What a wonderful, tumultuous, exciting and scary week. Our wonderful son has now graduated from Santa Maria High School with the Class of 2007. He graduated with a GPA of 4.2 at the top of his class. What a privilege to guide this young man into the future. With Sterling, about 350 other students graduated, it was a moving experience to witness a Sea of Red Caps and Gowns proceed onto Dave Boyd Field for their final event as students.

In honor of Sterling's accomplishments, and at his request, Mia and I hosted a Bar B Que in our back yard for about 55 guests. It was an exciting day of enjoying the fellowship of others in what turned out to be a wonderful, warm, Central Coast day. We could not have ordered a more perfect day.

To celebrate, I smoked 75 pounds of Baby Back Ribs and then grilled another 25 pounds of chicken. Always fearful that I will not have enough food I usually cook too much food but I am always delighted to pack the leftovers for our guest to take home. Our menu consisted began with appetizers at 4:00 followed by dinner of Baby Back Ribs and Grilled Chicken, beans,  a selection of salads, and finished with home-made Ice Cream Sandwiches.  

Our guest certainly enjoyed the ribs as all but one rack were consumed, the salads gone and each and every ice cream sandwich history. I believe I have now perfected my own Pork Rub Blend and now enjoy the long, slow process of smoking the ribs in my gas fired smoker. To commemorate the event I created a new seasoning for chicken which I will call Condimento para Gallina (Chicken Seasoning).

Our lovely day lasted well past midnight. What a joy to sit on our lovely patio under clear, Central Coast Skies enjoying the songbirds still singing melodius songs from the treetops. To guarantee a warm evening we borrowed a patio heater to assist our own heater and now are committed to the purchase of our own second heater. The two heaters and lack of breeze proved to create a lovely, warm evening we did not want to conclude. Good friends, Roger and Sharon Hornbeck, traveled from Arizona to help with the event and spend a few days on the coast.

Many fine people honored Sterling and enjoyed his graduation dinner with us. Amongst the guest were a very fine group of young people whom Sterling announced the night before the event he had invited. We scrambled to make some additional ice cream sandwiches, buy a few more racks of ribs and thoroughly enjoyed these wonderful young people. It is so sad that people just don't take the time to get to know our exciting, talented youth, what fun they are!

I am so tired from the preparation for the festivities and now contemplate if I will skip our annual 4th of July party which is only a couple of weeks away.