A Surprise Party

My dear friend Nikki recently celebrated her birthday, and some of us got together and threw her a surprise party.  To be honest, my part in it really only consisted of picking her up and trying to keep it a secret.  Our friend Esther did most of the work of planning.

Well, on second thought, Nikki did a lot of work too, because she unknowingly made her own birthday cake. 

Esther ingeniously told Nikki that she needed to order a cake for "a friend who loves gnomes".  Nikki also loves gnomes.

Really, she does.  She's defending the gnome, not trying to hack him into tiny pieces.

Honest. 

 

Happy birthday dear friend!

Church Picnic

Our church had a picnic at one of the local parks, which was a lot of fun.  One of the elder's wives (who is not elder but quite young :) had some fun games set up.

Nothing says Christian Fellowship quite like gleefully bombing someone with a water balloon.

To be honest, it was such a hot muggy day that the bombees didn't really seem to mind all that much.

Be not fooled by innocent expressions.  Beneath sweet exteriors hid devious intentions.

Very devious intentions.

Lots of fun!

Of Pigs

 My kids and their friends the PK's love to play together.

They especially like mud.

Lots, and lots, of mud.

I blame it all on the influence of the PK's.  My children would never . . . oh yeah, there was this one incident.  And this one.

Oh shut up, my kids are pigs.

 Definitely their father's children.

Further North

 

My dear friend Elise lives a little further north from us, and just recently moved even farther north to a charming new place in the country.

I don't get to see her and her kids as often as we'd all like, but when we do we make the most of it!

The kids chase chickens.

Sometimes they catch chickens.

They always have a fabulous time!

A Bit Late. Just a Bit.

Last fall we had our friends Mark and Dasha come visit for a few days.

We figured this was an excellent excuse to have a little party.

The party was held at another friends' house.  (Those are the best kinds of parties).

The food was easy fare, but definitely delicious.  There's something to be said about hot dogs cooked by pyromaniacal little boys.

Who's idea was it to hand my thug of a daughter a hot projectile (meat?) attached to a pointy stick?

Dasha showed us her mad Ukrainian hot dog cooking skillz.  (Her skillz were mad, not the Ukrainian.)

Gabe did his best to pull his usual escape routine, but we were able to stop him in time (several times).  He kept trying to head south on his tricycle. 

Perhaps he was trying to get to Grammy's house . . .

 

Justin and Brianna (the friends who hosted the party) had just moved in a few days ago, so as a housewarming present I gave them a large pot filled with herbs.

The herbs are all dead now, but I told Brianna not to feel badly because I managed to kill my potted herbs before she did.

I brought along a peach/rhubarb pie (see recipe tutorial here), which for the first time I tried making in a 9x13" pan.  It worked out surprisingly well!

Good times with great friends!

. . . and little friends!

Stripping at the New Pastor's House

Hee hee, that has a really awful sound to it, doesn't it?  However, I can assure you, nothing untoward happened and the only thing that was removed was wall paper.

 

Our church has been very blessed to have gotten a new pastor, Justin C., and before his family moved in we wanted to help them out by stripping the wall-paper off the walls of one of the rooms (Brianna, his wife, had mentioned it as something she intended to do before putting the furniture in that room).

Jenn and Stacey were my two compatriots.  Despite her broken foot (my son thinks she has a Transformer limb), Jenn climbed on top of the ladder and buckets like a trooper (or an Autobot).

 

Every picture I have of Stacey is blurred.  This was not my camera's fault.  The woman moves at the speed of Superwoman if Superwoman ever decided to switch from fighting crime to fighting grime.

Notice my picture is not blurred.  Grime is something which I have learned to befriend, rather than wage war against.

Taaa-daaaa, all done!

To finish up the home coming present, we all chipped in and got a few pantry items to tide them over until they had a chance to get their own grocery items.  (Jenn and Stacey were actually the gals who did the shopping.  I just gave them money.  I'm all about letting people do the work for me.)

Welcome to the Frigid North, Justin and Brianna!

Soused - Inside and Out

As I mentioned in my previous post, my internet has been down due to severe flooding in my area. Thankfully my house is situated on a nice steep hill, so other than the usual lake in my basement that occurs any time it drizzles, we didn't have any flood damage.

I think I'll toss away my K-mart flyer for awhile.
The most severe blow was that both the Chinese buffet and the Dollar Tree was also flooded, leading to permanent psychological damage for my children.

Thankfully, the day before all that horrible flooding occured, I was able to go to my friend Anne's house for a really fun evening with the gals.
Anne is a phenomenal cook. I think I ate a swathe of destruction through the cheese dip.
The little toasted thingys cowered in terror after I wreaked havoc upon their soft yet crunchy innards.
The planned event for the evening was a wine tasting, something that I haven't gotten to do since my honeymoon 11 years ago. (And keep your snide comments to yourself about wine tasting and gulping and slurpring.)
We were each supposed to bring a wine that "expressed our personality". Some women brought the traditional Riesling or Merlot wines, others brought unqiue things like Pumpkin wine. I brought my own homemade stuff. It expresses my cheap personality, because I didn't want to pay $11 for a bottle of wine when I had at least 50 bottles in the basement.
Anne was so professional, asking each of us to give our opinions on such things as clarity, aroma, and finish. Before this educational experience, my opinions of a particular wine were generally, "Yum" or "Ick."
We then had to record our findings on a sheet of paper. This also required a bit of math, which, in my case, is not a good pairing with wine.
(I had to use two sheets, because my first sheet was so messy with my incorrect sums).

Good food, good friends, and good drink.
If one has to be flooded in, it's best to be well-fortified first!