wine dinner

Since there hasn't been a whole lot going on with the house lately I thought I would write about some of the parties I've done. :)

Not too long ago I had a wine and cheese party. It was at the end of my spring break and I think I spent the whole week planning and prepping for this fun little get together....my most favorite thing to do ever. Richie does not love this so much. I start to pull my tray and dishes and design pieces out days before to play with the setup etc. It totally takes over our house and me while I obsess over it...because it has to be perfect of course. Richie also knows that these parties cost money. :) So he makes sure to remind me not to go too crazy....but I always do and hey he benefits anyways so it all works out.  I knew that I had wanted to have bottles of wine disguised and have the guests guess the wines so I made little cards and disguised the wines and had gifts to give out for the winners. I also wanted to have a lot of yummy food. So I planned and cooked for the party. 

The food table.

I made Gorgonzola-Parmesan twists, manchego cheese-and-onion jam toasts (these look pretty scary on the plate but they are mouth watering delicious), and cheese stuffed dates with prosciutto. 

I also made these cranberry cheese ball pops. So cute and easy and most importantly delicious. 

I had a variety of cheeses and crackers and bread sticks to go with them. 

I found these printable signs here...this is where I also got my inspiration. Aren't these signs the cutest?!

I also had bruschetta on the table, goat cheese to go with rosemary raisin pecan crisps and bacon fig jam, and caprese skewers. The food was devoured....we had some leftovers but not many. A sign of a good party. I wanted to make the jam homemade but figs weren't in season so I bought fig jam from the store....I then boiled together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup homey, 2 T bourbon, 1 T balsamic vinegar, 1 T orange concentrate, some salt and 1/3 lb of cooked bacon and added the jam. It was perfect. 

I made sangria, had extra bottles of wine and water. This sangria was the best recipe I have made so far and I have made many recipes....I will use this one again and again. 

Ah and my group of party girls and their kiddos (I'm sure all of the men were surrounding the table...that's where they spent most of the night...eating). :) We had such a great time. And realized that guessing the wines was harder than we thought

foundation complete

Our foundation is finally complete. Yay!  And as Richie put it "ready for sticks". 

The other night Richie and I went out in the dark basically (it gets dark so early now) and put hay all around the lot to soak up all of the rain we will get. We were also so excited to see that the basement is ground level and will really walk out onto what will be some part of a lawn/patio so now our minds are thinking as we can change the design of the decks somewhat...we will probably wait until the last thing to figure that out but that is a big plus. A not so big plus that we also realized is that the guide wire for the oh so lovely power pole is right in the way of our front entry...we were worried about this...ugh!  Sooo the next thing on the list is to get this figured out and fix it....hoping there is a way we can get the wire moved to the other side without spending a fortune. 

I also met with Canyon Creek cabinetry and am waiting to get that bid back....I love all of the drawings and of course we went all out with our ideas/wish list...so I'm sure we will be way over budget but it's a starting point and I am trying not to get my hopes up. But anyways... I'm loving this next step of working on the design of things.