Mudslide Cookies

I've found another amazing cookie recipe. I've decided that any recipe developed by Jaques Torres must be amazing (he's the mastermind behind my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe too). These cookies boast 2+ pounds of chocolate and are beyond rich. The recipe calls for very large cookies, but these cookies are so loaded that I (the lover of all things chocolate and rich) can only eat 1/8 of a big cookie, so consider yourself warned... just make them bite sized, and then you can eat 3 or 4 of them!

Chocolate Mudslide Cookies
Melt 6 oz. unsweetened chocolate and 16 oz. bittersweet chocolate, then set aside to cool

Beat until grainy/"wet sand" looking:

• 6 Tbsp. room temperature Butter
• 2 1/4 C plus 1 Tbsp Sugar

Add 5 Eggs, one at a time

Add

• 1/8 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 C plus 3 Tbsp Flour (regular all-purpose stuff)
  

Mix until moistened then add the melted chocolate mixture (the dough will be very wet at this point, but don't panic and add flour, it will all come together in the end)

Add 16 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate and 1 1/4 C nuts (nuts are always unappreciated in my house so I don't put them in)

Scoop dough onto heavily sprayed sheets or an unsprayed baking liner.
Sprinkle with salt.
Bake at 325 for 12-15 minutes (13 minutes for my oven)
Cool completely before removing from sheets

My modifications...
I didn't have time to bake the cookies as soon as I finished mixing the dough so I refrigerated it for about an hour. That made the dough easy to work with... not too soft, not hard at all.

The instructions say to use an ice cream scoop to form the cookies... I recommend much smaller cookies (be sure to adjust the baking time though as the 12-15 minutes applies to big cookies)

Rather than using bittersweet chocolate for the chocolate chunks, I used chunked up Dark Chocolate (so good!)

School Fees

Not everything about school starting is fabulous. Having kids in the secondary education system means school fees. Secondary Education is not free; fees apply. These fees aren't for extra-curricular activities, but they are for your everyday, run-of-the-mill required classes. The junior high fees aren't awful, but they really stick it to you with the high school fees. For example, English is a required class. It costs $15 to take English at the high school. Nolan is required to take PE. It costs $3. Science costs $10 at the junior high and $15 at the high school. It costs $2 to use the library and another $2 to have a locker, whether you want to have a locker or not. The textbook rental fee is $35. It costs $50 to be in band in high school even though Jonathan has his own instruments. It cost $123 for Nolan to walk through the front door of the junior high. It cost $249 for Jonathan to attend THS. Now, those fees aren't the only fees I get to pay. I already paid $400 for Jonathan to be in marching band. I have to pay a $35 fee to UVU for Jonathan to take his concurrent enrollment class. His pep band shirt will cost another $10 (and why that isn't a part of his band fee, I do not know). In the spring, I will have the opportunity to pay approximately $450 for him to go on band tour. I already paid $115 for summer Driver's Ed. When the final fee of the year is paid, Jonathan's junior year should cost close to $1300 out of pocket for his public education (not counting all the optional fun stuff... lunch, dance tickets, pictures, food while on band tours...). Nolan came home from school yesterday with a note from his ballroom teacher indicating that (in addition to the $3 required fee for ballroom) I have to purchase dance shoes for him. Really? Lame. Well, what's another $30 at this point? I know school budgets are beyond stretched, but so are many people's personal finances. I'd hate to limit my children as to what they can take based on additional fees. I have an issue with the school district charging me fees for classes required for graduation. To me, if it's required, the school district/state should cover the cost of the class. I paid my fees. My kids are in school. Rant over.

First Day of School

One word summarizes it all... SUCCESS! Both boys had a great day (with very little homework). Let's hope the remaining 179 days go as well.

Man, Rude Driver Alert!!!

I was driving down my street, nearing my house, getting ready to make a left into the driveway. There was oncoming traffic, so I stopped and was signaling left to turn into my driveway. This psycho driver in a grey Honda Odyssey is coming down the street behind me. I'm waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear. The Honda comings flying up behind me and is laying on the horn. I yell "I'M SIGNALING, YOU JERK!" at the minivan. Then I realize it's my good friend giving me a "friendly" honk. Thanks, Mannings.

