Weekend report - The family has been informed

This weekend was fairly productive in one way, and quite unproductive in another.

I spent Saturday morning cooking up a nice lunch for all four of our parents. I winged together a Shepherd’s Pie using beef and Portobello mushrooms in a red wine gravy (alcohol carefully boiled off, extra wine fed to the guests so I wasn’t stuck with an open bottle I can’t drink). It turned out very well and I’ll have to write it down so I can do it again.

I ended up taking the advice of Steve (Brip Blap) and Mike (Four Pillars) and just blurting out that we were pregnant the second they were all together in the living room. I had wanted to have something special prepared for them, but this worked just as well and was a heck of a lot easier.

Everyone was very excited and they had a nice chat reminiscing about Hubby and I when we were babies and what it was like to be about-to-be parents. Let’s just say pre-natal and newborn parenting guidelines have changed significantly since the 70s.

After lunch we phoned our grandmothers. Mine was ecstatic and we spent a good long time chatting about it. Hubby’s said ‘that’s nice, congrats’ and then told him to tell his parents she’d received the parcel she’d been expecting. She’s never been one for letting the little things get in the way of what’s important to her. I found it hilarious (and predictable). Mom-in-law was quite embarrassed, poor thing.

We were then taken out for a very nice steak dinner, where I discovered that 90% of the appetizers are on the ‘no-eat’ list. Pass that bread and water, would you, Steve? The French onion soup seemed safe enough (and was delicious), and I had a very nice (medium, instead of my preferred rare) steak. I had a deep, hearty sniff of Dad-in-law’s after-dinner Port in recompense.

Sunday I’d planned to go and get started on the much-procrastinated Christmas shopping, but I decided to sleep through it instead...oops. Guess that’ll have to be next weekend.