SEMI Father's Day

This Friday, our youngest son, Cade, is picking up our daughter, Chelsey, at the Spokane airport, and then, they are driving HOME!!!  We are VERY excited!  We, also, got to thinking.... Maybe we should just postpone Father's Day for a week, and celebrate with the kids!  Actually, I was the one who thought of it- but it makes sense, right?  Holidays are SO much better with the kids around.  While Bruce agreed this was a fine idea- he wasn't quite ready to totally ignore the REAL Father's Day either.  It was Chelsey who dubbed the day "SEMI Father's Day", and I agreed to make whatever Bruce wanted for dinner.

What Bruce wanted was his Mom's special Soy Sauce chicken- chicken marinated for hours in a homemade teriyaki sauce. It truly is delicious!

I made a loaf of my French bread to go with the chicken, and steamed some organic corn.

The only thing "pickable" in the garden right now, is spinach, but BOY! is it ever delicious!  So, I made a fabulous spinach salad with hard boiled eggs (from our chickens, of course), and bacon.

You toss it with a simple oil and vinegar dressing.  It was especially good!  Add a little wine, and we had an exceptional dinner!

Bruce heard from all three kids.  They made sure he knew how special and loved he is- AND they all stressed that today was not really HIS Father's Day!  Gifts are on the way!

For dessert, Bruce opted for Hot Fudge Pudding cake! It was a perfect way to wrap up this meal.  We have to find a way to top this dinner this coming Saturday... when Bruce celebrates HIS Father's Day. I guess he's special enough to warrant two holidays!  He is one of the very best Fathers ever.

Memorial day

While Memorial day was a BIT chilly- it wasn't all that bad. And it stayed fairly dry throughout the day- which meant several things.  I was able to plant the big planters on the patio, Bruce was able to finish planting the garden AND we ate dinner outside for the first time this year!

We barbequed (of course, we barbequed! it was Memorial Day!!) beautiful, meaty spare ribs.

and had macaroni salad (a Sterling Summer staple), fresh bread, and cantaloupe.  For dessert, there was ice cream!  

It was good! and fun, albeit a bit lonely.  But we were able to project forward to later this Summer, when we have the same meal, with all the kids home!