Dinner with friends

Last night we had friends over for dinner. It is so nice to be able to entertain friends in our new house and to have the space to have more than one set of friends over at a time . We have so much more space and the way the kitchen is set up to face the dining area and the way it looks out to the patio makes me not feel rushed to finish so I can join our guests. I can be part of the fun while I'm getting everything ready. I'm still on my asian kick so I made sushi as well as a salad with an asian dressing, a ginger garlic hummus, and asian grilled salmon. It all came out really good (if I do say so myself). Since I don't know any asian desserts, I kept the asian theme until dessert. For dessert we finished up with Pavlova and brownies. The brownies were an afterthought since I realized we may need more dessert for the kids but the pavlova is my new favorite dessert. My australian friend, Kirsty, taught me how to make pavlova as it is an australian dessert. It is delicious! It is essentially a meringue topped with whipped cream, banana and berries. I wasn't sure if I would make it for dinner since I wasn't sure if I could make it as good as Kirsty but since it is my favorite now I decided to give it a try. Luckily it came out good and Kiera (Kirsty's daughter) gave me her approval. In addition to all the yummy food our friends, Radek and Emily, brought us two bottles of burčak. It is the first time Jason and I have had burčak although we have heard about it before. It was quite good and very sweet and doesn't taste a lot like alcohol. While I was finishing up a few things for dinner the girls were playing with their friends, (Kiera, Annalee, and Oliver) our neighbor sent her granddaughter over to play as well. This struck me as funny and odd since we did not think this neighbor particularly liked us. Who knows, maybe we are winning her over. Her grandaughter seemed to have fun playing here and we fed her along with our children. Here is a picture of the kids with their friends and the neighbors granddaughter whose name I still don't know.