We weren’t sure this month’s dinner club would come to fruition with the sudden horrible nasty swelling Poison Ivy rash I had this week (mmm that sounds appetizing) – but with the offensive steroids I took Friday evening and Saturday morning we figured what the heck – let’s do it.
We had a great time with friends from encounter.
Brian and Heather came, along with James and Mary and Jose and Sally.
We had a great meal full of Mediterranean flare.
Laurie and I made Fattouch and Kufta, as well as white rice to put under the Kufta.
Brian and Heather brought a Roasted Chicken with vegetables (I know it had a much fancier name than that but I’ll have to let Brian or Heather remind me of it).
Jose and Sally made a pasta dish with spinach and cheese.
And James and Mary made “Chocolatosophogus” with “Greek coco.”
We also had a great time after dinner with a rousing game of ImagineIf and “Big Bubba” aka “Big Booty.”
It’s amazing what you can find out about people through a game like ImagineIf and even Big Bubba – maybe even more so than a Myspace survey.
Heather took the win on the last round of ImagineIf and won the “Winners Sombrero.”
Oddly enough though, the sombrero is still sitting in our living room. I wonder what that means?
Of course all the photos are online at Flickr – so be sure and check them out. Although without Josh and Shalyn snapping so many photos this time we ended up with a few less than last time. But everyone got their moment to shine.
Next month we’re looking to do a cajun cuisine night and hoping for some really good gumbo so be on the lookout for a possible invite.
Anyone else doing a dinner club at their place – or at a friends? Let us know what theme’s you’ve used and how they turned out.
Category: Friends
2nd monthly Casa de Blundell Dinner Club
Well, if the new steroids I’m taking for poison ivy start kicking in as they’re expected, we’re still planning to host our 2nd monthly Casa de Blundell Dinner Club tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night’s theme is “My Big Fat Mediterranean Dinner.”
I’m looking forward to it. I’m a big fan of Greek, Lebanese and Mediterranean meals. It will be fun to see what everyone comes up with.
We’re planning to fix Fattoush (one of my favorite meals in Nigeria) as well as Kofta – another favorite while I was in Nigeria.
Funny how my favorite meals in the middle of Africa were Lebanese 😉 although I did love the red stew we had during several meals.
We’ll let you know how everything turns out – as long as the steroids kick in.
baptisms at encounter
We had nine baptisms this morning at encounter. Amazing!
There are pictures posted on the encounter Flickr group.
Be sure and check the photos out and keep each of these folks in your prayers.
Oh and huge props to my life Laurie for taking the photos. Hopefully we’ll get some video edited in the next week or so as well with all the baptisms.
Just a little background
casual look
Originally uploaded by laurie416.
If you’re looking on the left hand side of the page and thinking – hey, Laurie and Jonathan have been married for three months today – why are they taking wedding pictures today?! Let me take a second and explain. We had a great photographer on our wedding day who took a lot of good photos and captured the event on that day. But looking back, we didn’t get tons of photos we loved from our wedding day and we also didn’t get the rights to our photos to do as we pleased with them. We also just wanted some “artsy photos” or as we’ve now described them, “fun photos.” So we figured, “We have a good camera. We still have your dress. You probably won’t wear it again. Let’s get some good use out of it and our camera and go rent my tux again and take some photos we really want.”
We took our friend Jen along (maid of honor) and she snapped away in Las Colinas (Irving), Texas.
We had a great day and by the end of the day we had nearly 150 photos we were really happy with – and can get copied, blown up and printed wherever we want. Awesome!
So just a few thoughts for those of you thinking about marriage and getting a photographer:
- Find someone who’s work you really enjoy
- Talk with your photographer and show her examples of what you’re looking for
- Make a list of specific photos you want and/or don’t care about
- Get the rights to your photos – after all you’re paying for the work to be done. A plumber doesn’t come back to your house and say, “I know you paid me to install your toilet – but I own it and will do what i please with it and you’ll have to pay me again if you want to use it.” (am I being to picky on this point?)
Or – if you want get a tripod and remote for your digital camera or a friend you can trust and go out and snap your own. Here are some things we found helpful:
- Be willing to take your own if necessary (we lucked out and didn’t have to)
- Be willing to have fun
- Find what you like, print it out, talk about it and compare. You can find loads of good ideas on Flickrby just searching for wedding or other wedding related terms
- Find a great location where you’re not having to do loads of walking or lots of getting in and out of your car
- Snap LOTS of photos. Especially if you have a digital camera – you can delete what you want or just don’t print the ones you dislike. Some of our favorite photos were candid shots in between the “posed” ones.
- Read some online hints on what makes a good photo
- Spend a little time with iPhoto or Photoshop to edit lighting or to crop photos before sending them to the printer
- Have fun!
Photos of Gracelyn
We’ve been looking at photo ideas the last week or so and Amber and Richard showed us some new pictures of Graceyln Tuesday night.
I’m not sure why we don’t have hundreds of people lining up for our community group with her being a part of the group.
It’s been a blast to watch her grow over the last seven months.
See the sneak preview
Photos tomorrow
So… because this is the way we roll.. Laurie and I are going to go take some more wedding photos tomorrow. Yeah it’ll be three months since we were married on Saturday but we thought it would be fun to get our tux and dress on again and go take some more cool photos. The downside is… it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. DOH.
We were debating on going back to Las Colinas (see our engagement photos) or going to downtown Dallas somewhere to take pics.
We might do both – but we’d love to hear some suggestions for cool locations from you guys.
Send us your ideas – hurry! quick! jump on it!
