Dinner on the Hudson

I have had this location scouted out for countless months, and have been obsessed with the idea of trying to channel some inner Jordan Ferney and pull off an intimate dinner in a unique outdoor location.  Of course there were details that I didn't get to....but, thanks to the help of my gourmet cook friend, Jean, we were able to pull it off.

Big thanks to West Point for providing such breathtaking scenery.  :)

We surprised Mark and Krissy with this dinner to celebrate the time we have had here together, their upcoming birthdays, and to look forward to future memories.  I can't believe that I didn't spill the beans over the last 9 months to Krissy as I have schemed all these 'pretend' parties in my mind! 

I had originally wanted to keep everyone out of the loop to make it a surprise for all, but it definitely wouldn't have happened without Jean.  I knew that if everything else went wrong, the food would still be out of this world.  And, it was.  Bravo to you, Jean!  As I have mentioned many times, I struggle with menu planning so much...and there was an added level of complexity since everything had to taste okay cold since we would prepare at home and then bring it all down to the river.

Here's what we landed on for the menu:

Appetizer:
Jalapenos stuffed with a cream cheese/honey/pecan mixture then wrapped in bacon and grilled.  (Sommer introduced us to these when she and her brother-in-law chef made them for Tim's welcome home party, and they have been our go-to appetizer ever since...thanks for sharing, Sommer!)

Meal - this was ALL Jean...
--Cold beef tenderloin with homemade horseradish sauce - a Mark/Krissy specialty and favorite.
--Zuchinni boats filled with mashed parsnips - YUM!  So gourmet :)
--Roasted tomatoes with garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar...and maybe a few other things I am forgetting.  I will never forget how delicious these were.  And, so beautiful!
--Rolls with the homemade honey butter than I attempted

Dessert:
--Decaf coffee, frothed, of course.
--Martha Stewart's Inside Out German Chocolate Cake (I made this years and years ago for Sean's bday - and I swear, it turned out okay that time.  This time around was disaster city.  The filling oozed everywhere, the cakes were overcooked...bascially a typical Meghan cake.)
--Chocolate covered strawberries (due to last minute panic that the cake may be terrible)

I must have some weird sickness as I had the best time making my list of everything that needed to be carted down to the river to pull this off.  I loved assembling the Rubbermaid containers full of glasses, plates, napkins, tablecloths, candles, etc. 

Jean and I obsessed over the weather all week, and ultimately, decided to go for it, even though it was going to be much colder than we had ever hoped for.  Mark and Krissy knew we were all having dinner that night, but that was all they knew.  That afternoon, I told them to dress warmly, and that they would be picked up at six.

And, I can't forget...special shout out to April for saving me at the last minute and letting me borrow her table since ours was MIA.  Also, huge thank you to my parents, who are my party wing-men.  They were a huge help assembling all the goods, delivering/setting up everything, and even brewing and delivering a steaming pot of decaf coffee!

I wish I would have captured more pictures of the evening, but here is what we got...

Look at those pretty silver bread plates...they belonged to Jean's grandmother.  Love it.

 the chef and master fire starter...

Guests of honor...I was getting teary eyed just thinking about them arriving. 

And, dinner is underway...

Scrumptious.  Jean hit this one out of the ballpark.

and...into the night :)

Thanks to all for such a memorable evening.  We will miss you, Brosnans.  Godspeed, Mark.

Open House

On Friday, March 12, we had an open house for the plebes that we sponsor and their families who were in town for Plebe Parent Weekend.  It was such a lovely group of people and we were so happy to have the opportunity to meet/see all of them.  One of our very favorite things about being here at West Point is sponsoring these cadets.

One of the dads mentioned to Sean how lucky we are to get to see their sons in an environment where they are able to just sit down and share their stories.  He was saying that they are always excited to have their son home, but that they usually get to see him when he first comes home, and then he is with friends, playing XBox, or whatever else kids do these days :).  It was a great reminder that it is a privilege to spend some nice quality time with these kids outside of the more regimented West Point life.

It was fun to get the open house together - thank goodness for our sweet babysitter, Kayla.  Sean wasn't there for the first hour and a half or so because he was wrapping up at his department's open house.  I wouldn't have been able to pull it off without Kayla.  To be honest, I am surprised I allowed anyone in the house with me before a gathering like that!  It seems that I am always scrambling until the first guest arrives (ok, maybe even sometimes AFTER they arrive ;)). 

