This weekend was a pretty good weekend. A good mix of fun family/friend time and down time.

My dad’s birthday was Sunday, so Neal and I and my brother and his wife went over to my parents’ house to eat dinner Friday. I made this recipe for Apple Cake that I’ve been meaning to make for a while. It turned out really well, and looked pretty, too!

Everyone really liked it. The recipe called for baking in a tube pan. I didn’t have one, so I just used a 13×9 and it turned out fine. The cake was really moist, kind of like a coffee cake or pound cake. I think next time, I might make a struesel topping for it.

Saturday afternoon, Neal did some yard work and worked on some stuff on the computer. I tried to look busy, but really just laid around, took pics of the cats.

In the afternoon, it was time to get ready for an annual fundraising event my brother is in charge of for his business fraternity. It’s so much fun. We get good food and the chance to win a lot of moolah.

The deal is you pay to have your name put up on piece of paper on the wall. Bingo-style, numbers are drawn. The last numbers on the board win money.

Here are the numbers, look closer at #27.

HAHA, that’s us! Ferris and Simone!

We stuffed our faces and drank beer.

My sister-in-law won a trip! I’m jealous.

Neal and I didn’t win anything. But we had an awesome time!

Sunday, Neal and I did some stuff around the house, napped, and visited with his parents who stopped by our house on their way home from a little vacation.

I also made some homemade yeast rolls. I’m still learning how to work with live yeast, but these turned out pretty well, and had a REALLY delicious flavor.

And I made a casserole. I’ve made this recipe for Chicken Spaghetti before. It was good, but I didn’t like the green peppers. So this time, I substituted peas for the green pepper and used one can cream of chicken, one can cream of mushroom.

This time, it was perfect. YUMMY.

Best thing is that it will make great leftovers to take to work!

So, all in all, a really good weekend. I have loads of pics of the cats doing cute stuff that I’ll have to post this week.