Dad recently did some guitar work for a guy in Baltimore, and instead of charging him money for the job, he asked to be paid in crab! Eight pounds of delicious blue crab. I was the lucky girl who got to go over for dinner for the first round of crabcakes. Mmm. And they were SO good. Dad mixed them with only a minimal amount of seasonings so as to really highlight the flavor of the crab. I could eat forty of these babies.
Dan and Amy came over for dinner tonight, and with them was their daughter Elise! After dinner, we played some Rock Band. We decided to give Elise the microphone, and she was a natural!
She was just sort of wailing random words and mumbo jumbo along with the tune, but she managed to pass the song! She is FOUR! Such a little rock star.
While Ben and I have been on many date-type outings (backyard picnics, take-outs, order-ins, fancy cooking at home, going to the movies, etc.), and plenty of dinners out with friends, we realized that we're pretty sure that we somehow or other we had never gone out to dinner just the two of us before??? In almost two years of dating!!!! We decided it was high time and headed to the Purple Chopstix for our "first date."
WINE. MMM. SMELLS FANCY.
Delicious! We were big fans of this Layer Cake.
Our favorite soup, the Tom Yum. MORE LIKE YUM YUM.
We both got the red and yellow curries mixed.
Cheers to our first date!
Inspired by the Layer Cake wine, we got dessert.
These pictures of us eating cake are a little bit menacing, no?
We are happy to report that our first date went smashingly! WHEW!
It's Cheryl's birthday! To celebrate, Vana had a cookout at her place. Look at the tasties on the grill!
Derrick!
The birthday girl telling some stories!
Mmm, almost done.
Moss showing off the tray of grilled items.
I made pasta salad with pesto made from basil in our garden!
MMMMMM!
Mr. Sweet Tooth was in charge of slicing up the pies.
PIE!
Tonight we got to go see the Steve Earle concert! His wife Alison Moorer opened up for him.
Mom and dad with their merch!
Steve!
After several solo songs, his DJ sound guy joined him.
Then he and Allison did some duets!
It was a totally awesome show! Afterwards we got to check out the tour bus so that Steve and my Dad could geek out about guitars.
Ben was watering our garden this afternoon, and Dexter came up and he was THIRSTY!!! Aw! Thirsty Dexter!
Cheryl hosted a bridal shower for our coworker Megan today. It was a little NBIA celebration of love! Look at all the deliciousness that Cheryl cooked up:
SO good. We did presents and made a little hat for Megan! Then we played some Apples to Apples.
Our next game was Corinne Left Her Lights On; How Many NBIA Employees Does it Take To Jump Start a Minivan?
First Corinne got out her owner's manual.
Red to red, black to black...
Our lovely assistant Cheryl hopped in her car to see if it worked...
It did! WHEW!
