Sylvia's Scenario

This Mother's Day my sister, Barbara, made a special treat for us.  It was an espresso martini that she had first made with my cousin during her visit to New York City recently.  My cousin had been tweeking this recipe for awhile and when my sister visited her in April, she was eager for Barbara to try her perfected version.  This is the same cousin who I wrote about here who does the waffle parties in her New York apartment.  My sister hosted a barbecue at her house on Mother's Day with Bruce and I, her son and his wife and their kids. Here are the three moms together with our special espresso martinis.   The men fired up the barbecue and cooked some bratwurst for dinner and we all contributed some salads to accompany them.  It made for another wonderful family feast, something my family is very good at pulling together.  And a lovely coconut cake for dessert to top it off.  Now, back to his espresso martini.  I could tell when I tasted it ...

We finally made it to Japan during the cherry blossom season. We are home now but we recently returned from our fifth and most memorable trip yet to Japan to visit Nick and family. Now, with the grandkids in school (5th and 3rd grade), we need to plan our trips during their school breaks. And this year, it was during the peak of the cherry blossoms. We had fun taking photos with the cherry blossoms during the whole trip that spanned 16 days. We have cherry blossoms where we live in Seattle but you need to go to specific areas to see them. In Japan, they are EVERYWHERE. Most the trees are large, too. The blossoms are smaller and lighter pink, very delicate looking. Occasionally, you will see a darker pink or white ones, too, but mostly they are the lighter pink blossoms. There are so many cherry blossoms everywhere that they sort of make you feel giddy with delight.  And the Japanese people really celebrate them.  They will bring blankets and picnics to get comfortabl...