Family Time

Recently when I was at Giant Eagle I picked up a huge ham. Why? Why not. I had a hankering for a ham and that always seems to happen when hams are NOT on sale! I decided to either go big or go home. I could get a huge 17 pound whole ham for the same price as an 8 pound half ham. That was a no brainer since I have a large family.

I invited Jim from Erie and Mike to come over and have dinner with us on Saturday. We had a great time! And, we had a LOT of food.

I didn't think to take pictures until we were way into dinner, but here's what we had. First the main course, the ham. This was absolutely the best ham I've ever made. It was so tasty, I couldn't believe it came out of my kitchen! I sliced it up this far and then Mike was nice enough to slice the rest of it off of the bone after dinner. Thanks, Mike! I always hate that part! He had it all in beautiful slices in numerous Ziploc bags so everyone got to take home some love.


Then, I found a recipe for glazed sweet potatoes. As you can tell from the color difference of these potatoes, I don't know a sweet potato from a yam! But, I had cooked both of them so I used both of them. I still can't tell you which is a sweet potato and which is a yam so maybe the next time I do this, I'll buy both again and make it my new tradition. This was fantastic!


Lastly I had some steamed asparagus with a little butter and salt. Who doesn't love asparagus! As you can tell, by the time I thought to grab my camera it was all gone! Use your imagination! This was full of green yummy goodness.


Now for the cast of characters. If you know my family, you know we're all characters! First, me and Jim on the left and Phil on the right. Aren't they cute?!!


Me and Mike, who can never take a serious picture! I hope that wasn't what I found under your chair last night!


Lastly, the hosts of the party, me and Ron!


I gotta learn to point my head down and quit looking through the bifocal to take these self portraits! Too much glare on the glasses!

Anyway, we had a great time and we still have a lot of left over ham. Thanks to Jim again for making the drive and coming over and for Mike for missing the hockey game to come play our reindeer games.

Best part is after dinner while Jim and Ron were Wii-ing, Phil, Mike and I played some three handed pinochle! Man, it's been forever since I played some three handed pinochle! Ok, I lost both games, but we had a blast! We even had guest appearances from Jenny and Grady! Bonus family love!

I have to throw a Benny story in here. When Mike and Jim got to the house, I had to tell them a few things that are new in our house since we have a cat. The biggest one was that if you go to sit on the couch, you really have to be careful that Benny didn't jump on the couch right where you plan on planting your butt. He seems to do that. So, guys warned, we went on with our evening. I guess I should have heeded my own warning!

Over this weekend, I stepped on Benny and Ron sat on him. For real. Either occurrence should have killed that poor kitten, but he let out a yelp each time and ran like hell. I chased him down, grabbed him and went over him with a fine tooth comb checking for broken bones or anything that seemed out of place. Both times I got kitten kisses from Benny and all seemed well in his world. Poor kitty.

A weekend of family time and Benny lived through it all. I can't ask for more than that!