Baby shower and birthday dinner

Today was my second cousin’s baby shower, even though she had her baby a little early. Welcome to the world little Daniel! And happy anniversary to you two as well on this day, your fifth wedding anniversary!

It was a fun day, seeing family from my mother’s side that I rarely get to see. Of course the entire day I was getting playfully harassed by said family wondering when Mark and I were going to have a baby. Well, they were more specifically asking me, “so, when’s the shower going to be?” and “how long do you two have to be married before you have a baby?” I especially enjoyed the newly invented old wives tales of my new mother cousin: “smell the babies head, eat the shower cake icing, sleep with the shower party favor under your pillow,” all of these things apparently resulting in my announcing my pregnancy within six months.

It was all very cute and fun and I don’t hold anything against them. Family just needs to be patient with us; we’re not quite ready for a child. We’re enjoying just being us together.

For dinner, a few friends and we went to the Melting Pot (an all fondue restaurant) for dinner. It was delicious and fun and we all got to sample a little bit of everything. We ordered their ‘big night out’ special, allowing us to sample quite a bit of the menu. We had two of the cheese fondues for the first course with bread, apples and vegetables; two of the rolling-boil broths (burgundy wine coq-au-vin style broth; and a garlic citrus white wine broth) served with several platters of raw beef, pork, chicken, lobster, shrimp, tuna, salmon, scallops and vegetables, in addition to a dozen or so different sauces for dipping the cooked pieces into; and for dessert we were able to select three of the nine chocolate fondues for dessert. Decadent! Delicious!

It was a truly unique dining experience, taking almost three hours to move through all of the courses prepared at the table with its built in heating elements. I would highly recommend going there with a crowd, particularly friendly due to the tapas style nature of all the sampling and sharing of dishes. But be sure to make reservations well in advance as the tables fill up quickly and don’t be afraid to sit in the smoking section that is composed of only four tables.