Monday, January 24, 2011

Bring Back Summer Dinner Party & Giveaway Winner


I woke up on Saturday morning to seven degree temps, and decided that it was time to 
BRING BACK SUMMER...inside our house, at least.  We had plans to spend the evening with some friends who were coming over for dinner, so I declared a tropical-themed dinner party was in order.  Here's how it went:

    

All signs of winter were banished for the evening, which also means that I finally took the NYE garland off of my mantle!  I swapped out my "Winter" blocks for "Summer" and put up family photos of us fishing at the lake last summer.  We resurrected the desert island decor from Steve's Birthday party last year:  grass skirts, pineapples, and a grass umbrella. Cue the beach sounds from youtube.  It was all very convincing actually.  Our friends were such good sports...they showed up wearing SHORTS!  Love it!


For dinner, I made Pampered Chef's cool and crunchy tacos which was our favorite meal of summer 2010.  We had fruit salad as a side dish and made yummy fruit smoothies for dessert.  The adults played games while the kids were downstairs (forever) swinging on our new indoor swings and climbing the ropes like little monkeys.  (A note on the tacos:  The recipe calls for jicama. If you cannot find jicama, just use some firm apples instead.)


We made "sandcastles" yesterday because the kids were having too much fun swinging to do it the evening of the get-together.  (Thanks to my friend Marie for giving us the sand supplies!)

This morning, it is NEGATIVE FOUR degrees outside.  Who is up for a tropical-themed LUNCH???  I'm going to go make myself a smoothie...


NOW FOR THE WINNER OF an AWESOME Print of their choice
 like this ANGEL MORONI PRINT
from
Please be sure to visit her shop and thank her for this great giveaway!


The winner is LORI - Comment #21 who said:
"I like the Los Angeles Temple print."
Please email me, Lori to claim your prize!

Have a great Monday everybody...and STAY WARM!

15 comments:

  1. That sounds like so much fun... we may have to try that this week, and also those yummy looking tacos.

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  2. great fun but where is the pix of the swings and rope?

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  3. great ideas.
    glad you good put the sand supplies to good use.
    I need that taco recipe :-)

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  4. AWESOME IDEA!

    I love the Hawiian theme and the projects the kids are enjoying.

    I also posted some tacos on my food blog...check them out.

    http://nuestracena-vegancuisine.blogspot.com

    ALOHA!!!

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  5. well it will be 60 degrees here today-love your idea mind over matter-why not recall summer times....then in summer when it gets too hot you can have a remember winter's cool times. lol!

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  6. I was completely impressed on the idea and creativity! Loved that!

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  7. Okay . . . that sounded odd. I have a really good mom. And you and I are the exact same age. My point is that you are a super fun and creative mom, and it came out as, "I wish you were my mom!" Hmm . . . I should probably think through my comments a bit more before I push that "post comment" button. ;)

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  8. Oh wow that's chilly! I will stop complaining about my 55 degree weather right now and wear a pair of capri's today :)
    Loved the post and really want to try those tacos!!

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  9. Jocelyn our Pat Catans has 80% off all Christmas stuff...I got the sleds for 20 cents each. I also got Christmas stickers and scrapbooking decor for 10 cents each.

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  10. Not only is that a fun idea for a party, but I just printed out the chicken taco recipe.

    Yum!

    =)

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  11. What a fun idea! I love your basement treehouse as well.

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  12. What a very funny idea and very creative.
    Thanks for sharing it; I may try doing something like this myself.
    Love the whole idea.
    Blessings to you! LeAnn

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  13. Those tacos look AMAZING.
    You should come be my personal chef!

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