A day of goodbyes

A bittersweet day.  It began with our last visit to Holy Spirit Church as a family (Ben still has to lector next week, though Michael and I will be gone).  We were both happy with the priest/deacon combination presiding at mass this morning.  They were the two we sort of "knew" the best and we wanted to say goodbye.  The priest was the one who baptized Michael on December 5th.  Here is a picture of us from the baptism.

Fr. Tom with us and an almost one-month-old Michael

After service, we went back in the sacristy to wish Fr. Tom and Deacon Chuck goodbye.  Deacon Chuck gave me a hug and Fr. Tom gave us a blessing for a safe journey.  I teared up.  Fr. Tom said something about having fun living in a state with Governor Perry, a Republican... and then Dn. Chuck jokingly hushed him lest he give away his political affiliation!  Ben and I were debating whether Fr. Tom was a Republican or Democrat based on that ambiguous exchange.  (Ben thought Republican, while I thought he was being sarcastic.)

We also said goodbye to the old couple who we sat behind when we would lector, as well as the family of young twin girls with whom we'd sit in the cry room on weeks we didn't lector.

The rest of the day was spent preparing for our goodbye BBQ.  It was crazy hectic between the cleaning and food prep.

We had three kinds of meat for the grill:  chicken tenderloins, smoked pork ribs, and ribeye steaks.  I prepared some side dishes (some yesterday, some this morning)**:  cheddar biscuits, Mexican bean salad, sliced veggies and dip, chips and dip.  I also made a chocolate bourbon pecan pie, dark chocolate truffles with leftover cake shreds, and peanut butter blossom cookies.  Then people brought more food.  It was a crazy amount of food.  We planned on making cornbread and just didn't even bother because we had so much food to give away as it was.  We didn't want leftovers because we'd have to chuck whatever we couldn't finish, which would be most of it!  We gave away tons of meat (including uncooked ribeye roasts for people to play around with).

** recipes link to sites we based ours on, though we made our own modifications.

This is the first party we've thrown.  The variety of food was good, but the massive quantities were kind of ridiculous.  Several people who RSVP'd didn't show, and most people didn't show up until about an hour later.  I'm going to go into a boring exposition about the food just for my own records, in case we do another BBQ.  But first, pictures!

Laura, Elizabeth, and James 

Alessandro, Rosalie, Mary Ann, Brad, Cindy, and some dork

Victor, Michael, and Ben (Victor is Ben's friend who treated us to Fuddruckers on Thursday)

Trish, Kathleen, and the rest

Cheddar biscuits -- people liked, especially the 10-year-old neighbor Haley!  I made too many.  My friend Laura took the rest home, uncooked (I cooked two batches and left a third) and I gave her baking instructions.

Mexican bean salad -- people liked, once they tried it.  About a third remained, but people were pretty willing to take the leftovers.

Sliced veggies and dip (celery, carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, and a spinach dip using a Target pre-made dip mix and sour cream and mayo) -- not too popular.  I managed to give away the abundant leftover veggies to somewhat begrudging recipients, but not the dip, which is sitting in my fridge and I'll have to toss.  Sort of surprising -- I actually prepared way more pre-cut veggies and didn't even have to bring out another batch (except for Haley who asked for more carrots).  I expected a fairly health-conscious group here to graze more on the veggies.

Chips and dip -- again, not too popular.  Bought a queso cheese dip at Trader Joe's that no one touched and which I couldn't give away and will have to toss (boo).  No one had tomatillo salsa.  Some people had a little guacamole.  Most people didn't touch the chips, and the ones who did ate sparingly.  We bought a huge Costco-sized bag of chips and barely made a dent.  I convinced Rosalie to take the rest for the prayer group.

Pecan pie -- oh my gosh, so good.  Second time I made the pie, first time with some modifications on the original recipe, and Ben and I thought it was a winner.  Barely anyone tried it, but the ones who did really liked it.  We gave about a quarter of it away, but kept a quarter of it for ourselves!

Chocolate truffles -- I was a little surprised that these went "out" easiest of all the desserts.  I had leftover birthday cake scraps from Ben's marble cake, so I made crumbs in the food processor and combined it with a little crème de menthe, and then tried two fillings:  buttercream frosting and cream cheese.  Ben and I both liked the cream cheese filling the best, so most of the truffles had that, and I rolled the truffles in dark chocolate and dusted a few of them with cocoa powder or shredded coconut flakes.  I didn't think people would like them, because they were more bitter than my usual Oreo truffles (since I had only dark chocolate chips and no semisweet), but people liked them and it didn't take too much arm twisting to convince Alessandro to take the rest home.  (He saved the day -- he took so many leftovers home that I would've felt bad about tossing!)  Haley loved them said they tasted like Starbucks cake pops, but better.  :-)  (Her mom wouldn't agree to take any home, though!)  People actually liked that it wasn't too sweet.  Go figure.

Peanut butter blossoms -- everyone who tried them liked them (including Ben and me), but absolutely no one would take any back, haha.  I don't think they'll be too hard to get rid of, between Ben, me, and his coworkers, plus they have a longer shelf life than anything else we made.  We think people were reluctant to take them because they were so obviously diet crashers.  Alessandro wouldn't even take them! 

Other people's dishes -- Rosalie brought a watermelon that we didn't even cut into; Cindy and Brad brought cherries which I think were all eaten; Kathleen brought a spinach salad late in the game after everyone was stuffed, and yet my neighbors had several helpings worth (since it was vegetable-based, they felt good about eating it); Mary Ann brought a truffle cake which, I have to admit, was decent on its own, but compared to the rest of the desserts, I personally didn't think it could compare (Victor, the last one to leave, took the leftovers, which Mary Ann didn't even want!); and then Elizabeth brought a jello salad which people liked, but almost half of it is still sitting in the fridge.

In the future, it would be a good idea to have a better plan in place with dealing with the wind blowing away all the napkins and paper plates and utensils, rather than putting all that stuff indoors with the food outside.  We ought also have separate plates of each side for each table, since one table couldn't always tell when we brought something out (like the late-arriving spinach salad).  My plan was to have the food on a third table, while people ate at the other two, but it didn't work out that way (partly due to space constraints on the third table).  We should also put the recycling container outside for all the drink cans and have more trash cans around.