Did I goof?

I may have goofed in posting my cookie recipe so early on in my blog's life . . . It's one of only a few tried and true recipes I have to offer!

It's Labor Day weekend. The kids are enjoying the laid back three-day weekend. It's kind of a treat with school starting so early in August here. And guess what - I have yet to take back-to-school pictures. *gasp* I know. But the kids each leave at different times of the day and I just forget or am not alert enough that early to remember to catch a picture. I will soon. We'll have to call them "going to school" pictures instead since it's not a new thing anymore!

Here's a few fun pictures from our Europe trip. The first one is from Paris. Yeah, we ate at a fast food restaurant in Paris. But it wasn't McDonalds, so you can't get after us too much. Getting soda *with any amount of ice* is a trick in Europe, so we enjoyed it every chance we got. No free refills, and just about three cubes of ice if you're lucky, but usually none.

Next is a little town in Germany called Rothenburg. It's such a cool town to visit - Mike and I spent a day there when we went seven years ago and we were anxious to take the kids to see it too. Very German-esque and just full of charm. This house the kids are standing in front of is obviously well-photographed - if you scroll down the link I included you'll see a similar picture!

The last picture is of the kids in front of the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. Take a look at their faces. It was raining a little bit and nobody was too excited about getting out of the car for a picture, but I insisted. I was taking the picture so I didn't see what kind of song and dance Mike was pulling to get a reaction out the kids. Since Alexandra is looking disgusted and Isaac and Connor are laughing, you can only imagine . . .

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Randomness

I warned you that life at our house was a little boring, right? It still is (I like it that way)! I guess I think that there needs to be something substantial to blog about in order to post, but maybe a few random pictures and a recipe will be good enough?

Picture #1 - I'm not much of a cook, but I can bake a mean batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They're good. And when I make them they're gone in about an hour. Usually it's a Sunday afternoon activity but Mike needed to take an item to a potluck at work, so this was my offering! I'll include the recipe at the bottom.

Picture #2 - evidently this is how you do homework when you're 14... I'm racking my brain trying to remember ever laying on counter and working on my math . . . maybe it's an Alexandra thing?

Picture #3 - Connor conducting the flag ceremony at the scout court of honor last week. Gosh, it's hard to believe my little guy is almost twelve. AND almost ready to start working on his Eagle. A little deja vu going on . . .

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 stick (cup) butter flavored Crisco
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup or white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tps baking soda (or is it powder? the one in the orange box)
2 cups quick oats
1 cup chocolate chips ( I use half semi-sweet, half milk chocolate)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional, but so yummy with pecans)

Blend the shortening and sugars, add eggs and vanilla and cream well. Add flour, salt and baking soda all together and mix. Add the oats, then the chips and nuts, blending after each one. Bake by rounded cookie scoop on an ungreased pan at 350 for exactly ten minutes. Yum.

Do you know . . .

Do you all know about Google Reader? Love it. I have a ton of blogs I like to read (friends & family personal ones along with scrapbook and stamping ones), but hate having to bookmark them all and then go to them one by one . . . but Google Reader saved the day! It does all the work for you. You simply enter in the URL of the blogs you like to keep up with and add a widget to your Google home page and it lets you know when there's new entries. Awesome. If you have any questions on how to use it, let me know and I'll help you figure it out.

Did you know that I linked our European trip weblog over to the left? I've had a few of you ask about pictures from our trip and a condensed version is available for you to check out. The best part is that you can look at them on your own time. If you want to just look at one or two pictures, that's okay too - we won't ask if you actually looked through them all! Cool, huh? Another bonus - Mike and I sorted through our 1800+ pictures and posted just the highlights, complete with captions!

And since I'm still fairly new to the blogging world and think it's fun to add pictures, here's a few more for you all! Today's posted pictures were taken on our trip up to my family's get-together this last June. The first one is of the road in front of my house. It was the road that I walked every day (uphill both ways, knee deep in snow, blah blah) to catch the bus. I still have occasional dreams (nightmares) of walking out the driveway and seeing the bus coming up over the hill knowing I'm going to have run the entire way to the corner! Good times, eh Craig & Chris? The second picture is of Isaac and Connor. They are in front of an old train car that was along side a road I passed almost every day of my life growing up (corner of Rose & Groveland Road, btw family). A lot of the farmers would buy them and use them as cheap storage sheds. On our way out of town we stopped and got a few pictures of them - I love how they turned out!

A few pictures, just for fun

I gotta post a picture or two just to make things interesting (and to keep you coming back)! Here's a couple from London. We were standing in line at the Eye - we had finally got to the front of the line and were next to get on but just as were to be let on, the whole wheel got stopped. Someone had fainted (although there was rumors of much worse) in the car we were supposed to get in and paramedics were called to the scene. In the meantime we had to entertain ourselves while we waited. . . we tried to get a picture of the action in the car (well, Mike tried to), but the workers were pretty strict about us staying behind the lines, so these are the pictures we got instead. :)

Liftoff!

Well, here we go! Just what you've all been waiting for - a chance to read all about what the Metcalf family has been up to! Not to scare you away or anything, but life at our house is a little boring. Yeah, really. I guess when you factor in the teenage drama that we sometimes experience, life can get a little interesting around here and boring may not be the appropriate word . . .
My purpose (and we all need a purpose) of keeping a blog is to keep in touch with friends and family who I don't get to see very often. I'll post pictures, write amusing antidotes about our day to day lives and talk a little about my adventures in scrapbooking.
Hang on tight - this is going to be fun!

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