A Family Affair To Warm The Soul

It's snowing.

At least, I think that's what this fluffy white stuff falling from the sky is called in these parts.  Don't be alarmed...we aren't getting frozen precipitation in The Valley of the Sun. I just arrived in Wichita, Kansas for three days of attempted murder by flight instructors in a full-motion Beechjet simulator. They really will be trying to kill me as they throw emergency after emergency at me so I can practice in case I need the recovery skills in real life. I am here to survive Recurrent Training at FlightSafety, and to enjoy the balmy weather until Thursday morning. No, really. The high on Wednesday is seventeen degrees. I don't want to talk about it. To warm myself, without buying the Haagen-Dazs ice cream downstairs in the hotel lobby, I shall share some moments from yesterday's dinner with family at our house.

As an odd side note, If I could make a living putting together table settings, I would probably try.

It was rather a last-minute decision to have family over. But I'm so glad we did it! Everyone arrived by five, some bringing drinks of blood orange soda and others contributing caprese salad as a first course. I made pot roast, Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes, brown gravy, and roasted carrots. I also baked an entire bag of Texas Rhodes Rolls, which were a crowd favorite. Later, for dessert, we have Ghirardelli caramel brownies with ice cream and homemade Ghirardelli hot fudge. I hope your mouth is watering by now, because the food all lived up to the saliva lost! We purposely bought comfortable dining chairs so people would be fine sitting at the table for extended periods of time. What can I say? We like to eat!

After we put some babies down for the night, we all returned to the table for a game called "Say Anything." John gave it to me for my birthday, and we couldn't stop playing for three hours! It's such a rare treat to get to play board games!

I'm so glad we were able to have family over for some grub at such short notice. I am headed back to real work soon, and I wanted one last shindig before the grindstone becomes a reality once again. It didn't hurt that lots of chocolate and laughs were involved to make the evening so enjoyable!