Niel, his wife, and I bet his kids are just like him = 5

Andy, his wife and the new tax deduction = 3

That is all of the GA group. 

Sam and the girls = 5

Me and Tonya = 2

Texas done. For those that are not aware, Texas is the ONLY state that can hang their flag at the same level as the US flag.  While no other can be higher and must be lower.

Rick and the Pegster = 2

Laura and the dude with deep earth shattering voice = 2 (Sam thinking two kids making it 4?????)

Monica and I haven’t seen her little one in so long I will be able to finally say ” I remember when you were this tall” = 5

Valerie who has a crap load of vowels in her name and her kids I don’t think I have seen = 11

Bev, Steph, and the Tims (didn’t spell out any of their names) = 4

Johnny the grill master and his two sous chefs = 3

Ohio done.

IF THIS IS DIFFERENT PLEASE LET US KNOW.  IF THIS CORRECT PLEASE LET US KNOW. WE ALSO NEED SHIRT SIZES AND HOW MANY OF THE SHIRTS

We found a nice hotel http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-akron-ohio-OH320 in Akron that will give discounts on rooms if we get to 5 reservations.  Without any deal or discount they were priced at $65 a night on Priceline, that is a good deal already.  I don’t think it will be an issue getting to the magic number 5.

A price on shirts are not going to be that much surprisingly.  We are looking at a 2-sided 1-color shirt design with the price being around $15 a shirt.  That number could be cut in half but we will need to make two runs at the shirt because of the size of the image.  The image that would go on my shirt would not fit on a kid’s small and the image that would go on a kid’s would look very tiny on my shirt. BUT until we get the numbers for how many and what size we will not be able to get an EXACT amount.

Here is what we came up for needing money from everybody: t-shirts, food, the actual spot, and prizes.  There is other money that us out of state people need to think about also like travel expenses, hotel stay, and any other vacation type money. 

This is what we came up with for the two days.  We will have the spot for both days so on Monday it will be an informal get together.  Later in the day and close to evening we plan on doing fun stuff like badminton, Family Feud, maybe a scavenger hunt for the little ones or anyone I guess, flashlight tag, swimming, or whatever you want to do at the park that day.  This day is just a hang out and chill day.  We understand that people may be coming in from out of town on Monday and we wanted to keep very loose for events. 

Tuesday is the actual cook-out day.  So for anybody planning time off from work plan on Tuesday.  It will officially start at 12 noon but you can come when you wish.  There will be a small group of us coming early to get things set up and the grills going, you will be notified if you are part of that group.  We also need a small group to stay after to shut things down.  I say it should be the Ohio people because they do not have a long drive home.  Besides the food and just general hanging around we have came up with an Olympic Games contest.  There will be 5 teams with with random captains picking their own team.  This is where the prizes come in by the way.  The winning team will keep their team and 1st place status each year until they lose it.  I plan on winning every year so this may not be fun for the rest of the other teams. The events for the first Olympics are 3-leg sack race, water balloon toss, back/back race, blind directions, and kickball.  Should be interesting.

That is it for now.  Any questions or comments feel free to post up.  Please please, I need the numbers

Menu

This first event will stay fairly basic and just stay with tradition of what Grandma always did.  Feel free to add or comment about the menu.

Hot dogs

Hamburgers

Kielbasa

Macaroni salad

Baked beans

Assorted chips

Jar of pickles  (Sam’s special request)

Condiments:  cheese, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, mayo, relish, onion

Desserts

Sweet tea  (hoping the GA group can bring some Publix sweet tea, it’s sooo good)

Assorted 2 liters

Plates and silverware

Buns for above meats

Any special dish that anybody may choose to make

Once we get a count I can then decide how the buying process will go.  But until I get a count this is how I am leaning.  It seems at this point that we figure how much we will need to buy of the given products and have Valerie price it out at Sam’s Club/Costco and simply divide that by family.  Seems to be the easiest and most fare way to do buy. 

