Cookie Dough Cake

This fun cake was my inspiration for Brian and Sarah's birthday cake this year.  It looks easy right!  I got up super early to get it going, they were going to be here to watch conference with us and celebrate their birthdays.  My first try was a fail, both layers of the cake stuck to the pans and tore, I was trying to take a short cut and use a boxed mixed.  Since I had to start over I decided to go ahead and make the Paula Deen butter cake from scratch.  Yay, it worked!

The cake turned out really well, the recipes are here.  If you make it, I think the Paula Deen cake is good but a little heavy.  The cookies are great, but remember to make a roll very small, for the cookies on top and then a larger roll for the sides.  The center is a ton of frosting and cookie dough balls, it is yummy.  The recipe made a lot of dough balls, I thought is was too many and didn't use all of them--next time I would definitely put all the dough balls in.  The frosting is really, really, good, I have never made buttercream frosting with flour, trust me it's good, just remember to double the recipe and like it says on the directions beat it for a long time.  I put it in my stand mixer and set the time for 10 minutes, it was perfect.

Happy birthdays to Brian and Sarah, we love you, thanks for spending the day  with us.

And They're Off...

 Brad and Mikey, veterans

Brad left for spring break today in Greece, Craig and I will be packing tonight for our trip tomorrow to Motel 6 in St. George.  Brad and Mikey, after spending last years spring break in Italy with MJ and J, the tour leaders, are dubbed veterans.  Last year there were only six students who went, this year there are about 18 or so, which called for three airport shuttle vans at MJ's house this morning.  Craig went to see Brad off, he said MJ was captain of the first van, J captain of the third and Brad and Mikey were made captains of the second van, guess which van is having a great time all the way to LAX!  Hmm on second thought I vote for MJ's van, Captain Brad and Captain Mikey's van is probably all asleep.

Rescue Bike

Last summer we got a new dog, he is a rescue Viszla, we love him to pieces, he's not a Jackie replacement, he's just Kaptain, so different, and he really has patched a hole in our hearts.  It was quite the process to get a rescue dog, you have to fill out applications, be approved, etc.  When he became available we had to be at the LA shelter at a certain time to apply for him, darn we were too late, someone was ahead of us.  The rescue people then told us they really wanted us to have him and if #1 wasn't in line right at opening time on the next trip he would be ours.  Yay, who would know that you have to be there right at opening time.  He is ours, he's part of the family.  I am relatively sure he was a rescue dog because he must have ruined an important dinner party.  Being used to a small dog (who thought she was a big dog) I was completely surprised the first time he stole food off of the counter, he was really well behaved in all ways except for that and we still haven't been able to break him of this, we just don't put anything within reach of him on the counters, except when we forget, which seems to happen quite often.

Yesterday we had a humongous garage sale (not at our house, we were just the helpers) for the Scout trip, they are going to Philmont this summer and doing a horse packing trip, when low and behold, look what turned up at the garage sale, as if there are not enough bikes in the Wright garage, entryway, bedrooms etc.  Brad fell in love with this gem, it's an old steel frame something, fixie.  In fact this Bianchi green (but not Bianchi) bike reminds me of adopting a rescue dog.  It was Kaptain's lucky day when we got him from a high kill shelter, he is loved and spoiled, he actually has quite the great life.  And so it was this bikes lucky day, he already has a new saddle, a borrowed wheel from Brad's race bike and a list of must haves from the bike shop.  I have lost count of how many bikes we own and I think that soon this bike can move to the stable in the garage.  

Just stand on your head...

I know, I know it's upside down, but I have spent way too much time trying to rotate it.  This was our sunrise view outside our hotel room in Scottsdale this weekend.  It was absolutely stunning.  I went to a dental conference with dad, you know how I love those....but it was really good.  We had a little adventure getting there, it was about 10 miles outside of Blythe and we were chattering away when I noticed that it seemed like the car needed to shift, ahem, well it was the transmission fluid overheating.  We limped into Blythe luckily, and discovered via Siri there are no car rental places in Blythe.  So we went to several auto parts places to see if we could get some transmission fluid, they were all closed.  Dad said a prayer and we saw a sign for K-Mart and headed that way, lucky for us there was an open auto parts store right by K-Mart, unlucky for us, it seems that the trans fluid was not low.  The guy at the auto parts store told us about a 24 hour garage and once we weighed the option of the 24 hour garage or a night in Blythe we decided on the 24 hour garage.  Surprise!  You can rent a car in Blythe, the garage had a Nissan Altima with 200,000+ miles on it they gladly rented to us and sent us on our way.  When we got back on Saturday night it seems, they flushed the transmission, they couldn't get the old filter off, but the car seemed to run.  There were no promises we would make it home, but whew we did, next up this week is to get the Pilot in the shop.  

Morning Motivation

Kyran texted me this morning, "Grammie rise and shine it's training time!"  -Kyran
So off to spin class I went, I texted my cute Kyran back via Siri that I was "off to spend" hmm does Siri make Freudian slips for you.  I think spend class would be way more fun than spin class.

Chef Kael

My grandson Kael is "Chef of the Week" at Curious Chef! This is the one who bought a blender with his back to school gift card, and today with his new gift card he bought a kit for making frosting designs, and dog cookie cutters. "Grandma did you know you can flip the cookie cutter over and make eggs in it? Pancakes too!" I love this boy!

 

 

Congratulations to Chef Kael, our Chef of the Week for Feb. 3! Want to see your little chef in our cover photo? Post a photo of your kiddo using their Curious Chef tools at:https://www.facebook.com/kidscookingutensils

VIP Dinner

Last night was dad's dinner for all of his VIP patients, great evening! And I had a pretty cute date, what do you think?

Very important in the catch-up

And the Wright family has grown!!!  Announcing Katelyn Elizabeth Wright!

Triathlon Training

That triathlon training business just wore him out, his daddy says we should send Uncle Brad to coach him!

Jex family at the cabin!

Patagonia

Kyle spent fall semester in Patagonia, Chile, here are some pics, most courtesy of his fellow NOLS students.

Random Catch-up

So I guess the vote is to keep updating the blog, I haven't done so but it does make a nice scrap book of our adventures (or lack thereof!).  So the catch-up is kinda random, this is a video Brent made from Christmas break, climbing with Kyle, surfing with Kyle and Brad and cabin skiing and snowmobiling.  Hmm.. blogger says the video is uploading..........

Maybe not.