the busby’s spent the 4th of july evening with a new friend.  she and her husband were kind enough to invite us over for hot dogs and brats on the grill as well as some wonderful red wine and fireworks just beyond the backyard over the rsm lake.

i’m always nervous when i’m invited to someone’s house for the first time.  it could go really well or horribly wrong.

i don’t want to be too early nor late at all.

how late do you stay?  i don’t want to eat and run yet i also don’t want to overstay my welcome.

i guess, the way i see it, if i hear from them again, we didn’t mess up too badly.

this is the same friend that i had coffee with a week or so ago.  we spent three hours just discussing anything and everything and i think it was a great time.

now i’m nervous since it will be our turn to invite them to our house which isn’t nearly as nice as their place.  we have only lawn chairs in the backyard, no outdoor furniture.  we haven’t had the time nor the finances to update much of what needs updating in the house so the raggedy pink carpet that was here when we moved in will have to be overlooked i guess.

back to the evening…

the fireworks were over the lake which was just a little ways from their house.  unfortunately because the house is at a higher elevation than the lake and because they were using low altitude fireworks, we saw most of them through trees.  that was ok though because the noise is probably equally as exciting to me as seeing the actual fireworks.

i asked my friend repeatedly what i could bring (i don’t like to go empty handed) so she said to bring my hummus.  i had been telling her and the other two poll workers on primary day how much i like home made hummus.   my friend really likes hummus so she was excited to try it.

thank goodness, my hummus came out fantastically well.  it tasted so nice, so creamy and garlic-y.  it was very pleased.  the kids went crazy for it as well as my friend.  i was surprised at how much the kids liked it but also very pleased.

my friend’s husband made potato salad, which was exotic to me since it was so different from how i make it, none the less good.  he also made baked beans which i really liked.  he used both pork ‘n’ beans and kidney beans which gave it is a nice difference.  the flavor wasn’t too sweet and it had bacon which was awesome.  the addition of onions would have made it perfect…but that’s a shannon thing. 

i took a chance and brought a plant as a gift (she’s a horticulturist and landscape architect) as well as a nice bottle of pinot noir.  she looked at the bottle and said that it was a really good type so i’m happy about that too!

it was a great evening and i’m very pleased that we’re finally breaking through the social barrier that we’ve had in the o.c.

let’s see where it goes!