Fourth of July in Plymouth

Thursday marked the beginning of a long - and fun - Fourth of July weekend for us! Andrew and I both took Thursday off from work for an important reason - Andrew's brother Adam was visiting from LA and had flown in on the red eye. After picking him up at Logan at 7:30 am, we headed down to Plymouth.

Once we arrived at Andrew's parents' place, it was clear that we were going to be spoiled all weekend. Andrew's parents made us breakfast to order, which included omelets and egg English muffins accompanied by our choice of linguica and bacon - yummy!

As it was another rainy day in a long string of rainy days with passing thunderstorms and seriously hard rain, we spent the day watching TV downstairs in the family den and napping. Soon it was time to pick up Amanda from the Providence Amtrak station, which made it truly a family weekend with everyone home.

For dinner, we enjoyed a family favorite - Georgio's Pizza and then it was time for dessert.

We had much to celebrate with Adam's visit home, Amanda's recent promotion at work, and our engagement.

Of course, this called for a champagne toast with dessert with Tom taking care of pouring duties:


Actually, we went with cava - Amanda poses with the bottle that we picked with her boyfriend Javier's help (it's nice to have someone with Sommelier training advising us!):


Even more impressive was the cake that Amanda carried with her through New York, to work, on the train and to Plymouth:


It arrived intact and gorgeous! Amanda had bought the cake from one of her favorite bakeries - Two Red Hens - and was sweet enough to pick it based on the fact that it had white roses - one of my favorite flowers - and a lot of green (you all know how much I love my green!):


This is how nice and rich the cake was on the inside - moist with a very nice chocolate flavor:


Did I mention that there was another thing to celebrate in addition to everything I mentioned above? Andrew and I also took advantage of the opportunity of seeing Adam and Amanda in person to ask them to be a part of our wedding party - Adam as best man for Andrew and Amanda as a bridesmaid. Luckily, they both said yes!

We spent the next couple of hours enjoying dessert, cava and our favorite family game - Apples to Apples.


Adam's visit home also reminded us that he always wins Apples to Apples when he's home - although Charlotte and I gave him a run for his money on one round!