Let us begin with Manliness. Shawn, with the help of our dear friend Anthony,learned how to and successfully replaced the spark plugs on our beloved Dodge Neon, Antonio (named after Antonio Banderas).
Our dear friends are expecting their first child in the early weeks of August! Something that we do in the U.S. that apparently doesn’t happen in France is that we have parties (also known as Showers) for expecting mothers in order to give them gifts like baby clothes and accessories to help them with their first baby. Anyways, I had never ever even been to a baby shower before and I was honored to be a hostess for my friend’s shower. There were several other hostesses (five total) and we divided up the responsibilities like decorations, invitations, food and cake. I signed up for cake. My friend said she wanted a chocolate on chocolate cake, and, not having a favorite recipe myself, I decided to try a few different ones.
The five sample cakes and Serisse under the table.
It was crazy baking these five cakes in three hours! Make the batter, put it in the oven, wash the utensils, start making the batter for the next one, take the first cake out, put the next cake in. repeat. But we were able to select our favorite cake which was great and then we tried to share the cake with as many people as possible so that we wouldn’t eat it all ourselves.
After the crazy morning of baking, Shawn and I packed up for a night at another friend’s ranch. They treated us to an amazingly delicious BBQ dinner.
Yes, French friends, this was our meal: delicious meat and bread. that's it. oh okay, there were some potatoes, beans and coleslaw on the side.
in real bbq places there are no forks and no bbq sauce!
the inside of the restaurant.
doors of the restaurant
It's pronounced: kroytzis
it was too hot & too much work for a bonfire so instead we had sundaes with melted chocolate and graham crackers.
finished out the evening with some new card games
Serisse was loving the wide open spaces!
The next evening we celebrated with friends because he just finished the last class of his masters program. His wife completely wowed our taste buds with our first chilled watermelon soup.
tasty soup with cracked black pepper and mint! very refreshing in the Texas heat!
A week later it was time for the baby shower. The hostesses got together to finish up preparations.
The chocolate cakes that I baked and Shawn decorated.
we made cake balls that were amazingly delicious!
We played games at the shower. This one is: What does Mommy want the baby to be like?
The 2nd game: Identify the baby food!
The pretty present table. Mommy got a lot of lovely thoughtful and useful gifts!
Everyone seemed to enjoy the shower which was excellent! I was completely exhausted afterwards and had to take a 3 hr. nap!
So we’re having a lot of fun and adventures as we’re still assessing opportunities for future career paths.
nice soup. the cakes and other goodies look great!