How to plan a dinner date

Dear all,

I really need to apologize for not posting anything for over two months. It's horrible I know! But I do have my reasons, hehe. I started writing columns for the school website (http://tabor.nl/index.php?id=1262) so I spent about three hours a week writing one. It keeps me busy!

So, to make it up to you, here is a how-to on dinner dates. Me and my friend Sharona are hosting one tonight for a couple of our friends. We just went grocery shopping and want to tell you about how we came up with the idea...

Our winter break started last Friday (yes we've got two weeks off!) and we wanted to organize something nice for friends. (5 to 6 people). First we were thinking about making the dinner together, but that would get too complicated and you never know if somebody doesn't like the meal. So, in the end we decided to grill (also known as 'gourmetten' in Dutch). At our house we have a grill (see picture) for about 6 persons so that was perfect! We made some simple invitations telling our friends about what to wear, to bring money (10 euros = 13,18 dollar) and to come over at 5. We're counting on five people for tonight so we went shopping for the groceries around about 50 euros. We ended up spending 51,19 euros so we did a great job hehe!

What we bought:

-steak, meat, etc.

-french bread

-herb butter

-cheese (Brie)

-mushrooms

-cucumber

-peppers

-sodas

-lettuce

-chips

-salad dressings (lemon & honey mustard)

-pickles

-onion

-salmon

-cashew nuts

-vanilla ice cream

-chocolate sauce

-eggs

-pancake mix

-fruit topping for the ice cream

-chocolateeeee of course! :)

As we just mentioned, our friends are coming over at 5. We're gonna eat some snacks and then prepare the food together (cutting up veggies and the bread, etc.).

And, because it's almost Christmas and we wanted to have a dress code, we decided to ask our friends to come in formal clothing (black dresses, heels etc.) for fun :)

We hope we have a great night!

(Pictures are coming up!)

We want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy & healthy new year :)!

Love,Rachelle & Sharona