Yes, I am going to talk about food...

A quick update first. All is well here. Still no labor but we're a week off the due date so no panic. We tried almost everything in our arsenal to induce labor last night but it did nothing more than give me pineapple poisoning and Jo a tension headache! Oh well. Our boss is out of town this week, so it does mean that I can take Jose home a little early each day - just what we need right now.


The Fourth of July long weekend was a total blessing and mostly we just relaxed at home. I did a LOT of cooking, but to me that's the best kind of relaxation. We had our friend Lorena and her mum over for dinner on the night of the 4th (yep, some real Americans!) but since it was so hot and Lorena is a vegetarian I decided to go wildly sideways and cook some Vietnamese and Japanese food for dinner. Ironic perhaps but I could have gone with bangers and mash... or just mash in Lorena's case!

Clockwise from top: Mango, palm heart, avocado, cucumber and mint salad with a tangy lime dressing, inari with ginger and seaweed furikake and tuna tartare with fresh ginger and spring onion.

A selection of pickles (shiitake, turnip, daikon and beetroot), the salad, shiitake kushiyaki and tsukune (chicken meatballs)

That's no beer! It's fizzy apple juice for the pregatron

Of course, thanks to our American friends, we totally made up for it with dessert! Not only did they bring fab Independence Day themed petits fours like the ones we had at the baby shower, they also brought a cup cake sampler!

The deliciously moist petits fours... mmmm

Cupcake sampler clockwise from top left: Chocolate, hummingbird, almond, carrot, red velvet and coconut!

The other very cool thing was that from our new deck we could see 3 seperate fireworks displays, including the mega one from Six Flags Fiesta, a big theme park not too far from us!