Back to School

School starts this week! Nolan begins school tomorrow at a new school. He's in Seventh Grade this year and will be attending Oak Canyon Junior High. He went to the open house last Thursday and left feeling a bit overwhelmed. Tomorrow only the Seventh Graders go to school for a half day to help them acclimate to their new "home away from home". He's been studying the school map and memorized his locker combination so I know he'll do fine!
Jonathan starts school on Tuesday as a Junior at Timpanogos High School. He's taking a beast-load of classes and is looking forward to school dances this year. On "A" days, Jonathan's classes start at 6 a.m. He gets to sleep in on "B" days and doesn't start until 6:30 a.m. Ugh! He'd better get his driver's license soon so I don't have to drive him much longer. Last year when I took the "Back to School" pictures of Jonathan, he was all business. This year he's feeling more confident about high school and had me take the silliest pictures.

Summer Job and Seven Peaks

This post title seems a bit redundant because for Jonathan, they are one and the same. Jonathan has worked this summer as a tube rental/parking lot attendant employee at Seven Peaks. The season is rapidly coming to a close and I realized that I didn't have any pictures of Jonathan working, so last night Dan and I took Miles to Seven Peaks for playtime and pictures. Miles had a great time. He likes the Lazy River (5 laps), jumping in and swimming around the kiddie pools, the "back side of water" (thanks Jungle Cruise at Disneyland), and usually he likes "Tube Run" (but last night it was scary. Yesterday Jonathan was scheduled to be a Tube Runner (gets the tube from the stack and hands it to the customer), but when I found him the first time, he was being a Thrower (which he says should really be called a Stacker). The next time I found him, he was the Mat Director (which could be renamed to Mat Stacker). While Jonathan's summer job hasn't been the most exciting employment, it's been a great experience for Jonathan. He takes responsibility for getting to and from work. He gets up at a reasonable hour instead of sleeping until noon. He's proven to his supervisors that he is reliable and a hard worker. He was told that he is the only employee in his department that has always gotten every shift covered that he was scheduled for but couldn't work. Between work and marching band, I don't think Jonathan thinks he had much of a summer break, but his bank account sure is happier!

Miles & United Breaks Guitars

So there's this video on YouTube about how horrible United Airline's Customer Service and Damaged Property Policies are. Miles has become obsessed with the video "United Break Guitars" (which is really funny and comes highly recommended). I love watching Miles dance to the song.

Amy's "Graduation"

Amy "graduated" from BYU on Friday. I say "graduated" because she still has one semester left. Amy will really graduate in December, but BYU doesn't hold graduation exercises in December, just in August and April. December graduates are invited to walk early in August or return and participate in April. Walking in April when you graduated in December is really anti-climatic (I know because that's what I did), so Amy walked on Friday. I love the look on Sean's face! Maybe when she officially graduates in December I'll post the cute and flattering pictures of her!

August Garden Update

The garden is a mystery to me this year. Nothing is "on schedule". What does ripen is yummy! It appears that the beans are essentially done, while the tomatoes are just gearing up. The peppers are coming along, and there are several lovely pumpkins. Here's this morning's harvest. Oh how I love the yellow pear tomatoes!

A Good End to a "Crappy" Day

My day yesterday was jam packed to the point that I had to transfer everything on the calendar to a large sheet of paper and put everything in chronological order. The day started with Jonathan at Marching Band. He rode his bike and locked it to a tree. At 9:25 a.m., he called me with a "little problem". He'd lost the key to his bike lock and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I told him "I don't have time to do anything about it" and asked what was he going to do about it. He asked for a ride home. We checked on YouTube to see how to pick the U-Lock, but the only video that pertained to his type of U-lock involved filing hacksaw blades down and creating other picks with odd sized paperclips. Dan told me to try to bust the lock apart with a car jack, I asked about drilling the lock and was told it wouldn't work. In the afternoon, we went down to the high school to try to break the lock apart with a car jack. My attempts failed. Jonathan went into the school to see if the school had anything that could destroy the lock. Mr. Custodian came out with a bolt cutter (that I knew wouldn't help) and failed to cut through the lock.

There wasn't anything left to try (and Jonathan had a clarinet lesson) so it was time to go. (Time for the crappy part) I went to put Miles in his car seat. He'd pooped. I grabbed the diaper bag from the back of the Subaru and found a shady place to change Miles. I get the diaper off, grab the wipes and find that the wipes are completely dried out (and this changed really required wipes). I cleaned him off the best I could with dry wipes then resorted to spitting on my baby to try and get him clean. I ran out of spit before Miles was clean. There was only one option left. I told Jonathan to bring me a bottle of Powerade from the car. Yes, I cleaned my little one's bum with Powerade. It worked and he didn't seem to mind.

