Our first party in over a year!

No, before you ask, we didn’t have a baby. Jenny just borrowed our cousin’s baby for a little bit. 🙂

It seems like it has been forever since we entertained or had any guests over for a significant period of time.  We hosted my parents for a holiday dinner last year right before we started to work on the living room.  Prior to that, I think that the last major event we had was the wedding.  And prior to the wedding?  ???  No idea.  In any case, this felt really, really good.  I enjoy throwing parties, and I’ve been wanting to have people over to the house for a long time.  Today we hosted my cousins from Erie (well, they don’t all live in Erie anymore) and some of their husbands/significant others/etc.  We did a potluck-type thing.  We made our taco bake (we make it now with the biscuit dough that comes from the refrigerator case at the supermarket–cut into quarters and covered with taco sauce), and I tried my hand at iced cream.  I did a vanilla and a cinnamon cookies and cream.  The vanilla doesn’t have quite the right texture, probably due to the overload of whipping cream that went into it (I read part of the wrong recipe–oops).  The cookies in the cookies and cream were supposed to be crumbled.  Well, I think I over-did the crumbling a little bit, as the ice cream turned into something more like cookie-dust-and-cream, with some occasional actual cookie bits in it.  Oh well.  Next time I’ll know better.  The texture on the cookie-dust-and-cream was much better than the vanilla texture, though.  I guess it pays to read the right recipe.  Doh.  I also made some homemade bread that I turned into garlic bread with a roasted garlic and butter spread, topped with some mozzarella and put under the broiler for a bit to toast it and melt the cheese.  One cousin brought lasagna (yum), another brought a cheesy potato casserole (also yum), and another brought a death-by-chocolate trifle (or is it truffle?  It’s one of those tall layered things) and some fudge and other goodies from our Aunt and Uncle in Erie.  They were also yum.  🙂  My sisters brought desserts from Mom and Dad’s, and helped with some of the logistics (extra chairs, picking up a few things at the store for me while Jenny had the car, etc.).  One of our cousins recently had a baby, so Baby Leah was here, too.  I got a good surprise, too, as Jenny was finished with her tea (the women in her family get together for a holiday tea every year), and decided to come home to spend time with us.  I was figuring that I was going to be wife-less for most of the evening, so that was a nice surprise. 

We had a great time.  Well, I had a great time.  I think everyone else had a great time, too.  Now the dishwasher is happily washing all of the dirty dishes.  I cleaned-up the few things that wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) go in the dishwasher.  My sister Marissa helped to pick up some of the extra stuff on the table when we were finished with dinner.  There was lots of good conversation and lots of fun.  Jenny got to hold the baby for a little while, and the baby seemed to be pretty happy.  🙂 

Now it’s time to relax.  I’ve been moving since we woke up today, and I’m glad to be sitting down for a while. 

Here’s to lots of other parties and events here at Our Old House. 

jonathan