Well let’s see.  After last weeks busy weekend, we were a bit worried that three people would not be enough for Monday, but that is all we have that can work Mondays.  I went up to the Water Park around 12:15 to make sure they weren’t too busy.  It was pretty quiet, so I stayed about 10 minutes then left.  We decided to go to town after that.  We were in the mood for chinese buffet that one of our employees had recommended.  We drove to Quincy, Il, but it was a little too early for dinner, so we stopped at the mall first.  Kevin’s feet hurt him standing all day at work so he needed a new pair of shoes.  He tried some on and found one pair from the clearance rack that worked.  They were having a buy one, get one half off sale, but he couldn’t find two pairs he wanted, so I got a pair of clearance sandals.  Total for both pair was only $30 plus tax.  We wandered through the mall a bit more, then we were ready for dinner.  The buffet was okay, but I think the one in Wenatchee was better.

Tuesday we did a little house keeping, but it was so hot that we didn’t have the energy to do much else.  We stayed home all day.

Wednesday we had to go to a meeting at 9:00.  I guess weekly meetings are required, so they try to change the days so the same people don’t have to come in on their days off.  After the meeting, we had to hurry a bit to get our weekly cleaning done.  Kevin cleaned and sanitized the ice cream machine while I filtered and dumped the fryer oil.  The day was okay–not too busy and not too slow.  We were scheduled off at four, but we stayed until five so everyone got their lunch breaks.  We really need to mow our site, but it has been so hot that we just have not had the energy to do it.

Thursday was just a normal work day–not much to say about it.

Friday would have been pretty boring, but the manager needed one of our employees to work the ticket booth, so we were down one person.  Then our 2:00 person called and said she would be late because of a flat tire.  We were a little busy for just three people, especially when it was break time, but at least it made the slow day go by quicker.

Saturday was our busiest day so far, but we hired one more person to help us out, so there were six of us working, and everything went pretty smoothly.  Except for the heat.  It was over 100 degrees in the kitchen the whole day, plus the humidity made it almost unbearable.  So not only did we die all day long, but it was adult swim night, so our busiest day so far was also our longest work day, and the hottest day of the year.  Not fun at all.  We didn’t sell much food again this adult night–we may try something different for the next one.  I helped out behind the bar, but Kevin didn’t have much to do.  He got us caught up on some prep and did some cleaning, but for the most part he didn’t do much.

Finally Sunday.  Today.  A fairly decent Sunday with just the right number of employees.  Plus since it was about fifteen degrees cooler in the kitchen it was a much nicer day all around.  We got caught up from yesterday, filtered both fryers, and did some cleaning we didn’t get done yesterday.  We are both looking forward to our next two days off this week!!!

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We were very busy yesterday–we could barely keep up.  We had five workers including us, but we needed six.  We will have six on Saturdays from now on.  Around 4:00, they had to close the pools due to lightening.  But it didn’t last long and the water park was able to stay open.  It did last long enough that quite a few people left, though, so we weren’t very busy after that.

Today was a little busier than expected.  Sundays are usually busy until around 2:00, but we stayed relatively busy until 5:00, and we had customers until the very end.  Even though it was busier than we expected, it went much better than yesterday.  We never had a line, and we never had more than three tickets in the kitchen at once.  It was actually a pretty easy day–except for the heat.  There is air conditioning in the kitchen, but the huge hood fans that we have over the fryers suck all the cool air out as soon as we turn them on, and there is no way that the kitchen can keep cool.  It is absolutely miserable in there.  And today, the humidity was so bad that the windows were fogged up, the floors were wet, and everything was damp.  We sweated all day long. And the next few days are supposed to be even hotter…

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We about died today in the kitchen.  It was hot.  The high was only around 92, but with the high humidity, the “feels like” was 104.  And it was a constant 100 degrees in the kitchen all afternoon.  I am pretty sure that when we agreed to come here, someone forgot to tell us that the air conditioning in the kitchen really doesn’t work.  The office and the gift shop are very cool, but the cool does not make it down to us.

