pig pickin'

katy told y'all about what she did last weekend, so now i'll let you in on my half of the story. i've been working a ton of hours lately, so sorry you haven't heard from me in a while. typically we drive down to alma, ga on memorial day weekend for a good time of eating and family fellowship with the rimes (my mom's side of the family). since katy wasn't able to go this year, i drove down to my parents' house on thursday night and made the rest of the drive with them on friday morning. we got to alma around mid-day to find another typical scene: folks shooting something just for fun. :) my cousin chuck (fellow TECH man) made a potato gun earlier in the week, and he and kyle were giving it a whirl. needless to say, around 20 lbs of potatoes and a few cans of white rain hairspray were gone by the end of the weekend, and they weren't used for salad or hair fixin'.
my grandfather started our memorial day family tradition about 12 years ago with the pig pickin'. those of you who went to high school with me probably remember this. we did that for 5-7 years, and for various reasons stopped cooking the pig for the last several years. well, this year we went "whole hog" again. my cousin will set in motion the awesome plan for the grandsons who would be there to begin doing this again. all the plans were made and the supplies were gathered before we got to alma. one important thing was missing:

the 90 lb pig!

we picked up the pig on friday afternoon from d.l. lee & sons, a meat processing and packaging plant owned by some other cousins of ours (my great grandmother was a lee). if you ever see any lee brand sausages in the store, pick up a package - they're delicious. we can't get them up here in greenville, so i brought a few packs back for future enjoyment.

we went to bed semi-early on friday night and woke up at 4:00-4:30 the next morning for cooking. the day started out with preparing the coals. getting charcoal and wood ready for pit coals is much more fun if you have the right tools.

we put the pig on at about 5, and the rest of the morning was full of coffee, smoked sausages, talking, watching the pit temperature, adding new coals to the fire, and jerry clower's greatest hits. here's one of my favorites.

(l to r) will, me, kevin, & jay intently watching the pig.

around 11:30, we turned the pig and gave it a slathering of some of good sauce.

after it was finished cooking, the "chefs" enjoyed a few moments of pulled ribs and other good meat - a true reward for waking up early and cooking all day. finally, the chopping and pulling commenced to produce the final product: lots and lots of chopped and pulled pork (enough for 31 with 2 hams left over).

6 of the 7 rimes grandsons
(l to r) kyle, me, will, jay, kevin, & chuck

folks, this was some good eatin', and we've definitely renewed a family tradition.

on sunday mr. mike cooks up a low-country boil, and it was as good as ever.

some delicious low-country boil: shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes, and onions

of course, most of the family was there and we had a good time talking, eating, driving around town, shooting potato guns and real guns, fishing, sitting under the carport, eating (repeated for emphasis), and relaxing in general. memorial day weekend and most others with our family are just a good ole' southern good time.

post-thanksgiving, pre-christmas

here are a couple pictures of us spending thanksgiving with our families (better late than never!):
can you tell which side is which? we spent the first part of the week in augusta with both our immediate families, then we went to south georgia and spent thanksgiving day and weekend with chris' maternal grandparents. they have a farm house in the country, and our visit (as usual) consisted of lots of eating, talking, & sleeping! we also fed some ducks at the pond, shot rifles (thanks to kyle!), and watched the uga-tech game with chris' cousins - one of whom went to uga and one of whom went to tech. talk about a divided house! the highlight of the game (for me) was receiving a text from my dear friend jessie (who went to uga), which stated: "what do georgia and georgia tech fans have in common? none of them went to uga!" (sorry to our uga friends who went there and are fans...this is obviously just a generalization!)

since we got back, i've been doing a lot of decorating, shopping, & baking. here are some pictures of our decorations this year:
this wreath was made with less than $10 of material from michael's! after we put it on our door, chris commented that we should start calling our apt "g-unit".we kept our same charlie brown christmas tree from last year, but as you can see - it just needs a little love!