I called Dan and told him that the lock was now his problem. Remember that earlier in the day I'd asked Dan if drilling through the key mechanism would work and he was sure it wouldn't, but when the lock removal project became his, he decided that drilling the keyhole was a great idea. So back to the school we went with a drill, bits, extension cord, inverter box (because the cordless drills need to be charged and there wasn't time to charge them before this adventure so we needed a way to power the drill), and car (to provide the power). Dan started drilling the keyhole, changed the bit to a bigger size, and within seconds had the lock apart! Jonathan was thrilled. Dan and I were shocked that it was that easy to drill through the locking mechanism when it was impossible to break/cut the lock apart.

The bike is saved; the lock is destroyed. the crappy day was over. All's well that ends well.

Introductions

Back to the playground at Golden Gate Park... I meant to include this in the earlier post, but I forgot.

Miles was "driving" the little kids part of the playground. There was a steering wheel sticking out of the wall and he was standing there "driving". A littler girl was standing close by and watching Miles drive. He noticed her, looked away, then looked back. Miles took his hands off the steering wheel, put both hands on his chest and proudly introduced himself to the little girl as "Baby", then went back to his driving. It cracked me up.

Dan's Birthday

Yesterday was Dan's birthday. I won't tell you how old he turned, but I'll give you a hint... he is 1+(3x3x5). Dan has always wanted a canoe. I have always said "no canoe". I didn't get him a canoe. I got him a kayak! Yesterday was the maiden voyage of the kayak. Dan, Miles, Jonathan, and I took the canoe to the Adventure Learning Park in American Fork (Nolan was mowing his grandparents' large lawn). There is a big duck pond in the park that is also stocked with fish. Jonathan liked chasing the ducks with the kayak. Dan took Miles out for a ride in the boat. Miles liked looking at the ducks and dead fish floating in the pond. He liked dangling his fingers in the water. Miles also thought that throwing rocks was awesome, but sometimes dumping a bucket of rocks into the pond is much more satisfying.

20th Anniversary

Dan and I "celebrated" our 20th anniversary last week. "Celebrated" means that the day came and went as scheduled, but wasn't really a "special" day for us... I was in California and Dan was at home. Don't get me wrong, the day will be memorable, but not for any romantic or earth shalltering reasons. I loaded Nolan and Miles into the car around 7 p.m. and we left my parents' house and headed to Reno. Since I was the only driver, I wanted to split the drive over 2 days. The drive was uneventful until the sun went down as we neared Sacramento and Miles took that as a sign to start screaming. Miles has an ear piercing, high pitched, painful scream. He screamed off and on from Sacramento to Colfax. At Colfax, he decided to scream non-stop to Reno. It was so annoying. At one point, while Miles was probably taking a breath, I asked Nolan what he was doing... his response was awesome! "Covering my ears". We got to Reno and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel/casino where we were staying and got Miles out of his car seat. He didn't stop screaming (and he is screaming and not crying)., and changed his scream to screaming for the car. It took 20 minutes to get him to calmed down so we could go and check-in. What finally calmed Miles down was seeing statues of horses. We got up to our room and Miles started screaming again because he wanted to see more horses. I heard a knock at the door. I was sure that it was going to be someone from a nearby room complaining about Miles, but to my surprise, it was someone from the hotel with a floral delivery for me. Dan had flowers sent to me for our anniversary. It was a great end to a stressful drive (and Miles went to sleep shortly thereafter).

Swimming at the Cabana

I grew up swimming and working at the Sunset Cabana Club. Several years ago, my parents were given a lifetime membership to the pool that is valid for them, their children, and their grandchildren. I took Nolan and Miles swimming at the cabana (Dan and Jonathan flew home the previous night). The pool seems to be unchanged from 29 years ago (but the trees are bigger). Miles splashed around in the baby pool (which is still freezing). Nolan decided to swim a mile... nice goggle eyes, and then go down the slide.

Golden Gate Park

Post wedding, we spent a day in Golden Gate Park. We went to the California Academy of Science and to a playground. All 3 of the boys loved the Academy of Science which consists of an aquarium, a planetarium, a rain forest, and a natural history museum. The displays "overlap" so while you are enjoying watching the fish swim overhead, they are also part of the rain forest exhibit making up the floor. Miles' favorite was the aquarium. He was obsessed with the tropical tank and the jelly fish. The big boys liked "everything" including the special exhibit of snakes and lizards. Miles also loved the museum map. He carried it around with him throughout the museum (and still gets excited to find it at home). After the museum we went to the playground. The first public playground in the U.S. opened in Golden Gate Park sometime in the late 1800's. All three of the boys had fun here as well. Nolan had fun on the "zip thing" and liked climbing the cable structure. Jonathan liked the off-centered spinning thing (that would have made me so sick). Miles liked climbing and sliding. The best was probably the cement slide that you slide down on a cardboard box. We had the fastest box in the park. Jonathan set it down behind him and some kid stole our box. It was a fun day!

