Rear View Mirror

On Thursday night, we had our annual Irish night with my bestie and her husband.  While Robb wasn't impressed with how the food turned out, everyone else was.  His taste buds must have been on the fritz.  The cod cobbler was fantastic and so much else.  I'll go into detail on the recipes later this week if you want them.  Pics to come then too.

I "sort of" took Friday off from work.  Actually I DID take Friday off from work, but of course had my laptop in the backpack just in case and wow did I use it anyway.  darn it.

So anyway, on Friday, Robb, Meri, Leon and myself went to the zoo!  

So much fun!  

It's a small zoo 

and you can only meander around it for a couple hours.  

This pic reminds me of a paparazzi pic.

"Kate Winslet and her son visit the zoo."

Got lots of photo ops but none of Robb or myself.  Meri probably did but she hasn't shown me.  good. I took a nap when I got home, they wore me out...  Then I got cleaning for company.  

It was Robb's birthday.  So he and Meri made a recipe that Robb had been drooling over for the last past month.   This video.

They deep fried a little of it for a tester that night and then let it freeze in a bundt pan for lunch the next day.

Maddy, Matthew and his sister Alyssa arrived that evening.  We stayed up late and talked.  So good to have them here!  They brought Duke with them and Reedus and Duke even got caught up.

Leon invented a game. I had gotten him a kid pack of Jelly Belly beans.  So you had to sit on a certain couch, close your eyes and he'd place a random Jelly Belly on your hand.  You eat it (you can also open your eyes now) and think about what kind it is.  Then when Leon says Duck - Duck - Grey Doose, you have to tell what flavor you think it is.  If you're wrong, then you keep on guessing.  If you're right, then your turn is over.

In Iowa, the child's game is Duck Duck Duck Goose.  In Minnesota, Matthew says that it's Duck Duck Grey Duck.  So Leon blended it a little, to unsuccessfully annoy Matthew (at Robb's prodding) and he also mispronounced it.

What's a Grey Doose?

Robb made a great breakfast and we all visited and talked and played Leon's game until lunch time when the "ring of fire" was fried up. Not it's real name...

All we do is EAT!

Maddy and Duke  - chillaxing...


So then...  The Ring of Fire
 That's what they dubbed the Philly cheese steak frozen ring that got deep fried.  The kitchen was a mess of grease and I'm surprised the girls still have eye brows.

Meri stuck a meat thermometer into the ring when it got done and it didn't go all the way through.  WHOOPS!  The middle was still frozen rock solid.  Good thing the meat was precooked!  They stuck it in the oven for a while to finish off.

After lunch, all the kids wanted to go to Meri's apartment and then out for ice cream.  Leon stayed back with us.  His dad and Jen arrived just as everyone was leaving, so Robb and I played Catan with them after picking up a few groceries for supper.

This was Alyssa in any spare time she could get, working on lesson plans for her student teaching.

That night we had a super secret steak night with a loaded down dining room table.  All the china  and water goblets pulled out.  Birthday cake made with coconut oil because the girls used up all my vegetable oil and wow, did that cake taste great!  

For gifts he got a burger press, sheets for the bed and a My Pillow to name a few things.  

Then we played Pictionary...  Oh Leon loved it!  There were some words that he didn't know so someone would take him in the bathroom and explain it or draw it for him so he'd know what to do.  He is quite the artist.

Without anyone telling him what this meant, his word was second hand.

Here is his pic of what he considered "second hand".



While everyone else was trying to get their teams to draw two hands and were all guessing gloves, his team was checking out his brilliant idea!  No one guessed, but still.  I was impressed.

This one got Matthew's sister to say a bad word. ;) oops!

the word was rear...

I played a game of Ticket to Ride with the girls then and it was getting late.  JUST when I thought I'd won, Meri added up my points and nope, she won.  Makes me wonder if I should have counted them up a third time... Oh well.  

They took off on Sunday morning to head back to Wisconsin and while I had plans to sew, I spent some time cleaning my sewing area instead.  Got a bit ruthless but I'm NOT looking back!

So I'm back to work today, and it's crazy busy.  Our largest client just moved to a new server and things are being discovered that got missed.  Not much, but just enough to make us smack our heads. So while I'm waiting on someone else, I'm finishing this post up.

And actually things heated up even further so Monday's post became Tuesday's post.

I hope it slows down a little bit more tomorrow.
Got a date with my hair dresser and don't want to break it.

Have a good one!