Whhheewwww

We began to put the "finishes" on the house the week before the rally. So, we had one big, busy week, packed for the rally, gone 8 days, and spent this Sat, Sun, Mon and part of Tuesday in a mad dash. Of course, Tuesday was rather booked up anyway, Steve had ortho at 8 AM, so since I needed to go to Meijers, we got up early and Steve and I left the house early to hit Meijer first and then ran back home. Boys and Sadie were going to Grandma's, so by 2:30, had to leave again to run them over. On the way home, trip to K-Mart for enough matching glasses for our dinner party - thank you Mike for calling me to ask if we had enough so I was not embarassed by our hodge-podge of mismatched sets. Then, racking my brain for a place to pick up fresh gladiolas (sp?) for the table. AHHH, Kroger has nice flowers, yes they have glads, oh no, they are tight buds. HHHMMM, when my sister got married she used glads and my mom had to force them to open using a bucket of warm water the day before. I found the most open ones they had, re-cut the ends and into the vase of warm water. Not open as much as I would have liked, but they were pretty. We had a ton of food. So, here is the answer to the much asked question of what we decided to make as our "American" dinner. Steak on the grill (on sale at Meijer) and marinated baked chicken (thank you sis, for your marinade reciepe, I got several compliments from the American part of the deligation), and the last minute addition of Spaghetti with meat sauce. Mike's speciality is his sauce. I know, lots of food that did not seem to go together, but I guess in China they have several dishes and Mike wanted to try to honor them with that. The corn on the cob was the biggest hit, the President of the company, Mrs. Shu, loved it and took the left over corn back to the hotel with her. Mike is trying to find seeds for her to take back. Also we served salad, steamed veggies, and dinner rolls. We had an appitizer tray of assorted fruits and veggies out and the fresh cherries were the hit on that front. Mike also bought 2 cases of Chinese beer (special ordered for him from our local party store) and for a while I was afraid that would not be enough. They brought Mike 2 bottles of the rice alchol that he got so sick on in China because they drink so much of it, but they turned it down when he offered to toast with it. Mrs. Shu presented me with a beautiful Chinese fan. We had also brought Mackinaw Island fudge home with us from our rally, so we served slices of 5 different flavors of fudge for dessert. They had never had fudge before and really liked it. When they left, Mr. Li, the head of operations in China told us through the translator that our hospitality had been as sweet as our dessert and they enjoyed their time with us. Mike had taken them across the street to the rug weaving place, some of our Amish neighbors, (so I could clean up from dinner and get ready for dessert) and they bought several purses from Sarah, and her husband (I can never remember his name) showed everyone the new buggy they got just last week. All in all, our dinner party was a sucess. Now to rest........until tomorrow for Mike's birthday party.