Janice & Dennis visit, Birthday cake for Dennis, jackets for Ann & Pat, visit with Al

I spent all day Friday (1/24) in the kitchen!  I got Mexican Chicken Soup in the crockpot:

cooked the flour/milk mixture for the beginning of cake frosting and put it in the fridge, made my chocolate layers for a cake:

and then using the cool flour/milk mixture, I got the cake put together and all frosted:

and finally made cornbread to go with the soup. 

Janice and Dennis arrived around 4 PM and we had a wonderful time talking, eating and playing a new game: 

And celebrating Dennis's birthday:

Janice and Dennis are here for us to finalize arrangements for the river cruise to Paris that we are taking together later this year….it’s gonna be terrific!!!

Things are still being collected for people in western North Carolina, many of whom are trying to survive in tents as they still don’t have any permanent shelter.  A friend from my long ago volunteer days is taking another truck up on Sunday to deliver blankets/coats/etc, so Michael went through our front closet which was chock-a-block full of outerwear, and came up with 9 – 10 coats to send.  I hope the person receiving 2 of them is also cheered by them.  I spent many hours making these jackets, one for Michael’s mom and one for my oldest sister….but they are doing no one any good hanging around in our closet…..so off they went:

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I was up early Saturday (1/25) to try to pull together a blog entry.  Dennis and Janice are the best type of guests….they know where everything is and are perfectly comfortable pulling together their own breakfasts and lunches…..so I didn’t have to do anything! 

Janice and I spent the day in the studio; she worked on her quilt:

-getting the wrinkles out of the backing

and I worked on my strata for the second class I’m teaching at SHQ this year: 

We all got cleaned up around 5 PM and headed to Ballentyne for dinner at Juniper Grill. 

Janice and Dennis wanted to take us out to celebrate Dennis’s birthday, and Michael and I LOVED our Caesar salads and Shrimp & Crab Enchilaladas:

  When we got home, Michael/Dennis/Janice watched both the men’s and women’s UCONN games, while I finished up sewing my strata together:

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Sunday morning (1/26) was terrific….we were all in the kitchen working on breakfast and I said ‘’this is just like the scene from THE BIG CHILL’’, so I fired up AIN”T TOO PROUD TO BEG on my IPOD and we danced around and sang! 

After our waffles and potatoes, Janice and I once again headed to the studio to continue to work on her quilt….while the Michael cleaned up the kitchen and Dennis finished up his perusal of the news. 

We had a terrific visitor in the afternoon.....Al has been the financial planner for both couples....but over the many years we've been associated, has also become a dear, dear friend. He and his wife have now retired nearby, and he was available to come for a visit in the afternoon:

Janice and I retired to the studio after his visit and she finished her quilt before dinner:

and after we all had leftovers for dinner, we played FARKLE for the rest of the evening:

And 10 years ago....

-https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/01/tumbling-blocks-proposed-layout.html

-https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/01/beautiful-sunset-golden-pull-apart.html

*** I recently bought a toilet brush….long story short, I’m going back to toilet paper. ***

*** Why is everyone at the gum asking me why I’m sitting still on the stationary bike?  I’m going downhill dude, mind your business! ***