I must confess we all dropped the ball this Father's Day as far as the morning goes. We were up pretty late last night and usually every Sunday morning my husband is off to bishopric meetings before we even wake up so we figured he would be gone for breakfast.
When I woke up this morning, I realized he was still here and then immediately felt bad we didn't all get up to make him breakfast. Apparently all meetings got cancelled until 10. He said he mentioned it last night. I misplaced that information in my brain. I think all that time spent out in the hot sun watching my kids on the soccer field has fried my brain.
We did make it to church on time though! Yeah, I confess I am not the best with getting there on time. We always get there in the middle of them singing the opening hymn or while they are saying the opening prayer.
After church, Ryan and the three younger kids watched one of the numerous soccer games on (there is nonstop soccer for the next two months straight - various games at various levels televised). They would be joining us later at dinner time, after the game.
Madison and I went over to my parents' house to help with the preparations for the big Father's Day dinner. We put together Southwestern egg rolls, Chipotle Lime Shrimp Skewers, Steamed Mussels, Rice, RIb Eye Steaks, Stuffed Zucchini, a Salad, a Strawberry Cream Cheese Tart and Banana Cream pie. Madison was a big help with my baby nephew Weston. She tended him the whole afternoon while my sis and I were busy in the kitchen.
Out of everything we made this evening, my sister and I both agreed that the stuffed zucchini was our favorite . . .
Basically you wash and halve the zucchini and scoop the pulp out to make a dug out for the stuffing to go. You chop up the pulp and to it you add salt, pepper, thyme, a bit of curry powder, 1/2 an onion fine chopped, 1/2 a tomato fine chopped, 1/2 cup of fresh Parmesan, and crumbled cooked Prosciutto. You saute the mix for about 3-5 minutes in a tiny bit of olive oil, drain off the excess liquid, and then stuff the mixture back in the dug out zucchini. You finish them off with a sprinkling of Parmesan and shove them in the oven to bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. They are amazing.
After dinner, we quickly headed outside to take a quick family snapshot . . .
I also took a quick one of just my sis' family . . .
After the snapshots, we headed inside and gathered around to open gifts. My mom just had a birthday and so we got her a new charm for her Pandora bracelet. We got my dad a waterproof knapsack for his kayak. Ryan got his own Father's Day gift yesterday. We are headed to our favorite city with some friends for a weekend in a couple of weeks.
And then it was to the kitchen for my least favorite part of family dinners - dishes. My sister and I worked together and got it done in a reasonable amount of time and then partook of our dessert. After dessert and dishes were done, we pulled out old family albums and were looking through them.
Since it is Father's Day and all, I will end on this note. While looking through the family albums, we stumbled across my baby book which included this gem of a series of 3 pictures of my dad and me circa 1973 . . .
I hope everyone out there had a good Father's Day and spent some time cherishing and honoring those great fathers in our lives whether they be our own, our husbands, our siblings, or our friends.
