The DDA Trouble Free Zone Part 5

[ReAnSt]

Since I make them for him twice a year, I am obviously going to have to come up with a new name for these chocolate delicacies to eliminate the eeewwww factor!

Amy

We had turtle brownies for Easter. They were chocolate brownies, with walnuts and caramel. My Mom's best friend's daughter when told they were turtle brownies said ewwwwww. When told what was actually on them she took one and liked it.

I guess she and I must have been the only ones at the table to know this. BTW: She is only 7. It had me or attempting not to.

It was such a funny coincidence.

Becky

 

[marcij]

I keep seeing all of the awesome signatures that Kate has created, but I can't think of anything that would describe me. This morning I was thinking about Chris' username which is kitchensinkguy and I could imagine his signature starting with a full kitchensink (from Beaches and Cream of Course, although he does all the dishes here too ) and finishing with the empty bowl So why is it that I can come up with something for practically everyone else, but not for myself. And by come up with I mean ideas, certainly not the signature. Kate is way more talented than I am.

I'm off to bake a cake and do some more cooking. Catch y'all later.

Deb

Deb -- I heard a story on TV last night that syrup is going to be in short supply this year because of the weather/less made. Did you find that to be the case in your area, too?

 

[marcij]

Jo -- very cute! Hope you and Ramiro had a great day.

 

[marcij]

That would be great - I know I would love to meet another Dallas DDA! I think we're going to shoot for summertime, since things are really crazy for me at work right now. I will keep you and Marci posted!

Sounds like a deal -- maybe we can get Mac to join us as well.

 

[marcij]

I love the Eastern too and that is always my first choice but my favorite Island is Grand Cayman, stingray city excursion is amazing and well worth it.
The other excursion I love doing there is the one that goes to the rum cake places (of course), the turtle farm (oh no!!!!!! more turtles) and Hell.
Wish ours was going there instead of Cozymel which is my worst Island.
These are all my opinions!!!!

Julia -- We've done GC a couple of times, and love it as well. I took our small company on retreat there a number of years ago (just four days each time) and we saw the turtle farm (eeeewwww for Amy) as well as Hell. My kids aren't all that big in to snorkeling, and I think they would still be a little scared of the stingrays. I was thinking of doing a beach excursion on our own. I like being able to come and go as I please, please all the loading on buses, line waiting etc. I'd rather stay away from. Rum Point seems to be quite a drive, so I was thinking of doing something closer. Have you ever done a beach there? My kids love to dig in the sand and build sandcastles, and since we live outside of Dallas, there aren't any beaches close to us.

Thanks for the advice. If you have any other thoughts on a good beach, I'd love to hear them.

 

[bear74]

Kristin Hope you have had a great anniversary

 

[bear74]

Jen -
notice we were then only ones until we got close to the milestone - funny how that seems to work around here!!

ETA: I see I got it!!

21,000​

sorry - too tired for an animation!!

congrats. Its okay about not doing the annimation. You do enough asit is.

 

[tinker1bell]

Hi, everyone. Happy Easter! Kids loved their baskets this am. Got a swim vest for the pool, 3 pairs of Disney pj's, 2 books, a small toy, and 2 eggs with some Tootsie Rolls. I found the pj's on sale last fall for $2.99 each and the book on clearance. I did well!

Went to church, and the service was lovely. I teach choir and usually sing in the chancel choir (not singing this year because it is too much time). At the end of the service they asked everyone who would like to sing the Hallelujah Chorus to come to the front. Rees went with me and sang every word! He is so musical. It was one of those mom moments that I'll remember the rest of my life. It was wonderful.

Came home and had lunch. The kids hunted for the eggs and played with their new toy and books. We just finished baking the tie dye Easter cupcakes. They smell wonderful and look great. We're going to frost them with chocolate and put on sprinkles. I've got a ham and scalloped potatoes in the oven for dinner. Also having asparagus, crescent rolls, tossed salad, and the cupcakes for dessert.

I've taken a million pics of the kids, and I'll try to post some tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great day. And Happy Anniversary, Kristine and Bill!

