we went to a party!

Ooh, and what a party it was! Doc hosted the annual group birthday party, celebrating the birthdays of her hubby, Marc, my Stéph, another friend from university days, and me! (By the way, my birthday is a week from Wednesday so you still have time to check out my Amazon wish list in the sidebar! HAHAHAHAHA!)

We started early by having Katia, the Muffin Man and Kyliemac stop by our place for lunch before we hit our final destination. We had spaghetti and ragù sauce and a nice big salad before we piled into our cars and drove to Haute-Marne.

Once we arrived, we found that Antipo and her darling children had arrived just before us, so all of us Anglos, including Doc's newly arrived niece/best au pair ever all settled in to the kitchen surrounded by yummy nibbles and chatted, like you do.

The weather was glorious, Mother Nature seemed to want to cooperate for once, and there was plenty of activities to keep us busy, including badmitton and nerf balls and soon I had Kevin and Pauline throwing and catching baseballs like good little Americans!

Finally we settled into eat, and man, did we eat! Doc outdid herself, as usual, and the food table was groaning with all kinds of different salads (including my "famous" rice salad!) and baked beans plus just about everything you can throw on a grill, including sausages and hamburgers and barbequed chicken and brochettes. Dessert was lovely with peanut butter cake and pound cake with divine homemade whipped cream and a malted chocolate cake.

The next morning we sat around the kitchen table and had a bit of breakfast while Kyliemac made me a pair of dangly earrings for my birthday right before my very eyes! Katia and the Muffin Man gave me two gorgeous cookbooks that I can't wait to tear through. Then the living room became a recording studio for the famous parisian podcasters Katia and Kyliemac and if you're familiar with their show, you may be very jealous to know that they also gave me a fistful of magic pens! Truly my cup runneth over!

After a lunch of leftovers we finally packed the car back up and headed home. It really was a wonderful weekend and I want to thank Doc and Marc for their hospitality and Antipo, Katia and Kyliemac for coming out to the country to celebrate with us! My cup runneth over indeed.