See judiang‘s journal entry for today to see what we’ve been up to since this morning. Notice how I’ve converted her to my own foot fetish and she’s now wearing Chacos!

Yesterday was a wonderful day. Judi and I got up late and had peaches, apples & cashews for breakfast. We went on a walk down the residential drive and back again. Then we goofed off until noon. At noon, I started the rice and then the fire and we awaited the rest of our party. By 12:30, Elsa pulled up in the car and another 10 minutes saw mom & dad drive up too.

Alas, Elsa had left the mango required for the shrimp & mango spring rolls at home, so we postponed that until later. But when everyone was here, I vinegared & sugared the rice, made the wasabi paste, and grilled the tuna steaks. Mom chopped up some veggies (onions, zucchini, butter squash, green pepper, and grape tomatoes (not chopped)) and we grilled those as well. We sat outside at the picnic table and had the tuna, rice, wasabi, ginger, and some German potato salad that Elsa had brought. Folks enjoyed my tuna & rice, so I was happy. And the wasabi just took our breath away! Every so often, someone would say “wheee!” or similar as they were hit by the heat.

After we cleared away the lunch plates, we got out the piece de resistance – Elsa’s pineapple upside down cake! Oh yeah, and the homemade pineapple ice cream that I had made. (Judi and I sampled it the night before and she approved.) Judi took a number of photos of the cake, which will be on elsaf‘s LJ later today.

After lunch, our scullery maid (judiang) cleaned the dishes. And we all vegged. The ‘rents sat & read (and napped), the girls worked on their laptops. I read more from Ivanhoe and tried to nap. And we just had a nice lazy day at the lake.

At 5:05, Judi and I did the transfer of gold from my Kings of Chaos account to hers. (In other words, she attacked the hell out of me once I sold all my weapons). She stole 62million gold from me and only had 17mil of that lost to vultures in wait. So now I am FREE of Kings of Chaos – woohoo!

Around 6pm, Elsa made up the shrimp & mango spring rolls and we sat at the picnic table again. They were wonderful! And I got to eat the leftover mango, too. Oh yeah, so where did the mango come from? No, Elsa didn’t drive all the way up and all the way back to get it, she just went to Wagner’s in Minster.

At 7pm, Judi and I started the fire. It’s just amazing to see how Judi has improved around campfires. Back in ’98 when we had our first gathering, she wouldn’t get within 6 feet of the fire. Now she helps me to make the fire and even reaches in to move twigs back into the flame. Our little city gurl is growing up!

Elsa, meanwhile, was rubbing a rub on the flank steaks that she brought. When the fire was ready, she grilled them and then cut the steaks thinly. This time, we sat in the three-season room (pictures of which can be found here at Elsa’s website). Flank steak with chipotle butter (that Elsa made) and three bean salad and potato salad (again, all Elsa made). Peaches or apples for anyone who wanted them. Tasty tasty eats! Elsa is a goddess in the kitchen or at the grill!

Alas, the girls just lost a photo op as a resident heron just flew off.

The folks left after it got dark and the three of us sat around and watched the penultimate episode of Angel intending to watch the last ep afterwards. Unfortunately, the VCD that Elsa brought didn’t work! So we’ll never know how it ends! 😉 Also, we finished off Elsa’s pineapple upside-down cake and my ice cream. Actually, there would have been one piece left, but Judi (the big pig) ate it after she finished her other piece.

Judi complained that we hadn’t communed with nature enough, so we started up the fire for the third time that day and sat outside enjoying the fire. The website that I posted earlier from Elsa’s site also has photos of us around the fire. Get a bunch of geeks together around a campfire and what do they do? Take photos of it with their digital cameras, of course. (I’d left my camera at home, alas!)

We went to bed after the fire died out and didn’t get up until around 8am. I made mom’s sour dough coffee cake and we’re munching on that now. Yum!

Today’s our day to go see Shrek 2. Should be fun! Will post about that later.