dinner with friends

Michael was up early on Saturday (12/30) for golfing and I hopped up to get a start on dinner.  After he finished eating his perfect swiss/mushroom/spinach omelet, 

he took action shots of me making an ice box cake for dessert.  

He already made potato/carrot mash on Friday, 

so we popped that in the crockpot and I got to spend a bit of time in my studio.  It is really a total disaster, so I made a start on cleaning and putting things away (pictures in the coming days) before heading back to the kitchen.  I put together roll dough and a green bean casserole and a glaze for the ham.  

I got the table set up early….last time for the Christmas plates (until next year) and first time for my gold flatware:  

And, I started to figure out when everything had to go in the oven.  Paula & Doug: 

and Ralph & Candyce: 

arrived at 6 PM and pronounced everything wonderful.  We played several spirited hands of PIT, then a rousing game of SHEIST and finally headed to the living room for a bit of talking.  When everyone left we had an easy clean-up because we just left everything to soak overnight  :~).