Feast Your Eyes

If your name is Maike, stop reading this post, right now. ;)

Otherwise, you may continue and feast your eyes on glorious cheeses and lovely ladies.

A while back, Nicole was spending the night and the next day our cobbled lunch consisted of cheese and crackers, fruit, and bruschetta. We found ourselves discussing a mutual love for cheese, and then the idea came! We could host our own cheese party! We excitedly set out plans--cheese to have, people to invite, dresses to wear...

Getting ready for the cheese party.

She came over early to help clean up our patio, prep food, and set up our food table. We originally intended to have it outside on the back porch, but a rainy forecast and the prospect of mosquitoes kept us inside. She had also come over previous weekends to plan and go cheese shopping! (Pictures of which I will post in a separate post.)

We asked each guest to bring one unfamiliar cheese. Some people got a little excited and brought extra and between Nicole and I, we provided several different cheeses. All in all, we had seventeen different cheeses and only one duplicate. This included a number of semi-soft cheese (including three different types of Gouda), hard cheeses, bloomy cheeses, and blue cheeses. We had one Gorgonzola and a peaches and cream Stilton.

our table spread

The Duo Hostesses:

It was really nice to have Nicole alongside me in this, as it made it much much easier for me to relax and enjoy the party.

 Mom helped me print out "cheese evaluation" sheets so that everyone could rate the cheese based on appearance, aroma, texture, and flavor. It was really cool to see everyone's different taste preferences. Personally, I like creamy/smooth/buttery cheeses, so the Havarti, Fontina, and Goudas ranked pretty highly on my sheet. Nicole, on the other hand, really likes the hard/flaky/salty cheeses so the Asiago, Piave and Manchego ranked higher on her lists. The evaluation sheets opened up a nice dialogue of comparing and contrasting cheeses. Everyone liked the Havarti and the Peaches and Cream Stilton and virtually no one (except myself) liked the Gorgonzola. It became the "bad cheese." We would say, "Oh, Veronica's trying the Gorgonzola!" and everyone would stop and watch. I was the last to try the Gorgonzola, but I didn't think it was that bad. It was a little weird, but the flavor was...earthy and soft, almost damp. Maybe that doesn't appeal to everyone, but I thought it was alright. The other thing the evaluation sheets did, was they encouraged the guests to try every cheese and rate it. It created a safe and fun environment for trying new things--and as a lover of food, I'm all over that!

 One we finished tasting, we played card games for the rest of the night: Hearts, Bartog, Egyptian Rat Screw. Bartog is a new game we discovered in which you get to make up the rules! You start with a few basic rules and the winner of each round gets to add a new rule. Everyone caught on so well! We had loads of fun!

 Dad was our Master Photographer so we took lots of group pictures together!

 He even got a few candids:

Silly picture:

And last, but not least, we had to get a picture with Cam. He just wore a plain t-shirt, but we told him he couldn't have any cheese if he didn't abide by the dress code, so he threw on his favorite over-sized suit jacket and proceeded to enjoy cheese. But that wasn't enough. He had to take pictures with us too! (Which was a much bigger ordeal for him than it should've been.) But this picture is totally priceless.

I Love My Church Family!

Today was our Annual Celebration! (Which for those of you who don't know, commemorates the beginning of our church. We had a short church service, in which several people (including myself) gave testimonies about what God has been doing in the last year.

Then in the afternoon, we went out to the Puffers for a big party! And as I looked around, I struck me, not for the first time, how much I really love my church family.

Good old Knock out. The classic basketball game that guys get bored with while girls love it to death. The object is to stay in as long as possible. And you can get people out if you are behind them and you make your ball in the hoop before they do. (But of course, the person at the front of the line gets to make the first shot, before the second person can make theirs.)

 Lenea is a doll! She was praying for her dinner and it was so cute! My heart melted!

 The Elder Team!

 Jake keeping the little ones busy!

Praying over the elders..

All in all, it was a wonderful day full of fun and fellowship and LOTS of good food!

Homeschooleres Can Have Dances Too!!

So my friend Tasha has been teaching people how to ballroom dance for about a year now. It started as a small group of us on her patio in the hot Tuesday evenings of last summer. But now, she has a class she teaches at Co-op on Monday mornings and she teaches a few of us on Wednesday nights before youth group. They've held quarterly dances and I think this is the fifth or sixth one...

It's really nice that we get to have our own dances and dress up and whatnot because then I don't feel like I'm missin' out on anything from public school. Because public school dances (Sadie Hawkins/spring fling, homecoming, prom etc. etc.) get so much hype and they sound fun. (I had a friendsopt not to hang out with me in favor of going to homecoming once..) But I'm really glad we get to have our fun too.

But I am so terrible about taking pictures!! I tried to get a few tonight:

The whole group. In our Sanctuary

closer up

candid of moi

boys ignoring the camera. It's a little fuzzy but this really captures the spirit of our dances!! Sitting around... texting... while girls are dancing with girls.... Get up and ask one to dance!!

