Little Raindrops

Posts Tagged ‘Baking’

Last week I had my first ever Pampered Chef show! I’d been to two shows since I moved here and that has been my only experience with the awesome cooking tools. I bought some small things: a spatula, some measuring spoons, and a stone bar. I use all of these pretty much every day, if not multiple times a day. I absolutely love them and would love to get more products!

So, that’s why I hosted a show in my home with my good friend, Tanja. She dropped off a bunch of supplies the day before so I could use them for anything I wanted to cook. I made some Pampered Chef potato soup, mini-carrot cakes, and an awesome banana/chocolate/cream trifle – delish! I also had some fruits, veggies, and candy out.

Six friends game over to enjoy some good food, gab, and cook with me. We all baked some yummy cheesy bacon bites together. I started out by cutting out circles from some premade pie crust, then called on a friend. She’d grate some cheese, then call on someone else, who would fry some bacon, etc. Eventually we all got to try out some great tools and in the process made some great little snacks (they are tomatoes, garlic, bacon, cream cheese, cheddar baked in pretty little crusts in a mini muffin pan.)

Pretty much all my kitchen gear is cheap, from Walmart or the BX (with the exception of our knives, one pan, and the couple PC things I have!) I’m looking forward to ordering some good quality tools to help make cooking easier and more enjoyable. I’m hoping to get new, baking pans, and some serving dishes! My show closes on pay day, then we’ll see. It would be great to have new things in the kitchen in time for the holiday cooking!

I’ve been craving all sorts of terrible delicious goodies lately, so I spent the day in the kitchen baking for myself. I had four zucchinis and wanted to make some bread. It’s almost healthy! This is my favorite recipe, but I decided to make some changes. First of all, I had 4 medium zucchinis, which I’m pretty sure was a bit more than 2 cups. So, more zucchini, but it didn’t seem to hurt anything! I cut back on the sugar just a little bit (2 cups instead of 2-1/2). I also substituted half of the oil with applesauce (so 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 applesauce). I made one loaf and a bunch of muffins and love how they turned out! Rhino inhales the muffins too, and I’m glad to sneak some vegetables in the boy, even if they are surrounded with sweet, cinnamony bread!

This morning was also our church’s annual 4th of July picnic. It’s a potluck and I signed up for dessert, so I made some patriotic cupcakes. I split the white cake batter and dyed a third of it red and a third of it blue and layered the batter in the muffin cups before baking. When you bite into the cupcake, you get red, white & blue stripes! I also decorated them using the same technique that I used for Rhino’s 1st Birthday rainbow cupcakes. They turned out pretty (even though I rushed through decorating) and were a hit!

I also made up some peanut butter Rice Krispie Treats and some chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies. I know, I’m being a pig, but I think I have an excuse!

(What was going on this time last year? 4th of July Fellowship!)

This post makes 300 blog entries here! Not that I was waiting for this magical number or anything, but I did notice it when I went to post. So the cake wasn’t really in celebration of this blog milestone; I was just baking a cake for no reason. But post #300 sounds like a better reason than just because I was hungry!

My past cakes have been pretty ordinary. Chocolate or white cake or mostly just whatever the box mix says to do and slop on some frosting. I saw this recipe at Recipezaar (my favorite recipe site!) after having some cake at the last ladies’ fellowship that sounds like it could be the same thing or close. Matt doesn’t care for coconut and has just started a diet (he thinks he’s too fat. Hah! But it’s good for him to try to eat better…) so I know I’m on my own with this cake, but I still wanted to try it out. Well, I have friends I can share with … I guess.

Rhino likes to “help” me in the kitchen lately, which I appreciate! I can’t wait to cook with him and teach him things in the kitchen. For now, he just likes to play with silverware, the refrigerator, bowls, peek inside the oven, etc. Well, yesterday he discovered the oven mitts while Nicole and I were making tacos. He put both of them on all by himself and came barreling into the living room to show off his mitts! I’m not sure if he thinks they’re puppets (which he has gotten the hang of for the most part and really enjoys!) or if he just likes to copy Mommy, but it’s very cute! So today while I had the cake in the oven, I left the oven mitts on the rug for him to play with. He put them on and walked around for quite a while, peeking in at the cake and turning to show me his hands. I love it!

