Xuron comes to dinner (B&B Show recap #4ish)

I first became acquainted with Xuron through Ashley Bunting (you may have heard of her as Miss Ashley Kate) who I met when The Beadin' Path came to a Loose Bead Society program in 2011.  A year later she was with Xuron and offered me a sample of their "Fireline scissors", and I fell in love.  With the scissors, not with Ashley.  Not that she isn't cute and all, but I'm married.  You know how that goes.  Anyway, you can read the whole story and my review of the Fireline scissors here.

From there it has snowballed... I have reviewed a number of Xuron tools (there's a list of the reviews on my website), I started selling some of them on my website, and, most importantly, I have become good friends with Abby, my main contact at Xuron.  In our house, we call her Xuron Abby.  My husband, Steve, has dealings with Xuron sometimes at work at Model Railroader or Model Retailer magazines, so we talk about Xuron Abby regularly.  It's usually something like, "What's Xuron Abby's e-mail address?  We got a pair of 90 degree bent nose pliers as a sample and I have a few questions."  (Due to that conversation I ended up with my own sample of the pliers!  Stay tuned for a review!)

Frequent readers of my blog may remember that Xuron Abby and Ashley took me out to dinner the last night of the 2014 Bead&Button Show (photographic evidence near the end of this post).

I vowed to return the favor this year, and Abby requested a dish I've posted about before, Kraft's Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce.  So for a year Steve and I prepared to have them over for dinner.  It took gobs of preparation, you know.  However, Abby was unable to attend the show this year.  After wiping my tears, I decided to go ahead with the dinner anyway, because Ashley was still coming, and I wanted to spend some time with her.  Angelica, who lives in Milwaukee, helped out, so she was invited, too.  I actually spent some time trying to figure out how we could send leftovers home with Ashley so Abby could eat, too, but I decided that wasn't feasible.  She'll just have to make it herself or wait until next year.  :)

It would have been nice if Ashley had remembered to invite Angelica before I showed up at the Marketplace.  Ashley was busy talking to someone, and I walked up to Angelica and asked, "Are you allergic to cats?"  To her credit, she didn't freak out and just said she wasn't allergic.  I believe I then asked about any food allergies.  She looked utterly confused, so I introduced myself and said she was coming to dinner on Sunday night.  Ashley looked over and said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that."  Angelica didn't run away screaming, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Ashley and Angelica at the Bead&Button Show

Finally Sunday night came, and they came over.  Here's the yummy dinner Steve made:

Doesn't that look good?  Wish you had clicked on the recipe link above?  Here - because I'm nice to you, here it is again: Chicken in Creamy Pan Sauce.

Before we ate we thought we should take a few pictures, so there was some fumbling with trying to set up Ashley's phone for a timed picture, but there was no good place for it (and dinner was cooling).  The cats were also unhelpful (as per usual), so we took pictures in shifts:

and

The pictures are a little yellow, but yes, we do have peach walls.

Then we had an "I'm-sorry-off" because I forgot to tell Angelica that there were noodles, and she can't eat many noodles.  It was fine, though, because she picked the ones with the most sauce on them and ate the chicken, tomatoes, and basil.  Dinner was declared delicious by all.  (Thanks, Steve!)  We decided that the next time Angelica comes over we'll have kebabs.

I offered to take Ashley back to her hotel so Angelica could get home to her waiting dog.  Ashley stayed quite some time, and I asked her about her book, Fiber & Cord Jewelry: Easy to Make Projects Using Paracord, Hemp, Leather, and More.  I've been considering submitting a book to Kalmbach (the publishing company for Bead&Button, Bead Style, and Art Jewelry as well as the magazines Steve works for) and was curious about the book-writing process.  It's a lot of work, but it sounds fun and rewarding!

Eventually I had to take Ashley back.  I was glad I could spend so much time with her and that I got to meet Angelica.  It's always nice to have a new friend in the area!

Now we have to determine what to have for dinner next year when Xuron Abby WILL be in attendance (all caps, bold, italics, and underlined makes it a certainty, doesn't it?).  We can't serve the same thing two years in a row, can we?  Any ideas?  Leave them in the comments!