Nicole's sweet self!! ^-^ love this gal!

And I'll throw in a cute one in for you just because I like it. ^-^

This was from our last dance, which also doubled as Tasha's 16th birthday party. It was so fun and I did my hair up all preeety. (wish I had a better picture of it. I'll try to get one from Tasha's mom. She took a picture of the back.)

Actually, I'll throw in an extra cute picture (not extra-cute but another cute picture.) This was from tonight. Same dress different hair/makeup/shoes. I've gotten so much mileage out of this dress for the two years that I've had it.. I wore heels for a good portion of the evening. After about two and a half hours though, I had to change into my flats. Christian was like, "why do you wear them if they hurt?" and I was trying to explain to him, "because they're pretty!" but he didn't really get it. Kerri understood me though!

 Maybe it's kinda hard to tell in this picture, but I am wearing blue eyeshadow. (crazy right?) I showed Mom and she was like, "you can barely see it!!" And then she attempted to add more blue eyeshadow and make it darker! Haha. I love my mom. I went back and toned it down a bit. :)

The dance was sooo much fun! It was like a fairytale that I didn't want to end. It was so wonderful! My heart feels so light and happy and wonderful! (And it has been over nearly two hours already!) I felt beautiful and  (mostly) graceful... We did lots of different ballroom dances: waltz, swing, and some two-step... I also know salsa, cha cha, and foxtrot, but didn't happen to dance any of them tonight.

There were a lot of awkward new guys. Well, they weren't awkward on the whole, but awkward to dance with. I think it is so funny, sometimes! It's like they don't know what to do. But they eventually get the hang of it. The only thing with dancing with the new guys is that it takes a while before they really get comfortable with turning the girl and stuff (which is quite possibly the best part!). And also, when they are looking at their feet, they don't really talk to you... Haha. But it's alright. Everyone has to start somewhere!

For anyone who cares to hear me rant about Christian:
Dancing with him is so much fun and it is so wonderful, as always. Everything feels so right. We are very good at the waltz and swing dancing together. All the turns and twirls and dips flow together so nicely. And he is sweet and makes me laugh and sometimes we talk when we're dancing; other times we don't. Kerri says it is fun to watch us dancing. ^-^ Ah, it was such an amazing evening and I am soo happy...

Birthday Party Time!!!

It's official now: we are bad at remembering to take photographs!! We got zero pictures of my party, this last weekend and a small handful of pictures at the restaurant on my proper birthday. (which is a real shame because I was wearing a beautiful skirt that day, if I may say so.)

On my actual birthday, Kerri took me out to lunch and we went shopping at the mall. It was great fun. We didn't really end up buying anything but that's okay. It was still fun.

I spent the afternoon chillin' at home working on my novel. (it is editing time!!) Then, after dad got home, we went out for

SUSHI!!!

Oh my gosh, it was so lovely. That is $80 worth of sushi right there. But since we went at 1/2 price hour, we got it for $40. Gotta love that!!!

The few pictures of me at the restaurant:

I feel so non-photogenic sometimes. But there ya go. The sushi place is called Sushi Ten. :) I like it. The food was soooo delicous. They messed up our order in a few places but it was still very good. And some of it was spicy!!

Then, for my party on Friday, I invited a handful of my friends over for dinner and we all went out to a lovely dessert place downtown (actually, more midtown) called Something Sweet. It's kind of an upscale college hang-out place; they're open really late and it's by the university. We played games there for about three hours. It was so much fun!! Then I had two of my girlfriends spend the night and we watched "Ever After." Kind of a small party but still really fun! Next year, I'm having a square dance. Yeehaw!!

Surprise!!

It began....as any ordinary school day would begin. Mattea did school. While I baked bread, talked to my dear mother, and watched awesome Japanese anime videos on Stephanie's blog.
After Matt was finished with her work, we headed off to the movies to watch Gulliver's Travels. Afterward, we went out to Coldstone again. We had a lovely time but we snacked throughout the whole movie and then with CS, we were stuffed.

Here's us at Coldstone!^

Little did Mattea know, that there was a SURPRISE PARTY waiting for her at the house!! I have been keeping that one under my hat for a couple weeks now. She was soooo surprised!! It was amazing!! Mrs. Swegles invited 8 of her friends over and we had a grand old time.

There was a scavenger hunt:

And after Matt and I ran all the way up the street to one of the houses, not only were we ready to puke our brains out (thankfully, we didn't) but there happened to be no one home! So we had to get our item elsewhere.

The cheaters who took a car instead of running.

Posing for a picture together!

Ringing the doorbell of another house.


After the Scavenger Hunt, we played a few other games and ate dinner and watched Letters to Juliet (a super cute chick flic!) and after the movie, we ate cake and opened presents!!

The whole table, minus Matt (who took the picture)

Us!

The cake.

Group photo.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTEA!!! I LOVE YOU!!!