Usually I pig out on the batter bowls, mixers, and spoons by myself, but there were enough bowls to share this time! I took the batter bowl and gave Rhino the pudding bowl/spatula and then the whipped cream bowl/spatula. What a lucky boy!

The cake is yellow cake, topped with a layer of crushed pineapple, then a layer of vanilla pudding, then a layer of whipped cream, then some toasted coconut. Delicious! Before layering the whipped cream, I let the cake cool for a while in the refrigerator. I guess I didn’t let it cool thoroughly enough, because when I went to take it out of the fridge and cut a piece, I noticed all the whipped cream had melted. So it’s not all tall and fluffy like it should be, but it the whole cake still tastes wonderful! Next time (ohh, there will be a next time!) I will be really patient and wait to do the whipped cream for quite a bit longer.

I read this blog post over at Tea & Cookies a while ago and thought these dandelion muffins look so delicious, I had to try them sometime! The recipe is over at Fat of the Land, which I bookmarked and set aside for later.

Well, later has come! Today was the first day Matt was to go out and finally mow our grass. All the snow melted quite a while ago, but them we had that weird day of snow at the end of April, so we’ve been putting off lawn maintenance just in case. Now that everyone else in the neighborhood is cutting our grass and Rhino is almost getting lost in it’s height, we decided it’s time. Our yard has been overrun with dandelions, so I wanted to take advantage of the weeds before Matt cut them all down.

We all went out with some little baskets to pluck the heads off the dandelions. I’m so thankful I have such a sweet husband to go out and do things like this with me! Rhino was more interested in the budding dandelions than the blooming ones, but he did pick a couple of good ones. Mostly, he just wanted to put things in our baskets.

Matt and I are suffering from springtime allergies lately, so this was a good test of our over-the-counter antihistamine. We did just fine, but I think Rhino was suffering a little bit!

I brought all the dandelion heads inside and rinsed them. We live in a clean, rural area and I’m not too concerned, but it’s good to get all the dirt, bugs, and all that off them. I don’t want to think about it all too much more than that.

The most time-consuming part of making these muffins is separating the tiny, yellow petals from the green parts. The greens are bitter, so we don’t want to eat those. The recipe said to twist the petals from the stem, but that wasn’t working out so well for me. I’d split each blossom in half and use my thumb to sort of scrape/pull the petals out. I collected four cups of yellow dandelion fluff (I only needed three for the recipe, but it seemed like more was better) and called it quits, though I probably could have doubled even that with all the flowers we picked!

I mixed up the flour, baking powder, salt, and petals in a large bowl. Then comes the honey, milk, eggs, and oil. I added a couple extra squirts of honey because I have a sweet tooth! I tripled this recipe because we have so many dandelions. Hopefully they’re good enough to eat or share, because we’ll have a ton of muffins!

I baked 24 muffins at 400 for 25 minutes, then let cool. I cut open a warm muffin to butter it, set a few out on a plate, and couldn’t keep Rhino away from them!

He got his own muffin, which he devoured right away! They aren’t too sweet (unless I add extra honey – yum!) and came out fluffy and tasty. I wouldn’t think that they taste like flowers. They just have a “muffin taste”! We have four dozen of them now and hopefully some of our friends will want to try them out. If not, I’ll have dandelion muffins for breakfast for a couple of weeks!

Maybe we’ll make this a yearly tradition. The first lawn cutting of the spring we go out and pick all the dandelions for some yummy muffins. It will be a little more fun when the boys want to pick the flowers and help out with the baking (and definitely with separating the petals!) I’m finding all sorts of information on the fantastic health benefits of dandelion greens, but nothing specifically about the petals. It doesn’t matter; they’re yummy and there’s got to be something good in them!

Last Friday was my 26th birthday. We had just gotten home from our Tokyo trip on Thursday evening, so I was really in the mood for a quiet, relaxing day. There wasn’t really anything excited to speak of! Matt was on “Rhino Duty” all day which means that I didn’t change any diapers or get feed him. If I wanted to knit and he was “bugging” me (he always wants to play with what I’m playing with!) then Matt would make sure he’s distracted and entertained. Of course, I didn’t want a Rhino-free day, so I got to play with him and do all the fun things! I got to read, knit, browse the web, and just veg — it was very nice!

