Olympic Inspiration!

Friday Nights some in the area get together to go ice skating.  We've gone one other time, but that time only Tiana skated.  Tonight, I donned skates for the first time in probably 18 years or so!  It was kind of fun!  I've been killing far too much time watching day-old Olympics performances online lately, so I felt rather inspired to skate into greatness myself!  I was finally able to coax Tiana out into the middle of the ice, too!  Check out our fancy moves!  Click on the picture for more!

Beauty in Nature

In addition to all the flowers starting to blossom now, this kiwi offered a bit of beauty into the bleak winter days, too!

Sunny Saturday in February!

To celebrate the beautiful day, Kent, Tiana and I went downtown. First stop - Volunteer Park. We all hiked up the Water Tower (Kent raced and about did himself in and Tiana and I took it much more sedately, but still felt the effects of all the stairs!), then walked the grounds of the park, spending some time in the Conservatory, too. We took LOTS of pictures. If you'd enjoy seeing them, um, click on the goofballs!

From there we headed down the hill to the Pike Place Market and eventually enjoyed lunch at Cafe Yarmarka with our good friend Tiana! We ended up buying some food for a good German dinner, the veggies and some fruits we'll need in the next few days, some spices and a couple of antique books that we picked up at a rummage sale for $1 a piece!! It was a beautiful, relaxing day spent with a good friend in the sunshine! After we got home, Kent and Tiana finished the house for Meeting while I went walking with Jolyn! No lack of fresh air today!

This made my day!

Work today was a drag (man I hate being "old" and "wise"!) and so coming home to this was a definite day-brightner, smile-bringer, happy-dance-inducer!

Cookies

So, Tiana had a friend over to make cookies. It was quite hilarious to listen to them try to half the recipe (pretty simple math, really!) and adjust the recipe to hopefully get the desired flavor profile. Zach wanted vanilla swirl/chocolate chip cookies, Tiana wanted traditional chocolate chip. The adjustments didn't exactly make the vanilla swirl flavor happen, but anyway. Here's the before and after pictures of the baking sheets. Which was the girl's and which was the boy's do you think?!







Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cream together:
1-1/3 c. butter, softened
2 c. sugar
1/4 c. molasses
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
Add:
3-1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. chopped walnuts, optional

Bake at 375º 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Genius!

Check out this site! So cool!

They have offices around the world, so you'll have to choose the country closest to you!

I want to go....

...to Haiti to rebuild, to hold orphans, to comfort the seniors, to meet in fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ!
...to Africa, to build, to hold orphans, to meet in fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ!

Now how to choose...how to plan...how to go.