The rest of the story...

We had our "distributed ward dinner" last night. It was so fun! We laughed, told stories, played games. It was great. Friendships were formed. Recipes promised. Everyone I talked to said their groups were successful as well. Most groups had one couple that didn't end up coming. Some canceled the "day of" - but those cases were pretty much because of illness.

I got an added bonus in getting a ton of stuff done around the house in preparation for our hosting a group. We paid to have our exterior windows washed, and I did all the inside screens, blinds, and panes. It is amazing how good that feels. We put up new shelves in the garage, and used the extra space to de-junk the area under the stairs. We rearranged the study and hauled off the old vanity. Steve even moved the computer desk - a task he has been refusing to do for years as "it is too much work!" We FINALLY got Baer Welding to come to fix our railing. It isn't back yet, but we've waited a YEAR to get this far. It was a most productive week!

Steve took around cinnamon rolls as a thank you to the host families (I make a lot of cinnamon rolls, you can tell. More on that later.) Steve said that, to a person, they all said how much fun it was and that they would gladly host another dinner. Some said, "Now, we're going to do this again, right?"

I think we need to confirm the host families early and plan for a 20% drop out rate - but other than those adjustments, I think it was a success.

I've found a new Sunday tradition (at least while we're on the 9 am schedule). We have Grandma over for dinner almost every Sunday. She likes a traditional Sunday dinner with all of the trimmings. I figure, at 93 there are few things she can enjoy. The least I can do is cook a nice meal for her. It is tough to do rolls for three or four people. I've started making Kim's "Orange Roll" recipe from the cookbook (page 211 in Volume 1). I make a third of the batch as regular parkerhouse rolls (baking them in a glass pan to brown them well and to keep them warm during dinner). If I get them rolled out too early, I just stick them in the fridge with a cloth over them to rise, and take them out a half hour before dinner. The rest of the batch I make into cinnamon rolls. I can usually make about a dozen dinner rolls and two dozen cinnamon rolls. (To give out cinnamon rolls to all the hosts, I doubled the batch - but my Bosch can handle a double batch.) The cinnamon rolls are great give aways, but they freeze well too. We just thaw/warm them in the microwave.