Weddiing Time

Last weekend, Amy got married. We couldn't leave for the wedding until the the afternoon of the day before the wedding and had no idea what time we would arrive, so we decided that it would be best for everyone if we stayed in a hotel. We PREPAID for our hotel room and checked in around 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning only to find that our room had been given away. They offered us a smoking room (no thanks) and a king room (too small) before giving us a suite that suited us just fine. We got up after a few hours of sleep, got ready for the wedding, then drove to Oakland. The "I'll show you where to go" lady thought I was the mother of the bride... nice. Anyway, after the sealer screwed up both Sean and Amy's names (and don't ask me how you mispronounce two common names), they were married.

Amy and SeanKissing the Bride
Newlyweds and parents
Can you say "Bored"?"Fair Hoochies" at the templeCutting the Cake
Ready to toss the bouquetGarter time (enough said)
Sean & Garter catcher guy... I've never seen anyone so excited to catch the garter.
This kid was bragging to me that this is the 5th garter in his collection.

Beijing is Cool (post by Nolan)

I got a cat for my 9th birthday. I was begging for one since I was little. I got a cat and I called her Beijing. I called her that so that she could remind me of a trip to China. She liked to climb up us so she could get on our shoulders. It could be painful. One of her favorite places to go is up on our cabinets. She hates to go to the vet to get shots. Beijing loves to sleep on or with me on my bed. When my little brother was born she hated him. She hissed at him. She loves to eat fish and to go outside. When she goes outside she usually rolls around on the pavement. She loves it when I ask her if she wants some fish. One of the best things about having a cat is that we get a new responsibility. Some of the worst things about having a cat is cleaning the litter box, getting her inside when she's been outside, and when she barfs. Beijing is a really lazy cat. She spends most of the day sleeping. I love my cat and I think I couldn't ask for a better cat.
If you'd like to see funny pictures of cats, go to http://icanhascheezburger.com/

If you think you'd like to have a pet cat, read the article from Animal Planet below before getting one.

Cat Care 101

Cats require a lot of care to keep them happy and healthy. Learn the ins and outs of proper nutrition and grooming and find out how to bond best with your feline friend. Also, get educated on basic cat lingo for those visits to the vet, get tips on how to find a missing cat and more ...

• Cat Care 101
• Your Cat's Health
• Emergency Cat Care
• Travel and Your Cat
• Cat Litter Tips

• 

  Feeding and Nutrition
  Find out what your cat needs to live a healthy and active life.

  

  Feeding Tips
  Get tips on which food is best, how much water your feline needs and more.

  

  Cat Grooming
  While fairly self-sufficient, cats do need some extra help in the grooming department once in a while.

  

  Grooming Tips
  Get advice on everything from bathing your cat to clipping his claws.

  

  Cat Litter and Location
  Find out why cats can be finicky about their litter box, and what you can do to make them more comfortable.

  

  Cat Litter Tips
  Let us help you determine the best care and maintenance of your kitty's litter box.

  

  Bonding with Your Cat
  Make the time spent with your cat worthwhile by learning how to bond with him properly.

  

  Bonding Tips
  You might expect it to come naturally, but sometimes you need to work at bonding with your cat.

  

  Outdoor Cat vs. Indoor Cat
  Learn the advantages of keeping your cat indoors and find out how to make an outdoor cat change his ways.
• 

  Aging Cat
  Make sure you know the signs of aging and how to handle a senior cat.

  

  Your Will and Your Cat
  Including your cat in your will can ensure your pet's happiness and make certain his future.

  

  How to Find a Missing Cat
  Cats should have proper identification, regardless of whether they're indoor pets or outdoor.

  

  Glossary of Cat Terms
  Familiarize yourself with basic cat lingo and your life as a pet owner will be easier.

  

  5 Questions for Your Cat's First Trip to the Vet
  Get organized and know what you want to ask your vet, so you get the answers you need.

  

  5 Reasons Cat Microchipping Is Important
  Microchips have been known to save the day when other ID methods fail.

  

  Cat Adoption Vs. Buying From Cat Breeders
  What to consider if you're thinking about becoming a cat owner.

  

  What Are the Potential Dangers of Cat Toys?
  Some toys that attract cats the most may also be a health hazard for them.

  

  Cleaning Cat Stains
  Useful tips and tools for quick and thorough cleanups.