Olympic Fun and Valentine's Day Weekend

We sure had a busy and wonderful weekend! We kicked off Friday night with an Oh Canada! Olympic Opening Ceremonies party to commemorate the beginning of the Winter Olympics and to celebrate the "culture" of Canada with many theme food and drinks. My mom lived in Canada for four years during her childhood and during that time discovered all of the wonderful and unique food items that Canada has to offer such as potato chips in flavors like Ketchup, Dill Pickle, Salt & Vinegar and All Dressed (which tastes like a baked potato with all the toppings), and candy such as Smarties (like M&M's but taste totally different) and Coffee Crisp (coffee flavored wafers covered in chocolate). We ordered all of these yummy foods from Canada and had them ready to serve to our guests along with some Canadian Bacon pizza!

Yummy food at our Oh Canada! party

Yes, I'm a nerd and put tent card labels in front of everything so people know what it was. What can I say, I'm an event planner and I can't help myself! I also had some Canada Dry ginger ale and found some yummy Canada themed drinks (ok, I also made up the names for a couple of them) for our guests to try at the party.

 

  

  

  

Dave and I had a lot of fun planning the party and I think our guests had just as much fun enjoying the food and drinks and, of course, watching the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Olympics! Go USA!

 

 Gromit was patiently waiting for guests to arrive

  

Patience paid off and Gromit got a belly rub from Mark!

On Saturday Dave went skiing while I stayed home with Gromit and cleaned up from the party and attacked the huge pile of laundry that I had been neglecting due to party planning activities. Not the most enjoyable Saturday but it did feel good to get some things done around the house!

I also spent my day trying to make a Valentine's Day cake for Dave. Let me just say, baking is not my thing and as hard as I try, I usually manage to screw up anything that goes in the oven. I burn cookies, don't cook chicken thoroughly enough, etc. and Saturday was no exception for me. I mixed batter for a red velvet cake, poured it into the very cute heart-shaped pan that I bought and put it in the oven. 20 minutes later I looked in the oven to see how it was doing and to my surprise the batter had overflowed and was now on the bottom of the oven, hanging from the racks and in some places burnt on the pan. The cake was not a cake at all but bubbly and still mostly liquid so I pulled it out and took a trip to the grocery store to buy more mix and try again. The second cake went much better since I only used half of the batter in the cake pan and then used the other half to make cupcakes for my sister. They sure aren't Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss quality, but this is about as good as it gets with me.

 

Dave's cake

 

Cupcakes for my sister

When Dave came home from skiing I surprised him with a candlelight dinner on the table with crab, twice baked potatoes and stuffed mushrooms and presented him with the cake I had made. He was so surprised and appreciated the effort I went to in order to do something special for him.

On Sunday we exchanged cards, I got some beautiful flowers and then we went to a hockey game where there were cheerleaders - so weird for hockey! We finished off the evening with another candlelight dinner of steak and potatoes and spanakopita (all prepared by my loving husband). All in all a fabulous weekend!