I bought a few yards of fabric to use as a tablecloth...

The menu...
Apps:

--Southwestern Egg Rolls with Amy's Cilantro Cream Sauce (a new favorite of ours that Jamie introduced us to!)
--Potato Skins (does anyone have a good recipe?  I prepped these and froze the empty skins ahead of time...but I didn't think that they looked that great...would love to hear if anyone has a good recipe!)
--Taco Dip
--Caprese
--Pesto Breads
--Rosemary Cashews (Jean introduced us to these - they are addictive!)

Desserts:
Sour Cream Caramel Cakes
Chocolate covered strawberries
Lemon Bars

Paddy is one...decor

How pathetic is it that I am just posting this now?  It took me this long to have enough patience to upload these pics to blogger :)

In keeping with the 'keep cost down' theme, I really tried to use things that we already had for Paddy's 1st birthday (that was in NOVEMBER!)...

Banner Flags to drape on front of table - I cut the flags out of fabric scraps that I had and fabric glued them to this grosgrain ribbon. 

Large Balloons...I had ordered these for my maternity pictures, and then used another one for Paddy's photo shoot with Shea Halliburton.  I had three left.  I had planned to get them filled with helium, but because that is so expensive, I decided to copy an idea I had seen - probably on Party Perfect...and just string them across/above the food table.

Clipboards...I ordered 5x7 pics of some of my favorite pictures throughout the year from Walmart, and then taped them to cardstock and hung on the clipboards.

Flag toothpicks...I contemplated getting special sticks that would be longer than toothpicks, but decided that I couldn't beat free toothpicks and free fabric.  One night, I just sat down for a while and cut lots of fabric and then just fabric glued the pieces onto the toothpicks.  I would use these for the sausage cheese balls and carrot cake cupcakes.

Food tags...I designed these in PPT and then used double stick tape to stick these onto lollipop sticks.

Cake pop display...I needed a way to display the cake pops and the large chocolate covered marshmallows.  I wanted to have some on the food table and also have some cake pops near the door since these were pulling double duty...they were a dessert during the party, but they were also a 'favor'.  I ended up buying two 10 lb bags of sugar and filled my cylindrical hurricanes.  I picked sugar b/c I knew that I could use it after the party, so it wouldn't go to waste.

Splurge...I am such a straw girl.  I usually have one Diet Coke (usu. caff free) a day, and it is always with a straw.  I have been really wanting a reason to order these paper straws.  Since I had to pay the shipping, I figured I better get some blue, red and gray ones while I was at it :)

Games & Prizes - I have such fond memories of the little games that we would play at our birthday parties growing up.  My mom was a champ and took on the game responsibility and set up bozo buckets with the help of the Thompsons (thanks, again :)) as well as a clothes pin drop into a glass jar.  We were thankful that it was a beautiful day, so the older kids were able to be outside to play games.  I bought some gum and candy to match the color scheme.

 

 Party Hat - I wasn't very good at making this, but I just bought a sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper and added some ribbon to the top, and it stayed on for all of 2.2 seconds...

Happy 1st Birthday, Paddy Man - what a fun day!  Thanks again to my friend, Jennyjo, for snapping most of these pics!

Girl time

For Isabella's birthday, we decided it might be fun to have her over to hang out with us, have some girl time, and do something fun together.  We let her 'design' her own day from some suggestions we had, and she picked to have lunch with me, go to Michael's to pick out a craft, then have her friend over to our house to do the selected craft project, then have dinner and a sleepover with us.

It was so fun trying to get a few things ready to make the day feel special for Isabella.  She wanted brownies as her 'cake', so I just baked some brownies in cake pans and topped with ganache...

And set the table with my most feminine things - my mismatched teacups, delicate glasses that Krissy got me years and years ago, my silver candy server, and the napkin holders that hold fresh flowers (which I failed to get in time for the playdate!).

 
It was such a pleasure to have Isabella over for the day and have some great quality time with her - and A&T, too!  I mean what can be bad about a day with tacos for lunch, brownie cake in the afternoon, tacos again for dinner, and more brownie cake to follow?  We capped it off with the Crow family joining us for breakfast the next morning.  Fun times.  We feel so blessed to be at the same place as our dear friends.