Nicole called me up that afternoon to say that she and Mike were taking us out to dinner, my choice! That was super-nice so we didn’t worry about cooking dinner or anything. One of my favorite places to go in town is The Global Kitchen. It’s a cute little place that has a little bit of everything: some Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, “American”, etc. It’s not all amazing, but it’s a nice selection and we like to go on Sunday afternoons because you order all-you-can-eat of about 20 different little plates. They have a whole big room devoted to families with children, which is really nice for Rhino. They have high chairs and a fenced-in play area with a small slide, lots of books, stuffed animals, blocks, etc. Rhino used to not care so much about all the toys, but now whenever we go it is such a blast for him! Mike and Nicole hadn’t been in a long time, so it was nice to bring them back there too. We had never been for dinner, which isn’t all-you-can-eat but they offer larger portions and a much wider variety. I had cheese rolls (they make the best cheese rolls I’ve found and I crave them pretty much every day now!), a big bowl of corn soup (Nicole and I love finding places with corn soup!), and some spicy pineapple pork curry. Delicious! There’s always something for Rhino, too. He loves the little panko-breaded chicken pieces, cheese rolls, some of Matt’s yakisoba, and some of my Thai coconut curry (he eats my cute little mushrooms and eggplant pieces, but mostly loves the bamboo!) It was very nice to go out with Mike and Nicole and was quite a scrumptious dinner!

On Saturday we had Mike & Nicole and Liz + kids over for dinner. We did a strawberry and kiwi appetizer (which Josh and Aime inhaled!) then meatloaf, potatoes and green beans. I can’t find my favorite meat loaf recipe, so I sort of winged it this time. It was very tasty, but really fell apart. The whole thing was finished off, at least! And Rhino probably ate twice as much as I did — he kept demanding more meat loaf! It may be one of his favorite foods (the only other thing we’ve seen him act like this towards is lasagna.) Matt wanted to bake me a birthday cake on Friday (he says he’s never baked a cake before!) but because we went out, I suggested he wait until Saturday. He made my favorite boxed cake: strawberry with white whip frosting. And he added cute little flower sprinkles! It turned out very well and was so sweet of him! When the Armstrongs and the Kisers come over we usually entertain with a Mystery Science Theater 3000. This time we watched Space Mutiny, one of our favorites! Josh and Aime kept Rhino amused most of the night. It’s so much fun having kids over and seeing how he reacts these days. He likes to chase them around and do whatever they’re doing. It was a nice night hanging out with friends and a very pleasant birthday!

We hadRhino’s first birthday party at the Weasels’ Den, which is such a great place for the kids! We rented a little barn-kind-of-place for 2 hours and Rhino was so ecstatic the whole time we were there! He had a blast crawling and cruising around the baby area, which is full of padded mats and castle pieces, mirrors, and giant building blocks. The Armstrongs (kids: Josh (5) and Aime (3) ) and the Kisers showed up for the festivities. We had pizza and pasta, chatted a bunch, and did presents and cupcakes.

Rhino received a gift certificate and cute card from the Kisers, a bunch of wonderful books in a pretty bag (Rhino loved the bag, hahah!) and an animal memory game from us. He was a little more interested in tearing the wrapping paper than he was for his little birthday celebration, but he was mostly interested in the ribbons and bag!

I wanted to make cupcakes again because it just seemed to make sense for Rhino to have his own little cupcake rather than a piece of cake or a mini cake just for him. I wanted everything to be colorful for him, so I wanted to make the cupcakes as colorful as possible, too. A few months ago I found a tutorial online for making pretty swirled cupcakes and had been waiting for an occasion to try it out. Thankfully the BX had a great assortment of paste food coloring! The technique is really very easy and turned out wonderfully! Our home just gets so warm that often the frosting would be too runny when it came out of the bag to make pretty, firm stars. Most of them looked pretty good, though! Rhino didn’t care either way, he just gobbled his little cake up!

