happy almost independence day!

except for the temperatures, i love this time of year! swimming, cookouts, friends and fireworks! awesome.

tonight we went to a former student's house for their annual fireworks show. his dad and our p.e. teacher at my school have their licenses to shoot off the BIG fireworks....professional fireworks.

they asked each family to bring a dessert to share. spencer generously offered to make ours. i didn't have much on hand, and i had forgotten about taking the dessert. so i told him to get my recipe box and find the recipe for no bake cookies. {yum-0} he wanted to make them all by himself, and i thought this would be no problem. {bless his little heart.}

photo of the day #183

spencer's no bake cookies

first he didn't know what a saucepan was, and then it confused him that the first direction said to put the last 5 ingredients in the saucepan and bring it to a boil. wow. but he kept insisting that he didn't need my help even though he came back and forth to my room several times while i was watching t.v. finally he stopped asking me questions so i thought everything was under control. then i heard, "mom! will you come help me, PLEASE?"

ok. if you know what kind of cookies he's making, then you know that they are supposed to be brown because one of the ingredients is cocoa. the mixture in the saucepan was still the color of oatmeal, and it had big lumps of butter in it. so i asked, "why is it this color? did you use all the ingredients? did you bring it to a boil?" one look at the kitchen counter told me he'd used all the ingredients because there were remnants of them all over the place! anyway......

as i took the spoon from him and started to stir the non-brown mixture, i quickly began to realize the problem. "did you stir the 5 ingredients together before you brought it to a boil?" i questioned. spencer replied with another question, "was i supposed to?" HOLY COW! how can you not know to stir the stuff together???

so in his defense, i just looked at the recipe, and he followed the directions exactly as they were written. "In a saucepan bring the last 5 ingredients to a boil. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and add oatmeal and peanut butter." nowhere in the directions did it mention stirring. and since he's a very literal person, he did it just like it said.

i was afraid to take the cookies to party, but they looked ok. i stirred and stirred until the mixture became the right color. they barely hardened enough before it was time to leave. so we didn't do a taste test. i ate part of one at the party. the flavor was good, but the texture was like taking a bite of the beach! the sugar had not melted, and so the cookies were incredibly grainy! i'm sure he'll get it right next time! i just love that he enjoys cooking!

on the way to their house we stopped by "america's favorite drive-in" for a drink. mmmmmm.....lemon-berry slush on a warm summer night....refreshing.

i didn't know most of the people there, but that's ok. the boys had some friends there, and they had a great time running around and being with kids from school again. i just sat by myself and enjoyed the breeze for a while. and then caleb, my former student, joined me and we got to talk. he's such an awesome young man! {and he still says i'm his favorite teacher ever! aww...}

at 9:30 the show began. the fireworks were amazing! we were so close to them that the ashes and sparks were floating down on us! so that means the explosions were close to us, too! these pictures don't do justice to the awesomeness we saw tonight! {and we get to see more fireworks tomorrow night at our own 4th of july shindig!}

quote of the day: Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off. ~Tommy Cooper

{it's a joke. you're supposed to laugh. read it again!}