Game Night, House Party Style

As soon as I returned from work last night, I had one goal and one goal only: Operation Clean House.

Not that I live in a train wreck, but Woodstock has an affinity for leaves and entire plants. He enjoys uprooting them and munching on them in our living room. So my house is basically a jungly-mess. It wasn't anything a quick sweep and mop couldn't fix, however!

As soon as we cleaned the house, I bolted to the mall to use my Sunglass Hut discount coupon and actually invested in a NICE, polarized pair of sporty shades for my upcoming running adventures. All within a span of 15 minutes. Apparently it takes me a long time to make smart decisions surrounding my credit card expenditures. But in all fairness, I had been thinking it over for nearly two weeks now.

After my big (necessary) buy, we skipped back to the house just in time to prep all the food and started entertaining some guests. It's funny how all my friends here are the people I work with!

Everyone seemed to enjoy all the snacks the people at House Party sent us to enjoy! We were given Triscuits and Wheat Thins to go along with my bowl of garlic hummus and then Dark Chocolate Pieces. In addition to the goodies supplied by Nabisco, J.D. and I took the whole "Game Night" thing to our own level. We supplied MOVIE BOX CANDY and what's a game without Cracker Jacks?! :) Hoping for more filling food he also heated up a giant flat crust supreme frozen pizza for everyone. Plenty of food if you ask me!!

As for the games -- SO FUN! I'm a trivia junkie. Really, I am. I get super intense and competitive. My favorite show of all time -- and this is not a joke -- is Jeopardy! I love it. A close second's Ca$h Cab. Watch it if you haven't, it'll change your life.

Well this House Party is essentially built around new Trivial Pursuit (which hasn't yet hit the shelves) and it has the most AWESOME feature of any trivia game. Every play, you get to BET on whether or not the player will guess the question right. It's so cutthroat and conniving, but that's my favorite part about board games :) One of my friends even said this game is a great way of losing friends, haha. You get to hear the category and then place bets on how smart that person is; it's so evil!

So I'll leave you with a bunch of fun pictures. But before I get to that, I almost forgot about the "goodie bags" -- yes, it's like we're 5 years old again. In addition to the coupons House Party gave all our guests, we purchased sports trading cards and decks of playing cards for everyone at the Dollar Store. Our guests were pretty excited with their "five-year old-inspired" goodie bags! So thank you, Hasbro and Nabisco for all these free goodies! We never got around to playing Catch Phrase or Taboo, because we opted to go engage in a little SingStar on the PS3. Oh right, about those pictures.....

Have a great weekend, kiddies! Since Fridays are my half days over the summer, I'm off to grab some Jamba Juice for lunch and then maybe do a couple of workout videos on demand later tonight. Then J.D. and I hit the road for SANTA CRUZ tomorrow in hopes of a fun-filled day at the beach and at the woods. We're going to try and make it to the Mystery Spot. I've never been, but see these damn bumper stickers all over the road. Hopefully it won't be a mystery too much longer.

Who are your friends? People from school, home, work, neighbors, randoms you meet at bars.....?

Williams-Sonoma House Party (finally!)

Yesterday I said I'd finally get back to you on that House Party recap. Well, here goes.

After kicking off the morning with shopping and French food, I set to work on helping my mom prep for the meal around 2 p.m. My "baby" ended up being the appetizer and dessert courses: tomato goat cheese crostini and grilled cinnamon peaches with vanilla ice cream. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it.

Slicing baguette loaves and refrained from feeding the extra "help"

That's Lily, my parents' puppy. After grilling the crostini it was time to assemble!

The final product consisted of Williams-Sonoma's 'WichCraft tomato relish, goat cheese (or not, in my case) and grilled baguette.

I really enjoyed these! I couldn't stop stuffing my face. In all, I'd say I consumed four (without the goat cheese) and I played it off as my carbo load for our race the following morning ;) Next up was the grill. My parents decided to grill the salmon on cedar planks which tasted smoky and nutty all at the same time. Well, half of that fact's due to the fire Dad had to put out haha. Apparently wood burns easily over charred coals.

It really wasn't as bad as it looked, I promise! And it tasted wonderful (pretty sure I already said that). Next up is my mom's extravagant decorum in the formal dining room for her party for 12:

Extra points if you can spot Lily and me!

As for the actual meal the choices were plentiful! We had a light summer salad with fruits and balsamic dressing to start. The main course consisted of pork tenderloins, the salmon with a fresh herb "salsa verde", more baguette and freshly-grilled veggie skewers! Though, I found someone upon whom I could pawn off my mushrooms. No matter how hard I've tried to like them, I've hated mushrooms since I was really young. Old habits die hard I guess.

Finally, I let all the "old folk" haha, sorry I couldn't resist guys, talk and drink their port on the gazebo in the backyard so J.D. and I took on dessert assembly. Now pay close attention, because I got a FREE GRILL PAN out of this deal. But we melted some butter over halved peaches -- love summer fruit -- and then dipped them in honey and cinnamon before sizzling on the grill pan.

Served it all up with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream and chopped mint from their backyard. YUM!!! As you can see, I went light on the dessert in anticipation of the race and only had half of a peach instead of the whole thing. I also drank cup after cup of water, like it was my job!!!

I don't think I need to say that this was one of the best meals I've had in a while!

The awesome thing about the House Party website is the fact that it's all FREE!!!! Williams-Sonoma sent my mom two grill pans, two Calphalon serving spoons, 12 turner spatulas to give away for the guests, the 'WichCraft relish, a W-S Michael Symon cook book, apron, W-S towels and some other goodies as well. PLUS, they sent her a $100 AmEx card to purchase all the food with. Again: AWESOME!!!

I've already talked about the sweet package that House Party sent me for my party, which I'll be throwing on Thursday! I'll let you know how that goes. And seriously, guys, sign up for that website. It's so sweet how you get all this free stuff in the name of "product marketing."

In the meantime, we're making Indian food for dinner and I'm ready to pop open a bottle of Stella Artois! Have a good night everyone, xx ♥