We are having the time of our lives

So, on Halloween this year, we had a Fire Night. We had my family over for a "bonfire" (really, just a fire in our fire pit on the patio) with dogs, ribs, and smores. The boy my niece is dating had some fun, as you can see here. He should be a roofer or something else high - absolutely no fear of heights.

Because we had company, we didn't have time to buy groceries, so we ended up eating out several days in a row. Way too expensive so we really can't do it again for a while, especially with Christmas coming up, but we had dinner at several Asian restaurants and once I had had four Asian meals somebody said I should go for a flush, and we did. It was Japanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Vietnamese, Vietnamese. Mmmm-mm! Love it. And healthy, too, because we didn't get a lot of tempura and stuff - Nigiri is our favorite Japanese food.

We also had dinner with my husband's family on November 2nd and celebrated Guy Fawkes' day (11/5) with our friends, Rob, Janet, Jeff, and Michelle at the Scottish Arms. We even burned Parliament. Turns out there is a brand of cigarettes called Parliament so Brian picked up a pack. We don't smoke so we had intended to just light a couple but we had some smokers in the group so one of them actually smoked one. Brian and I had haggis for the first time. I'm glad I did it just once but I am so completely going to pass on it the next time... A couple in our group were actually repeat haggis eaters, bless their hearts. Gonna pass on the Scottish Eggs next time, too (hard-boiled egg ensconced in pork sausage, I believe, and fried). But there again - some in our group liked it. More power to them! ;-) Some gentlemen from another table even wanted to buy Brian's mask but he had just gotten it and had wanted one for a long time, so he preferred to hold on to it...

Friday closed out the week with a moviepallooza at home. Very nice to chill after so many outings. Saturday evening saw us at a friend's mom's house, who I hold very dear, because another friend of his has recently become a chef and wanted to demonstrate his culinary skills, then hand out his cards for a catering business he has started. Lovely house, lovely dinner, lovely company. And I told my friend that he absolutely needs to marry the nice lady he's been seeing for the last couple of years. Apparently, I'm only about the 100th person to have told him, but it was the first time I had told him. They are so good together. Plus, got to hang out with a couple of people that I haven't seen in a while and that I'm quite fond of, in a familial kind of way. Also, the new chef dude did an excellent job, particularly in light of the fact that my friend had told him there'd be 12 people and it ended up being 20. Trial by fire, I told him (the new chef). If you can handle that, you can handle anything!

Sunday was the St. Louis Symphony for an homage to John Williams. And we wrapped it up by coming home to watch Star Wars with our good friend Tim, who had gone with us to the concert and whose idea it was in the first place. I'm not much of a fan there - if I think about it, I can remember to call it Star Wars and not Star Trek. If you ever want to see people start twitching and looking like they're going to pass out, let me call these two series by the other's name and watch my hubbie and Tim react. It's kind of funny although I really don't do it on purpose. We whipped up some pasta and had a great time. Brian had to run get pasta because somehow we were out and very sweetly got multiple kinds so that we could pick whatever we wanted.

So that was the week that was!!! Lots and lots of fun with really, really nice people that are dear to us. A nice balance of family and friends, at-home and fancy meals, movies and music. Just awesome.