It was a nice, small first birthday party and Rhino seemed to really enjoy himself the whole time. He didn’t get crabby at all and really likes being around Josh and Aimé. The Armstrongs and Kisers are our best friends here at Misawa right now, so of course it’s always nice for us to spend time with them, too!

I see that my last post date is in October. I’ve been stopping by to write something for weeks, but really, I’ve just been intimidated. So much has happened in the past three months, I’ll never find the time to write about it all! Well, now that I’ve gotten down to it, I’m giving you the extremely abridged version!

I’m really not remembering much about November! A few things stick out, though. Rhino started crawling around, we got our first Misawa snow (and Rhino’s first snow ever!), we had two nice Thanksgivings (one with the church, then a second in our home with our friends), and we discovered we’re going to have another baby in July ‘09! This of course is very exciting and just the age spacing we were hoping for. Thanksgiving was nice, too, and not very hectic at all. Liz, Nicole, and I split up the responsibilities. Really, all I had to do was make up some cranberry sauce and veggies and provide a clean home. The food was all wonderful and we had a terrific first Thanksgiving in Japan!

December will take a while to describe. I had my first prenatal appointment and we saw the ultrasound of our 8 week-old little bean! Heart’s beating, there’s only one in there, everything’s looks fine, that was about it! Two days later we began our trip back to the States to visit with family for Christmas. This was wonderful, but tiring! I’m so glad we got to see all our family (though not as many friends as I had initially hoped. Everything was getting too hectic!) and have Rhino meet the rest of the folks that didn’t get to come out when he was born.

Matt wrote up a big post about the horrible details of the travel itself. He pretty much covered it all, though he didn’t mention how uncomfortable a 9 or 12 hour flight is for a pregnant woman with morning sickness. Airplanes definitely were not my friends. I won’t take this space to complain further about travel and how we never want to step foot on an airplane again (we can stick out Matt’s career here and retire in Japan!) All our destinations made the flights more than worthwhile.

We flew into LA, so we decided to rent a car and drive up to Lompoc to see our friends and recuperate for the weekend. We left at 10pm on a Friday evening and it’s an overnight flight across the international dateline to California. When I booked this flight, I just assumed: leave Friday evening, overnight flight, land Saturday morning. I know, now that I think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. When we landed in CA and the captain said that it was 2pm on Friday, I was so confused! I hadn’t planned to arrive on Friday! So, it was my first time going back in time! We picked up our car and, 3 seconds off the lot, Matt almost gets into an accident! We’ve gotten quite used to driving on the left side and very slowly in Japan. When we got on the freeway, Matt felt all nervous that he was going so fast! Well, “so fast” is 45mph and he definitely needed to kick it up a bit, as everyone else was going 80! It was scary interesting watching him get used to driving in the US again. We arrived in Lompoc, called everyone we knew, didn’t get through to anyone, so we stayed in a hotel. It was nice to just relax and decompress from the long trip by ourselves. On Saturday (the real Saturday, not the Saturday in my confused head) we met up with Wayne and Rena, the wonderful couple from church that took us in as their “kids” (theirs had all moved out) and led the Bible study we attended for 2 years. It was nice to spend the weekend with them, have a little group reunion with some other church people, and show Rhino off. We also met up with our friends Denna, Adam & Ty. We went out to for an Italian dinner to catch up and gab. They ordered a plate of pasta for Tyler (2), but we discovered Rhino is nuts for pasta, and pretty much ate Ty’s whole plate! That was the first we saw of Rhino vehemently demanding table food and it was quite amusing, though slightly embarrassing to be out in a restaurant with a baby who yelled for food as if we hadn’t given him any for months! After church on Sunday we went over to Jody and Roy’s to see their sweet baby girls, have some lunch, and catch up. The weekend was so short and we were fighting to stay awake during the day, so we didn’t end up doing all that I had planned. I couldn’t get a hold of Danielle and would have loved to stop by work (it was drill weekend), but it just didn’t happen. We drove back down to LA on Sunday night, got another hotel (oh my, another whole big terrible story, too!) and caught a flight to Dallas the next morning.

