Dinners with friends...

Last weekend we had the Lohrs and the Graaffs (our new-ish neighbors) over for a dinner I've been meaning to have for a while. Life gets so busy! As you know, we always love having the Lohrs (and it had been too long!), and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the Graaffs better. They are such sweet people. We are so blessed with great friends and neighbors! What a fun, fun evening we had!



The girls


Me and Handsome


Julia and Allen


Nathan and Heather


We finished off the evening with Chocolate Malt Cake - Will's new favorite. It's more like three layers of brownies, stuffed with chocolate malt sauce, homemade malted milk crumbs, and toasted marshmallows. It's salty-sweet and rich and really amazing. It's in September's Bon Apetit! I think everyone liked it.


On 9/11 we had 8 people over for a really fun dinner where everyone brought something - a dish of some sort and a bottle of wine to share. What a blast we had! I couldn't comfortably fit 10 in our dining room (this is one of my short-term goals: to buy a long and fabulous dining room table!), so 6 sat there: the Woods, the Whitakers and the Parsons. My plan was for us to play musical chairs before dessert so we would get to visit with different people... but at Kristy's request, we all crammed into the dining room for dessert. It was super-fun!



Will and I enjoyed the Romans at our table for four. We had such a wonderful time catching up with them... and we really need to do that more often!