Denise, Glad you had a good day
I really liked the other turtle, but this is cute

 

[itdjbw]

Julia -- We've done GC a couple of times, and love it as well. I took our small company on retreat there a number of years ago (just four days each time) and we saw the turtle farm (eeeewwww for Amy) as well as Hell. My kids aren't all that big in to snorkeling, and I think they would still be a little scared of the stingrays. I was thinking of doing a beach excursion on our own. I like being able to come and go as I please, please all the loading on buses, line waiting etc. I'd rather stay away from. Rum Point seems to be quite a drive, so I was thinking of doing something closer. Have you ever done a beach there? My kids love to dig in the sand and build sandcastles, and since we live outside of Dallas, there aren't any beaches close to us.

Thanks for the advice. If you have any other thoughts on a good beach, I'd love to hear them.

7 Mile beach is supposed to be great, we are not big into the beach but a friend went and said it was good, also not very far from the ports so a taxi shouldn't be too hard to come by.

 

[itdjbw]

I cannot believe my 3 day weekend has come and gone and it's back to work tomorrow. Hardly did much around here either besides catching up on this thread!!!
Tomorrow starts the schlepping!!!

 

[Steffy]

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Just a heads up. PLEASE give me a spoiler alert if you are talking about Desperate Housewifes. I can't watch it until tomorrow...

I'm way back. Will catch up soon!!!!!

 

[julia & nicks mom]

Good evening everyone

Man - I am TIRED!! But we had a GREAT day!!!

Yesterday was so beautiful that we had our windows open and ate outside - our lawn guy was here yesterday - so you can imagine the sore throat, runny nose and itchy eyes I woke up to this morning - A Claritin-D quickly cleared it all up (Just file this for the rest of the story!)

The kids loved their Easter baskets and Easter Egg hunt - Julia was even okay with her note from the EB saying he would bring Parent Trap back to her once his DVD maker was fixed!!!

We then headed to my in-laws for brunch - they went all out - there were 6 adults and my 2 kids there

the kids had another egg hunt and the adults enjoyed mimosas as we watched (remember that Claritin-D?!!?) - Nick was also so excited b/c my MIL had a dancing bunny with an egg in its hand and the egg pops open during the song and out comes a ducky!! He finally got his ducky out of an egg!!!!

then we had brunch - this is what my MIL prepared:
Pasta salad, caeser salad, eggs, goetta, a spinach and egg quiche, a mushroom and egg quiche, ham, cinnamon rolls, regular rolls, and another roll but I forget what it was. The amount of food was sincerely obsene!! When we were done we could have fed an army with the leftovers - and then she says

Who wants dessert - she had a cheesecake tray assortment - I felt horrible b/c none of us could eat another bite!!

Their kitchen is upstairs and we ate downstairs so by the time I had chased my kids up and down the steps 3 or 4 times - my knee decided it was done for the day! and at about the same time - the claritin-D and Mimosa decided they didn't mix well and I was on the verge of a food coma!!! Luckily - they were all very understanding as I lay on the couch doing everything in my power not to just fall asleep and they even chased my kids for me!!

On to my parents house for dinner and luckily I was able to get a little rest in the 1/2 hour car ride and arrived there feeling a little better.

We had another Easter Egg hunt - my dad is the MASTER of hiding easter eggs - he loves to use tape when hiding - I have seen him make contraptions to hang eggs in places and one year - he taped one inside the register - the older we got the harder he worked to hide them - a normal Easter egg hunt at our house lasts an hour for 12 eggs each - but it is always a blast -

we had 4 hunting for eggs - ages 2, 4, 8 & 10 - my dad offers a reward to the first person to find all of their eggs - The ten yo was sure the money was his! What he didn't know was my dad's hiding curve usually means the youngest will always win - which Nick did - when he found his last egg - he promptly screamed - Nicky wins, Nicky wins - it was so cute!!

After dinner - my knee became very angry with me and I had my first all out collapse and fell (I have caught myself every other time) - thankfully I didn't get hurt and didn't have anyone or anything in my hands - but I finally realized why the doctor told me to quit carrying my kids around!! Now if only they understood!!!

We came home and Nick was out in about 2 seconds - Julia might be on a sugar high b/s she can't sit still long enough to fall asleep!!

I hope you all had a wonderful day!!

 

[bear74]

Here's some more funny history!



Wow! 13 whole pages. I wake up in the morning and pray there are ONLY 13 pages.

