The Ranch House is BACK!!

There's a rather famous BBQ restaurant here that gets rave reviews from everyone who eats there, and it's been featured on the Food Network and in magazines and has gotten lots of coverage in our local paper. Ranch House BBQ. We'd never been there, but Ralph's friend Steve really wanted to go and see if it lived up to the reputation it had for fabulous BBQ.

Before we could get ourselves organized to go the building was wiped out during all the rain and mudslides we had in December of 2007. Bummer. They struggled along with a temporary location in downtown Oly, but it was just that, a struggle. They longed to get back to their original Kennedy Creek location and quit the downtown location in December of 2008 to get organized to return to their newly rebuilt original location. But...they had a fire! Talk about lack of luck.

Good news though, rather than opening in January as planned, the fire just set them back a few weeks and they reopened on February 9th! We let Steve and his wife know right away and made plans to visit before any other drama ensued.

This place definitely lives up to it's reputation. I LOVE good brisket and this was the absolute best I've ever had. Steve and Patty had combo platters that were huge and delicious. They took about half of the food home to savor later. Their grandson Zack had the pork chops and thought they were fine. Ditto for the garlic fries! Ralph had pulled pork and said it was amazing. We were stuffed! The server came by to offer boxes to take home our leftovers and offered up mudslide pie for dessert! I don't know if that was on the menu before the mudslide that nearly wiped them out or not, but I thought it was pretty funny. We declined, but next time we'll save room for dessert!

They still have a giant wall of sandbags between them and the creek, but the location looked pretty stable to us. Here's hoping they'll be fine from here on out!

If you are traveling to or from the beaches on Highway 8, this is definitely worth the stop for a meal!! We will be back for sure!

Another cousin visit

Ralph's cousin's came to lunch on Monday and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them. I cooked lunch and we just sat around and ate and talked and caught up with one another. It was a wonderful thing.

Seems like we are all so busy but it was truly a blessing to just spend a quiet afternoon together!! Thanks guys for coming down!!

A goal achieved

Ever since we moved back to the US I've had a kind of secret goal of buying back my retirement for my job. When we left I rolled it to another investment which was doing really, really well and I was happy with that decision. Of course in the intervening years that investment has not been doing so well and the more secure defined benefit retirement was looking like a much better idea. But how to do it?

First, I had to get back to work for the state. That happened in December of 2007. And since then I've been saving money, a little here, a little there, tucking away any small raise or "found" money trying to get enough to buy back the time I cashed in. This year's tax refund put me over the top and that money arrived today.

Not wanting to waste any time, Ralph and I drove right over and met with a counselor who answered all my questions about what I was about to do and I wrote the check!! So now I'm not only back in the system, but fully vested!

And I hadn't really realized it, but it had apparently been weighing on me a bit because once the check was written, with the receipt in my hand it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It feels good! And I'm happy!