Blog, oh blog how I’ve missed you. You know what
I stink at? Balancing real life with, you know, blogging about it.
A few highlights of what I’ve been up to in my prolonged absence (again) before I give you the best recipe EVER. I mean, like, EVER. EEEEVVVVEEEERRRR.
We went to Tennessee and Florida for Spring Break
(oh and the states in between Iowa and FL too since we drove). It was perfect
and fun and warm and the kids got 3rd degree sunburns because I fail
at momhood and did not slather them with the appropriate level of sunscreen.
And while normally they never burn and instead just tan no matter how long we’re
out or if the sunscreen gets worn off or even if we forget the sunscreen
altogether, apparently their skin wasn’t prepared to come out of Iowa winter
hibernation. So yeah , oops. But that didn’t stop us from going back to the
beach the next day (and perhaps a day or two after that ), I mean HELLO we drove
20 hours to hit the beach we are not sitting in a hotel playing cards when there
is an ocean nearby. So we lathered up with super high spf and all was well and
my soul was at peace. I love the beach so much.
On our 3rd, fine
4th day at the beach, not consecutively mind you but 4th
nonetheless, the kids informed me that I *may* have ruined beaches for
them because we go to them so much and could we please go back to the mountains
and Yellowstone sometime? Well EXCUSE ME, last time I checked there was no
ocean in Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains and mama needs her beach time.
Aren’t they such deprived children that you feel sorry for? Not. We also hit
Sea World while we were there and I really really REALLY wanted to bring home a
dolphin but alas we had to settle for just feeding them. Oh and the kids had to
settle for GI Joe and I rubbing it in that we got to SWIM with dolphins on our
cruise last November. Yes, they loved us for that. Here wanna see?
I’d settle for a killer whale too, they’re just
harder to smuggle out of Sea World. Darn security.
We spent a couple days on the panhandle of
Florida in this super cute beach town where our friend David, best man in our
wedding, lives with his wife and son. We had so much fun hanging out with them
(it had only been 13 YEARS!) and eating the Florida seafood feast that David
prepared for us. Grouper, clams, shrimp, scallops, we had it all and it was so
SO good.
I don’t know if you guys know this or not but
Florida has some dang good seafood and we made it a personal goal to eat as much
seafood as possible while we were there. Mission accomplished. And now my
mouth is watering. Yum.
Our very last day in Florida, a Friday, we spent
on Daytona Beach because we’re crazy and brave like that. I mean, Daytona Beach
on Spring Break? Recipe for disaster and/or a whole lot of life lessons for the
kids such as “See that right there? That’s why we’re NEVER letting you go on a
spring break trip with your friends without us when you’re in high school”. But
it really wasn’t as spring break crazy as I’d thought it would be so we had a
fantastic day of the boys playing football on the beach while Dakota looked for
shells intermittently asking if we could leave yet (13 is a fabulous age ya’ll)
and I sat on a blanket soaking up the sun and ignoring texts from our family
back in Iowa telling us about the winter storm that promised to bring 4-7 inches
of SNOW that weekend. It was like they didn’t want us to come home and believe
me GI Joe kind of had to DRAG me off of the beach kicking and screaming. But
before we left we took some pictures and some accidentally inappropriate
ones.
My apologies to any beachgoers @ Daytona that day
that I may or may not have flashed. Also, my family is weird.
Then we started the journey home by way of
Tennessee because duh. Why would I pass up another opportunity to see these
faces? So what if we’d just seen them the weekend before on our way down to
Florida? There’s no such thing as too much time with these cuties.
Then we decided to leave earlier than planned
from there so as to beat the storm home. We hadn’t anticipated driving straight
through til we got home but that’s what we ended up doing. We pulled in our
driveway at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning only to discover that we were locked out
of our own house. I never carry a housekey with me and our neighborboy that had
been taking care of the farm and the dogs while we were gone had GI Joe’s keys.
So there we were just wanting to crawl in our beds and we couldn’t even get in.
We tried calling and texting the neighbor kid to get our key back but of course
he didn’t answer because again, 4:00 IN THE A.M. GI Joe tried breaking in
without actually breaking anything and couldn’t so finally we resorted to
calling his mom who I was sure I had given a key to at some point. She answered
right away, probably with her heart in her throat because usually a call at that
time of night is bad news, and we promptly drove down the road and retrieved a
key. And we all fell happily into our beds and proceeded to sleep til mid
morning. The rest of the day is kind of a blur.
But the next day I did venture out to take Dakota
to a doctor’s appointment where I accidentally walked into some stranger’s exam
room when I thought I was exiting the office. So that was awkward. Oh and then
THIS happened.
I ran out of gas…again….right in front of the gas
station.
GI Joe had me on speaker phone as it was
happening so his whole office heard the whole sordid thing where I was saying
things like, “NO NOOOOOOO JUST A LITTLE BIT FURTHER! GOOOOOOOO GO! “ trying to
urge my PMobile just a few more feet to the pump. As it turns out the employees
at Casey’s took pity on me and lent me a gas can that I filled and then walked
the (very) short distance back to my truck and put it in. then I was able to
drive it to the pump and fill it up. Except by fill it up I mean put $45.00 aka
half a tank in because who wants to stand there for 15 minutes so it can fill
all the way up.? BORING.
Then I wore my Easter dress backwards to church
on Sunday. So there’s that.
After those kinds of days, sometimes you just
need a treat like this.
THE. MIDDLE. OF. AN. OREO.
Which is really the ONLY part of an Oreo…that
I’ll eat anyway. Just ask my family. They love finding just the cookie part
(yuck it doesn’t even taste like chocolate!) left in the package of Oreos after
I’ve scraped the filling out with a knife and eaten it. The only good part I
tell you. Imagine my delight when I saw this recipe. I was a bit skeptical
because how could it taste JUST LIKE OREO FILLING as she claimed? But you guys,
IT DOES. And now that I’ve made this no less than 5 times for various events
and functions since discovering it, I feel like one of life’s great mysteries
has been solved. Next up, making my own Twinkies. I have the magic pan now
let’s see if I can match the rest.
Here it is. Make it. Impress your friends,
neighbors, coworkers, kids, the mailman. Let them think that you actually
scraped out the filling from 100 Oreos. It’s fine.
½ c. vegetable shortening as in Crisco as in that
weird white stuff
½ t. vanilla1 t. sugar
3 ½ c. powdered sugar
3 T. hot water.
Mix all ingredients with mixer for 2 minutes.
Store in an airtight container for a week, doesn’t even have to be put in the
fridge. Dip mini Oreos, pretzels, animal crackers, chocolate chip cookies, your
spoon, and ENJOY. And don’t worry about the Crisco content in here, all good
things come from Crisco, haven’t you watched The Help?
Have a wonderful weekend!
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