Halloween Grinch

I am a total Halloween Grinch...maybe that is what I should have dressed as for the party we went to on Saturday.  I love to blame it on my 6th grade Halloween when my friends and I had our candy stolen from some 'bullies'...one friend was even flipped to the ground.  Most of the girls just laughed it off...I was a little more shocked by the whole thing.  What?  Halloween bullies in Glen Ellyn?  How could that be?

That is an easy excuse, so I stick with it.  I am hoping that kids will make Halloween more fun again.  Or...maybe if Sean and I could ever come up with a good costume??  We try to think of good ideas, but come up short.  We were going to have one of us be a Chilean miner, and we would just have one of us stay in the basement all night with a pipe running downstairs.  Okay, not the most practical idea.

All that being said, we were invited to our neighbors for a party the other night.  I knew 'A' & 'B' would be all over the details, and 'A' blew every little detail out of the water.  She claims she copied everything (which is all I seem to do!), but just pulling together all these details in one party was definitely all 'A'.

They have these very detailed cut outs in their windows and the perfect lighting behind them...'B' did the cut outs himself, and he even incorporated a rat being dropped into a cauldron as a 'shout out' to our little rat issue.

So, 'A' is clearly the champion of themed parties...check out all the food and the perfectly coordinating names!

This 'spooky punch' was super tasty, and it had an ice skull floating in it!  I wish I would have gotten a better picture of that...

Mummy Marshmallow Treats...

Boo-tiful Brownies...

Spiderweb Eggs...a Martha idea...

Marinated Moons...little buffalo mozz balls marinated in yummy spices...

Guacamoldy with Jack-o-Lantern dippers ('A' cut out all those pumpkins from tortillas and then baked them...so yummy!)

Pina Ghouladas...notice the corn syrup/red food coloring mixture that mimics blood running down the glass...nice...

On the walls, they even blew up pictures of all the families that were at the party where they had 'photo-shopped' our pictures and placed us in front of haunted houses...adorable!

There were even more perfect details, but I didn't get great pictures, so I will stop here.  Thanks for the great time, 'A' & 'B'!

White Plates...to have or not to have?

So, for a long time, we have talked about buying some white plates in bulk for entertaining.  We finally buckled when we got here because after much shopping around, we were able to get 36 dinner and 36 salad plates from the Williams Sonoma Outlet for 50% off the outlet price.  Plus, we had a gift card...perfect.
 
We have had lots of hilarious late night chats while here at M&K's, and the plates came up.  I knew we would get grilled by M for making this purchase, so I tried to use my eco-friendly reasoning with him.  Being the 'green soul' that he is...I thought this was my only way to win this discussion.

The sad part is, I have even wondered at times if 36 was enough!!  (Okay, I am still wondering....)

Last night while reading about something completely unrelated on Apartment Therapy, I found this post about these people who bought 160 white plates!!!  Yeah, someone more crazy than us.  I love these people, and I love their rationale...and all the comments that follow.  I immediately announced this article to Sean and K who were in the room with me, and sent it to M, hoping he would read it when it popped up on his iPad upstairs!  M said it is just proof that you can always find something on the internet to back up what is not true....bottom line, I am still happy with my purchase.  Where do you stand?

Sommer's 30th Birthday

A couple of years ago, I hosted a party to celebrate Sommer's 30th birthday.  It was so much fun prepping for it.  I was an eBay fiend the month before the party, that is for sure.  We had a lot of fun at the party - even Sommer's mom was able to attend, all the way from Texas.

Onto the details...

The invitations...I wanted a cute picture of Sommer as a little girl so I enlisted Tim to help me.  It was so cute...he showed up at the door one day after work with some pictures that he had found...they were perfect!  I then assembled the three page invitation (vellum, photo, invitation details)...

The color scheme was red and black with silver accents. I threw together a table run from scraps of black fabric I had, and Brenda brought down lots of yummy smelling red candles.

The placecard tags -

to be tied onto bud vases with red roses...

 

Placemats...saw this in a magazine (can't remember which one)...just printed on 11x17 paper.

Menus...I liked the quote:

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." - Virginia Woolf

Mini milkshakes - scored these little silver cups on eBay.  Filled them with yummy Hardee's chocolate shakes...still one of my favorites. 

I made some CD mixes as favors (I know, I sound so 'old school', right?  Well, at least I didn't say 'tapes'...)

CD Jacket...