December 11 - Polar Express Night

We really only had time to read the book because this was the night I was responsible for my Dad's surprise date night.  A romantic date night for 17 couples, china dishes, roses, lights, menus, a multiple course dinner (I even did Baked Alaska!)...the works.  I was at my dad's model home (gorgeous house with an amazing kitchen!) from about 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. kids included.  It was quite a night!  It felt like I had a restaurant for one evening and whew it was quite a lot of work.  I did have helpers (Lillian, and some sisters who were the servers) so that made things a lot easier.  The food turned out great I must say and planning was about perfect - not very many left overs and everyone at the dinner left stuffed.  I even got a round of applause, which has never happened for MY cooking before.  Proof that people can come a long way - my freshman year at BYU NO ONE would have applauded my cooking.  Big props to the America's Test Kitchen cookbook!  I need to buy it now - it was a borrowed cookbook.  I'm sure I owed this evening to my dad for all the things he's done for us.  In the end I rather enjoyed myself.  Hard work produced a fantastic result!