A spontaneous Birthday Dinner

Tuesday was a day full of surprises. 

First off, the School of Ministry had been expecting Pastor Greg Mitchell (my uncle) to come speak to us in late July, however his schedule had him appearing this week. So we were going to be hearing from him now all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday. This was an epic treat. 

Second, we discovered it was the lovely Alex's birthday. Alex has become a dear friend. I think she is lovely and I love to see how God is moving in her life. When I realized she was turning 22 far away from friends and family something in me said, we must mark this day! Also something in me said, I miss hosting. So a plan was born. It was lunch time and I turned to Paul and said, do you think we could host our class for dinner? 

Now we have a class of 30.

(Though of course, I knew all 30 wouldn't come)

But still.

Paul is a man though. A real man.

And he said, "Baby, I'm in"

So we invited our class over to celebrate Alex's birthday that night. 

Thankfully Alex was touched and many of our classmates could come.

There ended up being 14 of us in total. 

On top of an impromptu dinner party for 14 with no time for grocery shopping, I also had to factor in the fact that Alex is a vegetarian. Hmmm.

So I made my vegetarian Zucchini Lasagna (with Orzo instead of meat). I also added chunks of cream cheese in the cheese layer. And oh, was that a good idea. I also made up a white sauce pasta, comprised of a cream cheese based sauce, Johnny's garlic seasoning and sauteed zucchini, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes. I added some turkey for the guys who were coming. 

I asked a classmate to grab dessert and another classmate to grab garlic bread. On the weekend we'd noticed some pop on sale at Salmart for 84 cents each and had bought 3 just in case we ever had classmates over - awesome. And voila, instant dinner party. 

We also had the issue of seating. 14 people! I mean we can JUST do that in our home and that's tight! But we discovered that the table here pulls out to seat 6. Paul and I had brought a card table with us from Canada and then we added two TV tables. And we discovered folding chairs in the basement. We JUST managed to fit all of us. God knew how many should come!

You can see here, Alex, the birthday girl, on the far left. 

Then Christopher, Tiffany and Victoria.

The hands are in honour of Alex's 22nd birthday.

22!

Evan and Sean were also among the first to arrive.

From there it was a blur for me of cooking, friends, eating, laughter and happy feelings. 

The pop station that Paul set up.

There was much conversation around the tables.

Sooo tasty

So much laughter.

For real.

Tons of it.

Paul went to put the chairs away in the basement using the elevator.

This amused everyone.

The birthday girl and I after she won at Spoons!

She is GORGEOUS.

WOW Alex! 

And also she is beautiful inside.

This is one strong, lovely, woman of God.

She will be hugely impactful in loving women towards Christ for sure.

This is Victoria and Alex.

The final two in spoons.

And they were not going down without a fight.

Eventually people started to tire and laptops and phones came out.

We all knew we had LOTS of homework and tons to process from Uncle Greg's message that day.

Everyone headed home, happy and joyful. What a lovely way to celebrate a new friends birthday. Not only did it love someone, but I got to enjoy hosting for a group again. I sure do love feeding people! Especially when I can tell they're having a great time. 

Oh what a night.