Fun Party!!

We went to my friend E's Christmas party Sat afternoon. I knew most of the people there, they all work in my friend E's lab, but it's DH's first time meeting every single person in that house. E and her husband just finished remodelling their great 1912 house (mansion to me), converted original porches on both sides to living space, and added second floor. So, basically they expanded entire house, without destroy the original symmetric shape of the house. They expended the master bathroom, which is now much bigger than our master bedroom! It has gorgeous marble floor (heated, Woo, soooooo comfortable!), huge spa-like selfcleaning tub, spacious shower, double sink with granite countertop, and tons of storage space. And they expanded their daughter's bedroom and the shared bath. Now the bathrooms actually are their cats favorite spots in the house. No just the cats, we all wanted to sit on those heated marble tiles and take a nap! And the best part in the house, to E, AK and I, is the new "greenhouse". It's about 10 by 10, and has a huge west facing french door. E had tile floor installed on purpose, so she doesn't have to worry about water damages. AK and I helped her set up the shelving units and the growing lights a couple of months ago. We must did pretty great, because all the plants in there are super happy, and they grew much bigger than last time I saw them.
This is the nightblooming jasmine AK gave her a couple of months ago, and we almost didn't recognize it. It's at least tripled the size!
Here is E's lemon tree! See all those delicious looking lemon? I heard it's very hard to make your lemon tree set fruit. Apperantly it loved E's yard and the new plantroom.
And here is a closeup of E's blooming Dendrobium! I didn't know each plant/bulb can have multiple spikes at the same time! Some of hers have 3 spikes! Amazing! And this one actually has a very mild fragrance.
Melissa brought a flourless cake! She made the whole thing from scratch, including the whipcream. It's very rich, like a huge piece of dark chocolate bar.
I wanted to cook something traditional Chinese, but E has several Chinese postdoc and students in her lab, I didn't want to end up bringing the same food. So, I found a really cute jello recipe on "Real Simple". It's raspberry flavor Jello, with cranberry sauce, pineapple and apple. This was my first time ever making jello, so I failed half, because I didn't have enough muffin tins, and I was naive enough to think the little paper cups could hold their shape on their own. Opps! So, I had to come up with a second batch. I used orange flavor jello, with banana and peach. It actually turned out to be better! Who knew I can design a jello recipe in seconds and actually succeed!
The best part of the party was the Saree demo and model show! The Indian girl from E's lab wore her traditional Saree to the party. She also brought another one to do the demo. Apperantly there are 32 ways to wear a saree! She demoed 3 of them. I took tons of pictures! It was the best party entertainment I have ever seen. This is how I look in a Saree! Sorry about the face again, I don't like to post personal pics online.