Tom Eppenberger Jr’s blog

Shelly and I both had our moments of serious skepticism during the planning for Saturday, but we managed to pull it off. Brunch at our house for 6, (including my Mom, Shelly’s Mom and Shelly’s Step-Mom), and then dinner at our house for 10 (including my Step-Mom and Grandmother)… on the same day!

We were up at 8 AM cooking for the 10:30 AM brunch. The menu included Banana Walnut pancakes, scrambled eggs, potatoes, and sausage (both real and fake). Most everything went perfect, except for an early snag with the pancake batter. It was a Swedish pancake batter, and it behaved much differently than I expected. Too much water was added, and so we ended up having to use a box and a half of batter…

Lane was a total ham for all his Grandma’s during breakfast, but this is really nothing new…

After breakfast, we all retreated to the backyard, and Lane showed off his mad T-ball skills for his Grandma’s. As Lane went down for his nap, the party broke up and we began cleaning up for dinner.

The initial plan was to make a Mexican dinner, but we (very smartly) decided to get a bulk of the menu from El Torito. Chicken Enchiladas, Cheese Enchiladas, black bean, chicken and beef taquitos beans, rice, corn cake, chips, salsa, etc. For dessert, we got a Leche Cake from a bakery in Hayward.

Most everyone showed up for dinner early, for a change, and so we spent a lot of time finishing up preparing for dinner after they had arrived. No bother, we think everyone had a good time. My Uncle Bruce was down for the weekend as a (big) surprise for my Grandma, and Lane really seemed to enjoy him being there. Well, either that, or he saw it as another person to help get the balls he hit off his T-ball stand…

The weather was decent, so we all ate in the backyard, and, yes, Lane continued to show off his T-ball skills.

After the T-ball action had finished, I was eaten alive by mosquitos in the backyard while talking to my Dad. I thought I had been bitten two or three times, but this morning I awoke with 20+ bites all over my back, face and arms. Why, oh why, do bugs like to eat me so much?

In the end, the Leche cake got mixed reviews, but I sure dug it. Everything else was either finished or taken home by different people.

We all ended up huddled in the living room around our TV watching photos from our Belize trip. It was like a Simpsons episode where Selma and Patty put everyone to sleep with the slides from their most recent trip… really.