Hi, everyone!
I’ve been a very busy little lion! There was lots of work to do to get ready for Grandma and Grandpa’s travel dinner, and James and Thomas are still in town, too! Grandma knows she has to spread out the cooking work for the party, so we made mole sauce right after the last time I wrote. Mole is a very complicated Mexican sauce! It has dried peppers that need to be toasted and soaked with raisins, and dried spices that need to be toasted and ground, and fresh vegetables that need to be cooked up and even some chocolate! When it’s all mixed together, it has to go into the blender to make a smooth sauce. I was a good helper with all the steps!
After we made the mole, I helped Grandma make the ice ring for the punch bowl. I made sure the pineapple chunks made a pretty pattern and stayed where they were supposed to be when the next layer of juice was added. Then I helped Grandpa make the wild blackberry ice cream. Grandma cooked up the frozen blackberries we picked last summer at Sodus, then she pureed them in the blender and strained out all the seeds. Wild blackberries have a lot of seeds! Grandpa stirred them into the ice cream base, and I made sure the ice cream didn’t climb out of the top of the ice cream maker as it froze!
Everything was still frozen outside, too. Grandpa spent some time removing ice and snow from the roof so we wouldn’t get any more water leaking inside from the ice dams. He had to borrow my boot to walk around to the back deck because the snow was so deep! James came over to play, and he and I played with Matchbox cars, just like we did at the Strong Museum. Grandpa even made a track for the cars to roll down. Then we all watched a story on the iPad. By the afternoon, it warmed up enough that the snow would pack. So Grandma and James finally got a chance to make a snowman! Grandma had to borrow my boot again to take James for a sled ride around the house. She said she needed snow shoes!
On Wednesday before the travel dinner, I found out a big secret! James’ and Thomas’ daddy wasn’t coming from the Netherlands to visit after the weekend, he was really coming the very next day! Grandma and Grandpa loaned him a car so he could get to Grandma Ginny’s and surprise everybody. Grandma and I made sure there was a special batch of homecoming party mix in the car when he picked it up!
The last days before the travel dinner were really busy, with lots of cooking! Grandma didn’t have time to work on her jigsaw puzzle, but we were lucky that we didn’t need that table to seat guests. I helped bake the short ribs in the mole sauce we’d made and frozen, then I helped cut up the meat for the Belgian beef and beer stew. Then I helped make the tikka masala sauce for the chicken. Grandma’s menu included dishes from all over the world that could be served with rice! There wasn’t enough room in the refrigerator for all the food, so it’s a good thing the garage stayed nice and cold!
On the day of the party, we still had a lot to get ready! I helped Grandpa arrange the photos that showed where we’d traveled this year and put them up on the kitchen door. Then James and Thomas and their mommy and daddy stopped by to see how we were getting ready for the party! Joe-san and Nancy-san came to help with the final cooking. They brought Moose-san and his new friend Tilly, who came home with us from Australia. We all helped put the Russian pistachio cream dessert together. Doesn’t it look nice?
This year, my animal friends and I had our very own table for dinner and our very own food! My friends thought lemongrass was a nice choice, although Moose-san really likes aquatic weeds better. After dinner, I showed them the wild blackberry ice cream and the other desserts for Grandma and Grandpa’s guests. La Vache was impressed that I know how to make ice cream! Then I made sure my animal friends had a chance to greet my people friends, especially my travel buddies. It was way after my bedtime when I finally got to bed, and Grandma let me sleep in on Sunday morning!
Sunday afternoon, we took some of the leftover party food over to Grandma Ginny’s for dinner. Thomas took me for a crawl, just like James used to do! James liked the many-layered spice cake (spekkoek) and ate three pieces! Then James and his daddy and Grandpa and I all played a very old video game. A few days later, just before James’ and Thomas’ daddy had to go back to Europe, everybody came over for dinner and we played at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Thomas learned how to get up and down the step into the kitchen safely and James made a square out of boards that his daddy is going to use to keep a chair at Grandma Ginny’s from hitting the wall.
While James’ and Thomas’ daddy was here, we made another visit to the Strong Museum. This time everybody came and we met Annie-chan and her parents there, too! Annie likes the fairy tale room in the back, so we went there right away. James and his mommy climbed up on the pirate ship, and Annie hunted for buried treasure. Then James found the fairy tale cottage and served me a very nice meal! Annie and James played a Dora the Explorer fairy tale game together, then I discovered the Giant’s Playroom overhead. I haven’t seen a big chess set like this since our trip to the Netherlands, and Thomas liked it, too! There was a singing harp that made a pretty set of sounds when I slid down the frame. We all went back to James’ favorite play room and took turns lifting the balls into the overhead run. One of them was stuck above the tracks and we couldn’t figure out how to get it unstuck! On our way out, James and Annie and I had a ride on the carousel. James wasn’t too sure he wanted to ride on a horse that was going up and down, so Annie and I showed him how to do it.
The calendar says it’s spring, but it doesn’t feel like it here yet! The snow has melted down a lot, but we had more snow fall on Saturday night. Today the temperature never got above 20 degrees F.! The Christmas cactus thinks it is winter again and is blooming for the second time!
Love,
Lion-san
My, but you were busy! You did a lot of cooking and the mole sauce was great. Actually everything tasted great. It was kind of you to lend your boot to Grandpa to get the ice off the roof and then to lend the boot to Grandma so she could sled James around the back yard. It looked like everyone had a good time at your travel dinner. Moose-san and Tilly talked about it for days although they were pretty tired on Sunday also.