So while we were melting, we also had our busiest day so far this season.  We had a group of summer school kids out for a few hours so we sold a ton of ice cream and slushies and kid food like pretzels and nachos.  We have another school group scheduled for tomorrow, but the forecast is for thunder storms and “large hail”, so it could be an interesting day…

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Well it is kind of hard for me to remember that far back…

We were going to go to an employee gathering on Thursday the fourth, but it got changed to the third, but the weather was bad that afternoon so it got changed to the eleventh– “rain or shine”. The water park manager grilled burgers and everyone else brought a side dish. I made some cookies. They left the pools and the water slides open for anyone who wanted to use them, but only a few of the lifeguards actually got into the water. It was pretty cold…

We went to town once last week–we really didn’t need much, but it is still nice to do something on our days off. We made a shopping list and forgot to check it while we were at Walmart and I think we forgot everything we had put on the list.

Saturday night was our first adult swim. The water park closes at 7:00, then reopens at 8:00 for those 21 and over only. The big pool and the lazy river stayed open the whole night, but no one swam. We had a limited menu along with full bar service. We didn’t sell much food, but the bar was busy all night long. They had karaoke and they play a few dumb games and have drawings all night long, but people really just go to drink. I am told that there will be more swimming as the summer nights get warmer, but I am not so sure…

Tomorrow we have to go to a meeting at 8 in the morning, but we are off the rest of the day.

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We once again went to Hanibal to do our grocery shopping.  We had Pizza Hut buffet for lunch.  The one thing that this snack bar does not have that we had in Waller is pizza.  We sort of got used to having pizza for at least one meal a week, so we start to miss it if we don’t have it for awhile.  Pizza Hut has a decent pizza buffet, but the salad bar isn’t much, especially compared to the one we had at our restaurant…

After lunch, we went to Walmart and got a very few groceries.  We didn’t need much–the fridge is still full from the last grocery trip.  Really we needed milk and something to do on our days off.

Wednesday we did our housework and watched some movies.  The bird feeder that we got a couple of weeks ago is really getting a workout.  Once today I looked out the window and there were three birds, all of different species, feeding from it.

There are tons of birds here.   I don’t think I have ever seen so many different kinds of birds in one place.  But I think the hummingbirds may be gone for the summer.  I got a few so-so pictures of them, but nothing spectacular.  I had hoped to get some better ones, but now I guess I will have to wait until they come back in September…

There are rabbits, though

And this one let me get very close to him to take his picture.

We work tomorrow, and the weather is supposed to be okay, so hopefully we don’t have any more unplanned days off for awhile.

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We had an okay weekend–at least we were open all three days. Friday was really quiet, but Saturday and Sunday were probably average days. This morning we went in early to do our weekly cleaning of the deep fryers and the slushie machine. They really do not have the proper equipment to filter full sized fryers, so it is a messy job and we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time.

We were scheduled for 9 – 6, but I had three other people working with us today so we ended up leaving at around 2:15. It was busier than Friday, but definitely not busy enough for five people in the snack bar. We decided we might as well take the time off while we can–we may not get that option in a few weeks when the weather is better and the water park is busier.

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We were supposed to work today, but it was cold and gray when we got up, so we figured we would go to work and get sent home after an hour.  But the manager called and told us they weren’t going to open at all since it was so cold–like 57 degrees–and we could come to work if we had things we needed to do, but we didn’t need to come in.  Kevin did go over and get the food order we had filled out so we could call it in instead.  A little while later, Steve called us back to say that our pretzel warmer had come in, and that we had also gotten a package of promotional stuff from our cheese and chili sauce distributor.  We went over to look at all of it.  We were only there a short time, then we came back home.  When we got back, the cat was sleeping in the front window.

That’s my big scary attack cat!!

Walmart had plantains on sale for 54 cents apiece this week.  I had never cooked them before, but I figured for $1.08 that if I hated them it wouldn’t be too big a loss, so I decided to buy a couple.  The sticker on them said that green was used like a potato, yellow was good fried or mashed, and black was sweet and used as a dessert.  I got two yellow ones that had a few black spots, and I fried them in about a half inch of oil until softened, then I took them out of the pan and flattened them with a glass, then put them back in the oil to crisp up.  Then added some salt.  

I think they came out good–almost like a potato pancake, but sweeter with maybe a hint of lime or pineapple flavor.  I am pretty happy with them.

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