Next Question . . . who is doing the grilling????????????????????????????  Sam said that Johnny always did the cooking before so he should do it now.  I don’t remember to be honest but I am cool with nominating Johnny.  With that being said, I don’t think he has took one look on either Sam’s FB message or on here so your guess is as good as mine.  C’Mon Johnny hook a brother up.

As the other dishes go and who is making what, I say that we take request for who wants to make a certain dish.  For instance, Kirby is making NO dish.

Macaroni Salad =?

Baked beans =?

Potato salad =?

Desserts =? Valerie has a cake but I don’t think that will be enough so we need more desserts

We need these things NOW!

Does anyone want to volunteer for the Georgia contact person?  We kind of need this soon. 

Group:  Texas S&K  ( we are coming from Texas Sam and Kirby) try to be more specific than GA bringing 10 people.  How many is coming Connie Kirby, How many are coming with Neil, how many are coming with David, Greg, Angie ?  Doesn’t matter that you may ride together just can’t count Greg with David and Angie because they both have their own tribe.  Same thing with Neil and his kids.  They are not all under Connie’s umbrella.  Andy is married with a kid, he is his own family now. I am rambling

How many:  5 possible 7 will confirm by “X” date

Hotel:  yes, 1 room with two beds for 3 nights

Shirt sizes/qty:  2 with size 3xlt,,, 1 with size xl,,,, 2 with size small

Address: we need individual addresses to mail out the invitations.  I would suggest these go to your states contact person and they can directly email them to either me or Sam.

What do y’all think????

So here are some things that need your input:

* We are doing t-shirts for this and want ideas fro the shirt.  Neil has already came up with something he likes and is in process of getting a drawing together 😉 right ?  If the design stays simple then the shirts will be at a very small cost to us, a lot less than if we had to pay somebody to do them.

* Games at this event.  sack races, egg carry, water balloon toss ( I was thinking of something like a many olympic type deal with 1st 2nd 3rd prizes), flashlight hide and seek, 3 truths and a lie, . . . what you guys come up with

* Food.  We are sticking with the traditional hot dogs and hamburgers cook-out.  We haven’t figured out yet if we are doing a this person is responsible for this type deal or we all just chip in money and then go buy stuff to cook.  I think it would be a pain to bring food from Texas.  I’d rather get the menu and say, “OK, I will take this and this” and then cook when I get there.

* Menu.  We know dogs and burgers are there but we need sides and desserts too.  This is when all of y’all come in.  If you want anything special then let us know, otherwise you get what you get when you get there.

* Where?  I plan on leaving this up to Valerie.  She lives closer to Ohio than me or Sam and she seems excited about being involved.  It would help her to have a number of how many are coming. HINT HINT

* Supplies.  This is my to-be-bought supplies list.  I will post it up when I am finished with it just in case some of you would want an idea also.  I just simply do not want to wait until a month before the cook-out to start buying this stuff.

* MONEY!!!  I’m pretty sure we all will need to save money for this event, maybe except Greg.  After the head counts come in and who is interested in hotels and all that good stuff and before our deadline of July15 I should have a pretty good estimate of how much money this should cost.  Of course it will not be exact but will give you a good idea. 

The sooner we get head counts the sooner we get this going.  For instance the shirts can be done this year and that would allow the money to not be even introduced at the cook-out.  It would be ideal to have money for items that we can early to leave just travel expenses to worry about the month before.  In other words we need a head count.

Got some ideas going and hard dates.

Sam and I did a brainstorming session and got our cook-out juices flowing.  We got the dates, came up with some ideas and tried to plan some contingencies.

First thing, we need to know the groups and how many are coming.  The number does not need to be exact at this time but try to come fairly close.  As we get closer we will need the numbers and I’m sure y’all will have a better idea at that time.  This is important because it helps us plan . . . well pretty much everything.

We hope to have it all planned and logistics worked out no later than July 15th of this year.  This date pushes us to get everything done and also allows y’all to get excited about doing this.  Hopefully by that date everything will be done and all we will need to do is keep saving money.

