The first leg of the EMMI tour kicked off right after Troy's birthday. Unfortunately, there was hardly any time to stop and celebrate. The boys didn't get much sleep at all as they were feverishly trying to finish the robot building. Troy was literally sleeping (if at all) on the floor of the work space that week.
Aurie and I made pies and brought them to the space so that we could at least bring a little celebration to the day. It finally dawned on me this year (thanks Aurie!) that I should make pie instead of cake since Troy is obsessed with pie. Not sure why I didn't ever make that connection. I guess I've never considered myself much of a baker. In any case, I made my first real crust ever and filled it with strawberries and rhubarb. I was pretty proud of the results. And Aurie made a decadent, bourbon, pecan and chocolate pie with a hazelnut crust. Troy was thrilled.
Although they weren't able to complete all of the robots they had planned (due to many ridiculous, uncontrollable hold ups and delays) the tour was still a success. There were a number of stops, including Brandeis and Franklin Pierce universities and MIT, and they made some great connections.
Steve and Troy returned on Sunday night and have continued to work at full speed in order to complete some more robots before they leave for the European tour on Friday.
I'm sad not to be going along, especially because there is a stop in Ghent, I've been missing it a lot lately. For Aurie's birthday, we decided to recreate part of our Belgian experience. We made wafels from a recipe that we got from Godfried (Troy's mentor at Logos). Jaimee and Peter brought over their waffle maker and I inherited by mom's old one, so we had dueling waffle irons!
These are not quite they same as the
wafels I blogged about previously, these are more yeasty and not as sweet. They are made with real Belgian beer. We served them with freshly whipped cream and strawberries. It was fun to share this treat with some of our friends.
Speaking of friends, I'm truly grateful for the kind dinner invitations I've been receiving from them lately. It seems they'll make sure I'm not too lonely over the next couple of weeks while Troy is touring.
