we are lucky, lucky people!

 Here were some of our "choices" for wines for last night's dinner.  Can you imagine?  Such grandness to look forward to for future dinners!

Tom and I spent the entire ride home talking about how lucky we are: to have such great friends, to have the opportunity to enjoy such great food and try such amazing wine, and to appreciate 4-hour meals like these.  We are well aware of how fortunate we are....

Lynne-din #4

 We are, indeed, very fortunate.  Last night we had another fantastic meal paired with delicious wines.  The opener was a creation of Mark's: a parsnip puree/soup topped with toasted hazelnuts.  I applauded the fact that he served this dish in a beautiful martini glass -- how fun!

 The second course was from Tom: Maryland-style crab cakes, served with two different roasted red pepper & garlic sauces.  The sauce on the left was done with a mayonnaise (so as to be a true aioli); the one on the right was made with greek yogurt.  Interestingly, at home (tasting them without the crab cakes) I liked the yogurt-based sauce better.  With the crab cake, however, the mayonnaise aioli won -- hands-down.
Both of these courses were served with a 2002 Louis Latour Permier Cru Meursault.  How amazing.  The wine was more subtle that I expected, and with these two courses it was perfect.

 The main course was all Mark.  He prepared buffalo, served with mushrooms, baby Bok Choy, and a hearty vegetable and wheat-berry side dish.  Cooked to perfection, and served with...
A 1978 Cos D'Estrounel (Bourdeaux) and a California counterpart (for comparison): a 1978 Chateau Montelena (Cabernet).  The were both very fruity; the Cos was more cherry/plum, and the Montelena was more blackberry/raspberry.  They both had wonderful noses, and stood up quite well through the evening.

The dessert was prosciutto-wrapped figs drizzled with balsamic vinegar.  The prosciutto was some of our stash that we brought back from Italy last September.
Now, often -- I am not a huge fig fan.  However, I could have eaten about two dozen of these... it was the perfect sweet + salt combination.  Tom served this with a 2004 Chateau Coudert Grand Cru -- also quite good, but no match for either the Cos or the Montelena.

Mediterranean Diet

This photo of my nephew came from my father, with the caption, "Mediterranean Diet."  I think that's AWESOME.  Go, Garrett!

the Photo Bomber lives

Our friend Brian invited us to participate in a "Rave Run" last night.  It was a benefit for Habitat for Humanity.  
So the premise is that the run is held at night, and everyone was supposed to wear glow-in-the-dark stuff.  The course was going to be lit entirely by colored glow-stuff, and there would be dance music blaring along the route.  The company who puts on these runs travels from city to city with their lights & gear, so you might see one of these runs in your town, too.
Well... the good news is that the event was very well attended, so I hope Habitat for Humanity got a decent amount of money out of the deal.  Other than that, I'd say that if you participate in one of these events: think of it as an "event," not a "run."
The course was set up in a Denver city park.  So thousands of people were supposed to "run" on an 8-foot wide sidewalk.  As you can imagine, this meant that even getting started was a huge debacle... we didn't even cross the starting line until ~20 min after the "run" had begun.
The craziest part was that they actually designed the course in a figure-8 style -- so runners had to cross paths to stay on the course.  Dumber than dumb!
But as you can tell from the pre-party photo (and we had a nice post-party, too) -- a good time was had by all.  Our plan for next year is that we will all get together, dress up in similar glow-in-the-dark stuff, run around the block, have our own party, and make a donation to Habitat for Humanity.  That way, Habitat for Humanity will get our entire donation (rather than a small percentage of the entry fee), and we'll avoid a whole lot of hassle...

a spring dump

 When we left Colorado last week, it was pushing 80 degrees.  But, this is Colorado!  You never know what weather is coming... including a wet spring storm.  I took this photo at work last night -- looking out the window onto a patio that has lunch-tables with canopy-covers.

 This is our back yard this afternoon.  The weather people were forecasting 4-6" of snow.  I think we should stop paying them, and simply look out the window when we get up in the morning...

you go, girl!

We also got to see Derek, Evelyn, Adrianna & Garrett.  In fact, we attended Garrett's 6th birthday party, which was at an indoor trampoline place -- that was really fun.  (I don't have any pictures of that, however.)  We also got to see Derek & Evelyn's new house/ranch/property (again, no photos... sorry -- I'm falling down on the job, I guess).  Adrianna and I played a Wii dance game, which was pretty entertaining...

hiking with dad

 We had great weather while we were in California.  Tom and I got to go on two longs walks with my dad -- one of them up on Skyline Blvd (at the top of Page Mill Road).

 As you can see, the poppies were out in full force.  Pretty cool, huh?

look, ma: no hands!

We visited with Paul & Kathee last week.  Kathee just got a brand new fancy-shmancy Lincoln.  It's a technological marvel!  Among other things, it has "park assist" -- which is really "parallel park for you."  After activating the radar, you drive by a car, then the space, then the 2nd car.  Then you put the car in reverse, and let go.... you still have to step on the gas, but that's it.  Crazy.