After we get a tentative head count we need to know how many of you are interested in staying at a hotel.  Depending on the number hotels will offer discounts on rooms for “X” amount of nights.

The next thing, the actual dates.  July 29 and 30, 2013.  Two days that we are planning for with one of those nights being the official cook-out night.  If anybody wants to come early and/or stay a few extra days by all means do so, just know the “official” days are the 29/30.  If you are doing extra days AND a hotel let me know so I can try to get the best deal with the hotel.  At this point we do not know which hotel because we are not exactly sure where the venue is located.  Then again Akron is not that big and can look for the best deal wherever.

I am putting a list together of things that you may want to bring.  This list should allow everyone plenty of time to plan and get things they do not have. ie We Texas people have NO lawn chairs, zero zip nada.  With 5-7 people coming we need chairs.  I will start looking at yard sales, Craigslist, free promotional giveaways, end of summer deals at Wal-Mart, or anywhere to get chairs NOW instead of a week before coming up.  This is what the list will be used for, start planning NOW.

More to come and please feel to write anything on here.

Hey y’all

Hello everyone,

Most of us can remember the summer cook-outs Grandma would do.  Well I say most but now that I’m thinking about that may not be the case.  I think of  myself at the time of the cook-out and am maybe 10 years old,  needless to say I am not that young anymore . . . But there are so many new family members around that age that have NO idea of the summer get togethers.  I apologize, because I, like Grandma, could not name everybody.  (For those that have not met I am the super awesome cool cousin the world speaks of)  And y’all are probably the more important bunch to be talking to now.

So for those of that DO remember I have to say that I think we may be out numbered now.  

Let’s start over for the newbies.   The summer cook-out was never anything formal or was never a big wuptido (spelling?? I don’t know but Grandma said that all the time), it was just a hey are we bbq’ing this year?  That’s it.  Nothing special and nothing that seemed to take any planning whatsoever.  Maybe Grandma got on the phone and told everyone that the cook-out is on this date, if you come you come.  Or so I thought.  Of course we had people from everywhere showing up.  All the way from 2 houses down the street and the GA gang coming up.  Probably had others from places I have no clue of, I didn’t know who they were anyway.  But them seemed to know me,weird???  What I am saying is that it was actually something special and at the time we may have not known.  Yes it was cool and fun and we all had a great time but we may have not fully appreciated what I feel was something bigger.

It is a sense of family that hits me.  The memories are great but for me, the cook-outs were are what makes us, US.  I start to take a look back, and think of the stupid stuff we [Niel/David] would do. Let us not talk about those, damn it was great being a kid.  And then I draw back some and see the fire going that Grandpa would yell at us to quit messing with or we will pee the bed.  Let me tell y’all something, Grandpa started that fire first thing in the morning and that was it, Grandma did everything else but that fire was roaring from sunrise to well past sunset.  I pull back some more and I see the tables with all the food.  You could eat all day and the food would just magically still be there.  I would eat two hot dogs and 4 more would show up right there in front of me.  No joke.  I pull back some more and I see the trees with the outhouse and the shed and the grape vines and the garden and that HUGE 😉 backyard on Max rd.  I pull back for the last time and I am directly over the entire thing, all I see is family.  Yeah there were neighbors and friends and probably work buddies, but if you were there, if you were in the backyard eating and laughing and talking to anybody, YOU WERE FAMILY.

Anybody can post here for anything that is on their mind.  Please post any of your memories, I think it would be interesting to hear how someone else saw the cook-out.  Don’t worry about spelling or proper grammar, just say something.  Sam and I would bring this up about how we missed the summer cook-outs and how we should do one again, well here we are, but we can’t do it alone.  Sam is heading up things here in Texas and she said she will get a contact for OH and GA, they are doing the heavy work.  All we have to do is WANT to do this.  The plan is to make this super easy for people to make this happen with no worries.  Just be ready.

Remeber to post any ideas for the cook-out.  What events, games, takeaways, menu, places, ANYTHING.