These descriptions will probably get shorter, now, as there’s still plenty more. Texas was nice. Papa was the only one to have met Rhino, back in March, so it was wonderful that all my uncles, aunt, grandparents, etc. got to meet him! Unfortunately, Rhino hadn’t gotten used to the time zones yet and had just started teething again, so he was pretty grumpy a lot of the week. We kept busy, though. We had a nice Mexican lunch out at the Tupinamba, a restaurant that my family always goes to when I come to visit! We got to see my brother, Matthew, who also lives in Dallas and finally meet his girlfriend, Adria. The five of us went to Ripley’s Believe it or Not, had lunch at Chili’s, and went over to their apartment for dinner and board games. Over the week we got plenty of gaming in — Sequence, Clue, Phase 10, Scattergories — and watched a couple of movies (Eagle Eye, The Other Boleyn Girl, As Good As It Gets). I also went with Grandmother and Aunt Pattie to a quarterly ladies’ luncheon at their church, which was really great! We had a delicious lunch, browsed through second-hand goodies to buy to support their Friendship House, and listened to a wonderful pianist and singer perform Christmas songs. Then on Friday, Papa took us out to the Granada, sort of his second home, with Matthew and Adria to see Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis. It wasn’t exactly our style of music, but it was nice to get out and see the theater and hang out with my dad and brother. We couldn’t bring Rhino, so it was his first time with a babysitter, Papa’s friend Kay. I was really worried that I’d get him to sleep at her house, leave, then he’d wake up and cry and never go back down for her. He did wake up a couple hours after we had left, and he cried for a little bit, then fell back asleep — I was quite impressed! Rhino got a few cute gifts from the Texas family. Papa got him some clothes, including a cute Dallas Cowboys onesie. Rhino also got a Bible stories book and a 2008 coin set. It was a nice time visiting with all the family and I’m glad they finally got to meet Rhino! We left Sunday morning for the next leg of our trip: New York!

Okay, so these aren’t getting much shorter! Well, not to New York. We flew into Buffalo and Matt’s parent’s were there to take us down to Obi. Matt’s sister, Jen, was waiting at home for us and everyone was so excited to see Rhino (and us, I guess!) We got in pretty late, so we pretty much went straight to bed. The rest of the week was filled with a lot of family (Matt has a lot of family close by!) visiting and staring at, taking pictures of Rhino! We went over to Mom-mom and Pop-pop’s one night to meet up with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.! Rhino got to meet Mitchell, a little boy just 3 weeks older than him. They were so cute together! Another night the church pastor and his family came over one night for dinner and games. Jen and I got a “sisters only” afternoon one day to go get lunch and tea and browse Jo-Ann’s. Jen, Mom and I had a cookie-decorating day! Matt’s brother Jason and his fiancée came over so they could meet Rhino and we could meet her! Later that week, they were married!! I got really sick the night before and couldn’t go to their wedding, though! It was tough, I spent about 36 hours curled up on the sofa or huddled in the bathroom. Rhino pretty much had a full day without Mommy, but he did really well with Grandma and Aunt substitutes! I was bummed to not be able to attend the wedding, but at least I recovered before our flight out. We also watched some movies (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, and lots of MST3K.) We also had an early Christmas on the 17th. Matt got more MST3K, some anime, books, cross-stitching stuff; I got some great knitting books and some others; and Rhino received so many cute clothes and toys! They’re all wonderful, but the thing he definitely loved the most was Jen’s gift: a very cute little baby piano! Rhino had recently started really enjoying music and dancing anytime any song started: a commercial jingle, someone singing, 3 notes on a piano, someone whistling, etc.! So he would stand up at the piano, bang out a few notes, dance to his music, play a few more, dance, and on and on! Everyone loved watching him play! It was a fun early Christmas! We did it again a few days later at Aunt Ginny’s with Aunt Connie & Grandpa, too. Rhino got more wonderful outfits, toys, and books. Thankfully, Mom and Dad shipped everything to our home so we didn’t have to pack all the gifts out! We left for the airport Saturday afternoon, but our flight out of Buffalo had been canceled. We made the long drive back home to sleep, and got on an early flight Sunday morning for Colorado.

