Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I know the pope had St. Patrick's Day officially changed to Saturday this year, but to me St. Patrick's Day will always be March 17'th. So I am wearing green today. On Saturday, we went out to dinner with our friends at Billy McHale's. It's a chain restaurant up here in Washington, and they have seriously yummy bacon-wrapped fillet steaks that come with twice-baked potatoes and fresh rolls. It's a heavenly meal! All the servers there were wearing fun green sparkly stuff for the holiday, and Kirsten loves that restaurant because of all the colors, bright lights, and the trains that go around the ceiling. We had no idea that in honor of St. Patrick's day they were having bagpipers go through the restaurant several times. It was a whole little band with bagpipers and drummers!

When they started playing and marching around the restaurant, they were SO loud and I thought Kirsten would be freaked out by it. We can't turn on the food processor or the blender at home, because those are so loud they make her scream. This was even louder!

To my complete surprise, she loved them! She kept smiling and smiling, and watching them every time they came around. The picture below is what her face looked like when she watched them. It was really cute to see how delighted she was by the bagpipes and drums. I never would have guessed she would love it so much!

My plan for dinner tonight was originally to make an Irish lamb stew, but after seeing that a leg of boneless lamb cost $22 at the grocery store today, I bought ground beef for $5 instead and I'll be making one of Stephen's favorites, Cheeseburger Pie. I want to make it a little more festive, so I think I'll still be making Irish Soda Bread and Lime Cake (like our favorite lemon cake, but with lime instead so it will be green). I might post some recipes and pictures later this week, if it all turned out successfully. Happy St. Patrick's Day!