First impression, when Uncle Sasha and Sergei walked in, was Wow they are tall! Mike at 6'2", looked short next to them. Uncle Sasha looked exactly the same as I remembered him. We started with a welcome drink of all-American beer, a quick tour of our house and then drove to MJ's to have another drink and check out the Tinton Falls waterfall.
At some point everyone pulled out their iPhones, so I just had to take another picture :)
After the drink, we returned home because it was kids lunch/nap time. While I heated up the Chili, everyone hung out outside. Ashley wanted to go sledding down our slide, but the sled was buried somewhere under the snow in our backyard. We tried looking for it but couldn't locate it. So Sasha took off his shoes, rolled up his pants and set out to look for the sled barefoot, since according to him you'd be able to feel it with the bare feet much easier. Another perfect picture moment, he he :)
He didn't find the sled, but we were all impressed by his "zakalennost'". We ate chili along with some Margaritas. Katelyn flirted with everyone at the table, especially our guests of honor. She really showed off her personally, no surprise there :) We put the kids went to bed and Indira watched them while we continued our tour.
Next we headed to Long Branch, Sasha has never seen the ocean before, so of course he had to at least get his feet wet. Sergei went for a swim when he was here a year an a half ago in June, so Sasha was the only brave one to go in. (The water was in mid 30s.)
We took a nice long stroll down the beach, it looked so different covered in snow and with all of the palm trees gone. Nevertheless very beautiful :)
Next we headed to Party Fair store, because Sergei was looking for a Batman costume for his friend. We didn't find the costume but Sergei did pick up a few unique souvenirs, after which we headed to Red Bank. Original plan was to watch an ice boat race on the Navesink, but the weather did not cooperate. The ice was too thin, so the races were canceled. We walked down to the river to watch the sunset, we walked to Mike's office, and then downtown. We stopped at the Paw Palace Pet Boutique, where Sasha picked up a couple souvenirs for his fur babies. We grabbed a cappuccino at Starbucks, and headed home to get ready for dinner.
I had a big dinner planned, trying to offer food that we like, that's American, but would appeal to everyone. For appetizers I made mini hot dogs wrapped in dough, bruschetta with garlic toasts, crackers with blueberry goat cheese, veggies with dip, plain potato chips as well as my honey roasted almonds. For dinner I had grilled cedar plank salmon, grilled fillet Mignon, and BBQ ribs to choose from. For sides I made garlic potatoes with parsley and string beans almondine and Salat Olivie. We also got our favorite ciabatta bread to dip in seasoned olive oil and fresh roasted garlic. For desert I made chocolate chip cookie pie with vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries, chocolate pecan pie, brownies and a fruit salad. Joan brought over an almond cake. It may sound like a lot of food, but a lot of it was gone at the end of the night. I have to give huge thanks to Indira who helped me to get everything done. Thanks to the preparations we made before, we had a really laid back kind of night.
Katelyn was particularly smitten with Chuck, she perched on his lap, wrapped in a blanket and didn't want to move, it was very sweet.
It was a great time, great company and the kids were on their best behavior :)
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