Originally we had planned to arrive in Colorado two days early, rent a car, stay in Mama’s condo in Denver, and visit with friends in Fort Collins and Denver. By the time we got to Colorado, we were running out of money, car rentals were really high, I was lazy and hadn’t recently been in touch with any friends, we’d lost a day due to our canceled flight, and we were feeling pretty run down. Mama and Ron just picked us up from the airport and took us down to the Springs. I feel like a terrible friend, but it was nice to just relax at “home.” Plus, my sister, her husband and daughter were flying in just a few hours later so I’m glad that we were around to spend more time with them. We had planned to spend time with our friends Carol and Derik, who live in Omaha (and we used to work together. Matt went to tech school with both of them.) They drove down to the Springs for the weekend to see us, but it only turned into an hour that they came over and chatted after dinner on Monday. It was so nice to see them and of course I would have liked more time, things just didn’t quite work out. I’m so glad we at least got to visit for a little bit. Hopefully we’ll have another opportunity before too long! So with my sister in town, I finally got to meet my niece, Amelia! She’s 8 days younger than Rhino and I was so excited to see the two of them together. It was so interesting, they are such different babies! Rhino is a lot more vocal, interested in music and crazy about food. Amelia is all ready running around!! She likes to do her own thing a lot. They both play so differently, sleep differently, eat differently, cry differently — it was quite an experience! She is so beautiful and such a sweetheart. At 10 months, the babies weren’t really interested in playing with each other, but they did play next to each other! We joke that Amelia is sort of a “bully” — they would both be playing with toys, but she would always want to take whatever Rhino had instead! Rhino was very laid back about the whole thing and never really seemed to mind, haha! I wish we could have spent more time with Andrea and her family, but hopefully we will get to see them next year (when the babies won’t be babies anymore — waah!) Aside from watching babies in Colorado, we did actually spend time with Mama and Ron, too! Their dogs, Jack and Tilley, are very high-strung little wild dogs (but so sweet!) and we were nervous about how they’d act around the babies. We were all very surprised though, they were SO good! Whenever a dog would come up to Rhino, we’d say “dog” a lot and eventually Rhino would look at the dog and say “dauh” — he just wouldn’t say the ‘g’. I’m not counting it as a first word, but it was really close and he would do it everytime he’d see a dog! One night we were there, we went out to the Golden Bee, an English pub at the Broadmoor hotel. It’s sort of a Christmastime tradition that my Grandpa started years ago. The babies were really well behaved and loved eating crackers. We drove around afterward and looked at the light displays. We spent a lot of time at home, just relaxing, chatting, hanging out in the kitchen, watching TV, etc. Mama made some great meals that Andrea and I tried to help out with! Andrea made a delicious spinach tofu lasagna one night and Mama and I made a copy of the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana soup (my favorite!) Andrea and I made multiple visits to the Whole Foods — it was like Grocery Heaven for us! I wish we had more than our crummy commissary selection and expensive Japanese produce out here. Andrea found a Buddha’s Hand and was so excited, she bought it as decoration (I thought it was more appropriate as a Halloween decoration!) We never did use it for anything, but in the future she wants to make candied peels out of one. I found a kiwano that I had wanted to try since I found this sorbet recipe on one of my favorite foodie blogs. Well, we didn’t make a sorbet, just ate spoonfuls from it — and it was less than enjoyable! Matthew and Adria flew in on the 23rd, so now all us siblings were together with our significant others! It was quite a full house, but tons of fun. We had a great, salmon Christmas Eve dinner and filled up on Christmas cookies (Mama went overboard with the date rolls, oatmeal chocolate chip, pinwheels, hazelnut cookies, ricotta cheese sugar cookies, etc, etc.!!) before heading off to the candlelight service at First Pres. It was a beautiful service and I was so glad Matthew and Adria joined us as well. When we got home we opened all of the “grown-up presents”. Mama and Ron got each couple an awesome digital frame, which I love! We did stockings and “baby presents” Christmas morning, which was lots of fun! The babies got some adorable clothes, wonderful books, and some very cute Little People toys! Andrea, Michael and Amelia flew out the next day, so we got some time with Matthew and Adria. We all went to Cave of the Winds, which was amazing! With all the time we lived in Colorado, none of us had ever been and it’s just a few minutes from home. We left from Denver early Sunday morning for our long flight back to Japan.

