This was a weekend of random, and seemingly insignificant holidays. With Valentine’s Day on Saturday and Family Day yesterday, there was a lot of opportunity to celebrate, even though I didn’t spend either with my valentine or family.
Saturday night our house was invited to the guys’ house for dinner. I didn’t think much about it… in fact, I think I kind of forgot that it was Valentine’s Day. I took one of the kids from church out during the day. We went mini-golfing and then ate at Swiss Chalet. So, I arrived at their home not expecting anything out of the ordinary. How wrong I was. Steve had made Indian food for us and Eric had set the table, put out chocolates and just made the house look nice. We had a delicious dinner together and I ate entirely more candy than was necessary while recovering from a cold. I feel like my appreciation for the evening cannot even be matched by words to express to them how impressed and thankful I was.
Sunday, we had a Congolese family over for dinner. Danielle has been working with them since they came to Canada in August. They have eight children but only three of them came to our house Sunday evening. While we were visiting they invited us to come to their house to try some African food. So, yesterday afternoon we headed over to their home to eat “fofo” and “kasava”. “Fofo” is like a dough that can be made with pretty much any starch. You pull off a part and form it into a small ball (think playing with play-doh). You use it to scoop up stew or sauce. We ate it with fish that had a pretty tasty sauce. At first it was delicious but, of course, once inside of you it begins to expand and then just kind of feels like this large weight in your stomach which was less than enjoyable. “Kasava”, from what I understand, is a root that grows in Africa. You cannot get it in Canada, but you can buy the leaves from the Kasava plant. So that’s what we were eating. They mixed in some peppers, cucumber and onion. It looked kind of like spinach but tasted more like leaves. It was an interesting experience.
Yesterday we were also planning the second annual Family Day Celebration. This year we called it the “Reasons I Love Dalton McGuinty Family Day Potluck” and invited a bunch of people we know over for a delicious meal. It was SO good. I didn’t count but we probably had about 20+ people in our house (likely the most we’ve had so far). It was a good mix of people and I got to see some friends I don’t see nearly enough. I quite enjoyed myself. We also met our neighbour down the street. She is a Christian who we randomly stumbled across when stuffing envelopes for a TrueCity mailing. Esther got in contact with her and we’ve been trying to have her over. Yesterday it finally worked. She seems like a really neat woman and I’m hoping we can get to know her better.
This week is prep for the TrueCity Conference. I have had a cold for a couple of days and so am trying to take good care of myself to be 100% for this weekend. I am MCing this year which will be interesting. I’m a little nervous as to what that might mean but I have a partner so it should work out pretty well. Esther and I are headed to the conference location this morning to help with set-up and meet some people.
Oh, before I forget. For anyone who cares… I’m reading Captivating again. It’s a book by Stasi Eldridge that I really, really dislike… in fact, I dislike it so much that I decided I was likely being unfair to it and I should read it again now that I have some more solidly formed opinions about gender. I am hating it just as much as before. Last night I almost threw the book across the room. I will try to remember to update those who might care about how the reading experience continues. For now, it’s off to work I go.
