Friday, June 21, 2013
First Day of Summer and my car read 99 degrees. My son is heading off
to summer camp next week to be a counselor for my nephews age group.
They have so much fun together and have become such good buddies. It's
kind of cute to watch them together. About a 7 year age difference but
Cole looks up to Collin so much, hadn't realized it until right now, but
their first names are very similar and they both have the same middle
name. Love those guys, have fun at camp and at least it is about 10
degrees cooler than last year. Glad there is a lot of water when they are playing out at the beach!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Ultimate Frisbee
So my girls are getting ready to leave to go play Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of kids that get together throughout the community to play Ultimate Frisbee. First time they are going, this group gets together to play every Thursday at 10:00am. So....the debate is it "no step" or three step" ultimate frisbee???? So got to thinking, this would be a great game to play out at the beach with the kids.
Here are the basic rules - not official ones....
Here's my girls getting ready to head off to play....go Gabs and Molly. Yes they are totally goof balls, one more than the other can you tell?
Here are the basic rules - not official ones....
- find an area to play and make your boundaries, think football shape
- 7 players officially on a team, but this is for fun so just divide your players up and that is your team.
- one team gets the "disc" aka frisbee to start. They begin by throwing the frisbee in any direction but obviously to their own players. If the frisbee is dropped, thrown out of bounce etc. then it is the opposing teams turn.
- Some rules allow the person to take no steps or 3 steps before you throw the frisbee. However, you are not allowed to run with the frisbee any other time, otherwise it's a penalty and you have to hand the frisbee to the other team.
- Points are received by running into the end zone.
Here's my girls getting ready to head off to play....go Gabs and Molly. Yes they are totally goof balls, one more than the other can you tell?
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Hugs & Kisses Cheescake
I started making this recipe years ago, the "true" cheescakes are just a little to time consuming sometimes and my kids totally feel in love with this recipe. In fact two of my kids always request this as their birthday cake, and you can make it ahead of time to take out to the beach. So why make things harder than they are right? So her is the actual Hershey's recipe, the only thing I do different is I use a full 8oz package of cream cheese - heck why waste the last two ounces and the little packages are sometimes hard to find. I have not made it with the Oreos as a crust, but my daughter did and said it was yummy!! Another hint, make sure your cream cheese is room temperature otherwise it just doesn't seem to blend right and gets lumpy - which leaves it yucky. PSS....I have also just placed this in a small rectangular pan or 8"x 8" square pan and served as bars. Good Luck!
Hershey's Hugs & Kisses Cheesecake:
Toss chocolate chips with flour and stir into cream cheese mixture. Pour into the crust.
Bake for 35 minutes or until the center springs back when lightly touched. Cool completely.
Optional – Chocolate Glaze: Heat 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips and 1/4 cup whipping cream in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until thickened and smooth. Immediately spread over cooled cheesecake.
Optional – Decorate the edges of the cheesecake with chocolate shavings and / or Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Best served chilled.
Hershey's Hugs & Kisses Cheesecake:
- 2 – (3 ounce) packages of Cream Cheese, softened
- 1 (14 ounce) can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 1 Egg
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup mini Chocolate Chips
- 1 teaspoon Flour
- 1 prepared Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust (8 or 9 inch) OR make your own with 2 cups of Oreo Cookies and a tablespoon of melted butter.
- Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses (optional on top as decorations)
Toss chocolate chips with flour and stir into cream cheese mixture. Pour into the crust.
Bake for 35 minutes or until the center springs back when lightly touched. Cool completely.
Optional – Chocolate Glaze: Heat 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips and 1/4 cup whipping cream in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until thickened and smooth. Immediately spread over cooled cheesecake.
Optional – Decorate the edges of the cheesecake with chocolate shavings and / or Hershey’s Hugs & Kisses. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Best served chilled.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Summer To Do's
So what are your plans for the summer…I don’t mean vacations
and such, but things to do around the house.
I always plan on getting organizing, decorating things, weeding,
gardening done….somehow it doesn’t all get done. Go figure.
So this is what I’m thinking. I
think we will just start going room by room, just doing touch ups on the pain,
cleaning the trim and whatever else needs sprucing up. You know some of it won’t take long at all
and if we all (meaning my kids) pitch in we will be done in no time. Now just
putting that into motion is a whole other story. There are also task outside that need to be
done, my patio furniture that is about 15 years old needs to be repainted so
the debate is what color….tried and true
black or a fun jazzy color? If I go with
black, you can’t go wrong almost anything goes with it and it is always a
classic. However, a fun color, red,
turquoise, green, even orange would be fun….but not as versatile. I think I’m talking myself into black, I
think the white would show to much wear and tear don’t you? I really do need to get it done as my son’s
graduation will be next year and you know what that means – PARTY!! So might as well get it all done and then I
won’t be stressing about it next Spring right?