The whole month was filled with such nice visits with family. I’m still getting all the photos from each location together, then I will post them to the gallery and include links in this post. I didn’t really take many pictures at all, though! I guess I was too busy with Rhino and visiting that I just didn’t think much about photos. Thankfully, other people got a few! The whole trip was very tiring and expensive (see Matt’s post!), but was definitely worthwhile! Unfortunately, it very well may be our only trip back to the States while we’re stationed in Japan. Mama and Ron, Jen, and Matt’s parents are all planning trips out to see us within the next 18 months, though!! I can’t wait to show them all the wonderful things out here!

Edit: Here are links to the vacation photos from California, Texas, New York, and Colorado!

10 minutes ago I was craving a little bit of chocolate, so I decided to try out this Chocolate Cake in 5 Minutes! It’s a neat idea and worked out pretty well, but I’m not really a huge fan of chocolate cake usually. It turned out pretty dense and spongy, not as light as I generally like cake. I’m reading through the comments and there are some ideas in there to modify it that I may try in the future. It’s not terrible or anything, just not my cup of … cake. Try it out if you need a quick fix for your cake craving!

A family from our church had a barbecue at their house yesterday. It was supposed to be on the 4th, but the forecast had been calling for lots of rain the 4th and 5th so they moved it to the 3rd. (We were originally planning a camping trip the 3-5, but canceled that because of the forecast. So far it’s 4pm on the 4th and we’ve just seen a couple little sprinkles. It would have been nice to go camping! We did set up the tent and the sunshade in the backyard for a practice camp-out, but when it started to drizzle we took them down. Then, of course, it was nice all night!) Anyhow, we went to the barbecue and had a wonderful time! A bunch of other families were there and we really got to know people from our church better. Everyone brought sides and/or desserts and all the food was fantastic! Rhino and I baked my chocolate pecan thumbprint cookies.

I love them so much (I think it’s the best thing I know how to bake!), but they’ve been the last snacks standing at two bake sales in the past. I made about 5 dozen for the get-together and most people tried them, but I saw quite a few half-eaten leftover cookies. Crazy people! There is one woman who thought they were amazing and ate a whole bunch, so that made me feel better (plus, I don’t feel too bad because I got to bring some home for myself, hehe!) Anyhow, these are my yummy cookies, and that’s enough of that.

The picnic was our first outing with lots of kids. I think everyone who came brought at least one kid. Kids were everywhere. It’s fun, they’re all sweet and adorable (and even the teenagers were super-polite and pleasant — we took 4 of them home!) Six of us tried to play a game of Balderdash and that was the most hectic thing I’ve ever experienced. Of course we’ll need to get used to this now, but it was a little overwhelming for our first time in a house full of noisy, clingy, playing, climbing kids. Rhino was mellow, of course, but I know that he’s not too far off from all that! We got one round (not anywhere near a whole game!) of Balderdash in and that was lots of fun. We spent about 4 hours there and were really glad we went (even though we didn’t get to go camping — there will be other camping trips!)

It’s our wedding anniversary and we had a really great one! Matt went into work this morning and asked if he could get off a little early. They sent him home for the whole day because he can have either his birthday or his anniversary off each year. He’s also getting Thursday and Friday off because our household goods are arriving. I love Matt, but sometimes he’s not the best at remembering dates and events or doing anything for them. So I had been a little prematurely disappointed these past few days that he wouldn’t remember anything. Well, I was surprised to see him when he came home and woke me up with the news! We exchanged gifts (he brought me flowers and hazelnut chocolate and the Sims2 Kitchen and Bath expansion — I make the best bathrooms! And I got him a movie and a game.) and had a nice day just relaxing together with Rhino. I made one of his favorite dinners, chicken and corn chowder, and baked an anniversary cake. It is kind of strange thinking about last year’s anniversary. This time last year, we were at Cool Hand Luke’s, waiting on a table, and just seeing two pink lines appear as a missile soared overhead. So we’ve known Rhino was with us for a year now, too. It’s been a wonderful 3 years with Matt (he says it feels like 30 years, which I took as a compliment, though I wonder ….) and I am happier than ever with him. Every year has just gotten better and he is such a great husband! Happy Anniversary, Matt sweetie!