A cookout, a storm, allergies & sunshine

July 23, 2015

A cookout, a storm, allergies & sunshine

Donnie's mom Bev invited us to her and her husband's new condo for a cook out on Sunday. After church, we headed straight to Bev's (she lives less than 5 min. from the church). We'd brought swim gear to go swimming in the condo's community pool. We did eventually make it to the pool but a couple of things happened in between our getting to the condo and getting to the pool.

First of all, the kids LOVE Bev and Scott's two cats. One cat, Baby, hides successfully from them (and any guest apparently). Donnie jokes that the cat doesn't exist (but then he doesn't crawl around and look under each piece of furniture in hopes of getting a glimpse of the cat so I'm not sure that Donnie (or I) have actually seen Baby). Titan, their other cat exists for sure. Titan is obese and I'm pretty sure couldn't hide if he or she wanted to. The kids love to love on Titan, and by love on I mean putting their faces on and around Titan's face and fur.

The girls and I are allergic to cats. Our eyes start to water and we sneeze when we are at Bev's house for too long. I don't know what happened Sunday afternoon- maybe because their condo is smaller than their house was or maybe because Alyssa had her face on Titan for awhile when we first arrived, but Alyssa's allergic reaction to the cat(s) was more pronounced and happened much sooner than it usually does. She ended up eating her lunch in the garage! It was the place with the least amount of cat dander. Donnie, Scott, Abby and Jacob also ate in the garage. Only Bev and I ate inside. So much for a nice lunch together. I mean, we were together, but we weren't all together eating. Lunch tasted really good and I enjoyed catching up with Bev.

Shortly after we began eating, the sky darkened, the wind picked up and rain came barreling down. The storm last maybe 15 minutes and caused damage in their neighborhood (broken fences, Bev and Scott's 2 hour old patio umbrella broke, trees came down, etc.). Interestingly, in our town just 10 minutes south of Bev and Scott's place, we had rain but not a huge storm.

Within a half hour of the storm's passing, the sun came out and the humidity stayed high. It turned out to be a good day for the pool, after all! We headed to the pool where Alyssa had a really good time. The teen and soon to be teen didn't get in the pool. Thank goodness we have one "kid" left who loves pools. Long live loving pools, Lyss!!

Bev asked if I would make a dessert for the cookout. I love to bake so I was glad she asked for a dessert. I found this Rolo inspired recipe on Pinterest. Looks like it would be incredible when baked, right? Turns out, it wasn't. I baked them as cookie bars per the recipe. The bars were too oatmealy or something. They were ok; they contained butter, sugar, and two kinds of chocolate so short of burning them to a crisp, they had to be at least ok. They just weren't fantastic. I was disappointed because it was such an easy recipe. Just dump everything in one whole bowl, mix everything up and place in a 9 x 13 pan.

The baked product- I still don't understand how these didn't taste better than they did :(.

I know this a picture of refuse but I took it because 1) my camera was in the kitchen to take pictures of what I hoped would be fantastic tasting Rolo cookie bars, 2) this refuse came from our little garden and 3) the colors were so pretty. Nature is pretty awesome!