I think I also need to pick up a couple of great wicker chairs from our
BeachAndCottageLiving.com outdoor furniture line to add on our patio for a nice
sitting area. Hope you all have a nice
day, see ya later on this week. Let me
know what color you think I should do.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
A 'Lil bit of Chicken Fry
It may not be chicken fry but this potato salad recipe is awesome and Bar-B-Q’s are the ultimate sign of summer at the beach or anywhere. So what is your
favorite summer recipe? Here is one that
my step-Mom started cooking up a few years ago and it is so simple and
yummy. It sounds a little odd, but try
it and you won’t be disappointed. The
only thing that would make it the ultimate is if you use homemade buttermilk
(ranch) dressing. I’m kind of a ranch
dressing snob and really only eat the homemade version. There is just something so delicious about
it. The store bought kind just doesn’t
quite do it. So here is the recipe, let
me know what you think.
- Potato & Sweet Potato Salad
- 4 Potatoes boiled and cut into chunks (if you want to leave the skin on that is up to you)
- 4 Sweet Potatoes boiled and cut into chunks
- throw the potatoes and sweet potatoes into a bowl after they have cooled, you don’t want them to mush together
- scallions – one bunch cut up
- bacon pieces cut up – amount to your liking, I say load it up, because I love bacon
- some salt and pepper to your liking approximately a teaspoon of each
- a bottle of ranch dressing
Toss the rest of the ingredients in with the cooled potatoes add in the bottle of ranch with all the other ingredients. Refrigerate until right before
you are ready to eat and watch the bowl disappear. Yummy….
-
-
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Oklahoma....Our thoughts and Prayers go out to you all.
Unbelievable destruction in Moore, OK. Prayers out to all of those that have been affected. I can't even imagine what those people are going through. A few years ago my daughter and I were caught out in the tornado that went through our area, but we found our way into a grocery store. We were driving home and this storm arrived literally out of no where and very, very quickly with almost no warning. We knew we were not going to make it home as our car was being tossed around a bit and we could not see much of anything. My daughter was suggesting that we pull into this neighborhood and was asking me if I knew anyone in the area and I really didn't and was concerned going to any houses because if there wasn't anyone home we were just wasting precious time. So I pulled into a grocery store parking lot and told Taylor (my daughter) that I wasn't even pulling into a parking spot, but just driving up to the front doors and we were going to run in. We both just jumped out of the car and I told her to run, I couldn't get my van door to shut because the wind was blowing so hard and I just left it open and went running with her into the store not knowing if my 4 month old vehicle would be intact when the storm was done. As we were running from our van to the store there was an electrical box that was blowing up across the street from us. There were men holding the store doors open for us and another staff person handed us meat locker jackets because they were telling us to run to the back of the store into the locker where we would stay during the storm. I called my husband as we were running to the meat locker and told him we wouldn't have phone service and where we were at, he let us know that they were all fine and they loved us. We were in the locker area for about 45 minutes. When we were released from the locker area, we headed out to our vehicle - the van door was shut but there were some plants on top of the hood of our van and some water in our van. All easy things to clean up. There was a fence knocked down across the street and there was a semi turned over on the way home along with some trees knocked down and other items scattered everywhere.
What we went through was scary, but nothing compared to what others have gone through especially the destruction that Oklahoma went through last night. Prayers to all of them and a quick recovery to pick themselves up and put everything back together again.
God Speed....
What we went through was scary, but nothing compared to what others have gone through especially the destruction that Oklahoma went through last night. Prayers to all of them and a quick recovery to pick themselves up and put everything back together again.
God Speed....
Friday, May 17, 2013
Random Acts of Kindness
Wow, is it gorgeous outside, I was enjoying working out on my
front patio, Wi-fi is such an awesome
invention. My neighbors daughter and
friends just came home (seniors who had their last day of school earlier this
week) and they are going swimming, isn’t that the life….that was a long time
ago, but definitely the more care free days.
I was searching for some articles on the internet and came across
this great one about Random Acts of Kindness, or as they are calling it Random
Acts of Pizza after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. People are donating pizza to those who are
housing others that were stranded in Boston and the Chicago tribune is sending pizza to the Boston Globe for all of
their reporting efforts at such a horrific time. It’s simple, it’s pizza, but it is a random
act of kindness that let’s others know you are thinking of them. Random Acts of Kindness can occur anytime or
anywhere. What will be your Random Act
of Kindness? It was suggested that we
all just do a Random Act of Kindness once a week Can you imagine how awesome
that would be?
Maybe your random act of kindness is helping a friend who has a
child graduating? Help them plant some
flowers, make their food, decorate or just pick up around their home. Graduation is such an awesome time, but can
be very nerve racking for everyone. Do a
Random Act of Kindness for a friend and see how great it feels.
We have a few graduations to go to ourselves, but we also need to
head back to our stomping grounds and go to my husbands cousins daughters
(twins) graduation. Whew, that is kind
of confusing huh. It will be great to
see the family, we will even hang out at the lake for a bit before heading
back. Enjoy your weekend. See ya next week.
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