Okay this was proablly posted right about the time the monster thread started to get chatty.

 

[tinker1bell]

Hi All

Our family had such a good day.

I made the cupcakes. They were a hit. Chanon, thank you so very much. The recipe which I followed made more that 24 cupcakes even when I filled each one almost to the top. I swear when I was frosting them, I could smell visions of Play Dough!!!
I also included a picture of my two grandsons. They are so cute. Apparently my DD and DDIL decided to dress the boys alike this year just like last year just different shirts. Plus I included a picture of the bracelets the three of us have. Each girl has one with their son's name and the one on the right is mine with the two boys names to be joined later this year by my third grandchild.


http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c302/tinker1bell/?sc=1&multi=2

 

[tinker1bell]

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Just a heads up. PLEASE give me a spoiler alert if you are talking about Desperate Housewifes. I can't watch it until tomorrow...

I'm way back. Will catch up soon!!!!!

Ok Stephanie, I will be sure to be careful not to tell you.

Bawwhaaahaaaa

 

[Steffy]

I'm trying to catch up, 10 pages posted since I went to bed last night at midnight I'm reading more "turtle" talk and on Chicken Little (The Easter Bunny brought it to Colby) he pushed the button to cross the road and a turle appears. I certainly wouldn't want that around here. Everytime the ok for turtle to cross would appear I'm sure someone would get ideas .

Happy Easter

My Mom is still sick so it looks like I've got to get some extra cooking done She is all sad because she hasn't seen the boys since Monday. She usually sees them just about everyday and now she can't spend Easter with them. I just email her some pictures from this morning so hopefully that will cheer he up.

Deb

I'm so sorry your Mom is sick.. I hope your dinner turned out wonderful.

The turtle crossing made me

 

[lovespoohbear]

And here are a few zoo pictures! The rest are here , if anyone really wants to look at them (only a couple pages). It's time for Zoo Blooms, so there are some gorgeous flowers... but I won't bore the rest of you who don't want to see them!

And from this point on, all I wanted to do was swim!:

is that an indian rhino?

 

[my3princes]

Deb -- I heard a story on TV last night that syrup is going to be in short supply this year because of the weather/less made. Did you find that to be the case in your area, too?

We had a horrible year this year. The sugar content in the sap was very low compared to previous years which means it took a lot more sap to make a gallon of syrup. Because we had to boil longer we got much darker syrup this year too. It looks like we will have to buy syrup from a local distrubitor in bulk and repackage it just to fulfill orders that we have. You just never know. This is the second bad year in a row. I sure hope that next year is better.

Deb

 

[Steffy]

800

I just keep rolling along.
But with good friends.

Congratulations! And thank you for telling me about this thread.....

 

[my3princes]

I'm so glad that there were only 6 pages to read tonight. I'm exhausted. Between cooking and working it was a very long day. Thank you for all the well wishes for my Mom. It turns out that both her and my Dad were sick today so they stayed home together. I was able to pull off a wonderful meal anyway. Mom had the ham so she cooked it and left it in her breezeway for me to pick up. She wouldn't allow me in the house as I might catch whatever it is that she has . I ended up cooking the potatoes and mashing them and snapping way to many green beans. I also made brownies (Nick did his best and I only had to help a little ) We had a lovely lunch with tons of leftovers (I guess I won't get back on the diet tomorrow after all). I had to be at work by 4pm and lunch was at 3 PM. We ate so much for lunch that no one was especially hungry for dessert so I laid it out on the table as I left. Chris said that they ate dessert right after I left and everyone left about 1/2 hour later. The kids had their outdoor egg hunt while the adults finished lunch. Nick and Hunter had insisted on hiding the eggs themselves to we let the other 3 kids find 37 eggs each, then let the older 2 go to make it a bit more challenging. I think they had as much fun hiding them as they did finding them. The best part was that I didn't have to venture out into the cold to do it. It was only in the mid 50s here today after begin gorgeous weather the last few days I got to work only to find that it was really dead. It was the longest 4 hours ever.... I was very glad to be home. We only served 278 people over the course of 8 hours. We typically do close to 400 on a typical Friday or Saturday night in 4 hours.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable day. Going to get some well deserved sleep now.

Deb