Nancy and Cocoa Visit

Nancy and Cocoa came for a visit this weekend. Well actually it was Sunday until Tuesday. She arrived just before the storm. Sunday night we got hit with high winds and rain. The bad news is that it knocked down some power lines near St. Joseph Regional School. The good news was that school was cancelled both Monday and Tuesday, so that Norma was able to be home for the entire visit.





Nana took to Cocoa right away, and they quickly become fast friends!



They even surfed the net together!



As they were surfing the blog, Cocoa commented upon the fact that Norma was knitting sweaters for Lila and Karina and sorta hinted that she felt left out. No problem for Nana, who quickly knitted a sweater for Cocoa as well!!

Even Gramps got into the act!


Tuesday was a beautiful day, so all were able to take a nice walk in Smithville.




Well Cocoa did walk most of the time!

Gramps' Oatmeal Cookies

Gramps’ Oatmeal Cookies

3 cups Oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup chocolate chips
½ cup coconut
1 ½ cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup butter

Preheat oven to 375°. Mix oatmeal and flour in a bowl, add baking powder and baking soda. Add chocolate chips and coconut. Set aside.

In another larger bowl, add 1 ½ cup brown sugar. Cut the stick of butter into eight equal pieces, place 7 of the pieces into a microwave safe bowl and melt the butter. Set aside the one pat of butter. Nuke the butter. Add the melted butter to the brown sugar. Add the egg and milk. Mix well. Add the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Coat a cookie sheet with the butter pad, leaving enough for the next batch. Take a rounded tablespoon of cookie dough and shape into a ball and press down on cookie sheet. Six well placed cookies usually fill up a cookie sheet.

Bake for eleven (11) minutes. Remove cookie sheet from oven. Let sit for four minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack to completely cool.

Repeat above one more time.

There you have it. A dozen of Gramps’ Oatmeal Cookies.

Caution, Nana says these are addictive!

Nana and Gramps visit Lila

We had a wonderful visit with Emily, Mike and Lila this past Thursday and Friday. Lila is so much fun and she is so smart.

She seemed to like the new teddy bear Nana knit:

and the new sweater:

And the Rag Doll is almost as big as she is:

She got a run for her money, at even got tired from playing with Nana:

Friday was beautiful, so a trip to "Cabin John" park seemed to be a good idea. It is a lovely park about 15 minutes away. It was great!
But the destination was the swings:

After all the fun, we had to rest a bit:

We had a wonderful time. More pictures from the trip are posted in the album.

Enjoy.