Wow what a busy past few weeks! We had a great time visiting Mark and Erin and the kids and seeing their great house and community. I even got to join for a cub scout meeting to see how things are done in Texas! (Spoilers the same as here.) We got to join for my niece’s birthday party which was a fun pokemon themed bash at a local playground! All the kids were super excited about the pokemon activity Erin had planned and I got to help Marko with the pokeball cake. Will got to eat Mexican food all weekend, and we played many board games. Okay mostly just one, but we played it a lot of times. Everyone had a blast!
We got home (4am on Monday) after a long night in airport. I spent the next evening prepping dinner and chocolate ingredients for Galentine’s day. We had a blast making chocolates (more on that later) and chatting. The rest of the week was spent prepping for Valentine’s day itself, working with the kids on their Valentines. They almost independently addressed and signed them though! Even Patricia! I was so proud. And then on top of that I somehow managed to finish some crochet animals that I made originally from Woobles kits that Amy got me for my birthday! (Oh and did I tell you I also wrote them little love notes in their Valentine backpacks nightly?)
The following weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge! Which I haven’t been to but the kids went to with my parents for Julius’s friend’s birthday party several months ago. It was a blast. We did lots of water slides, rode the lazy river about 1000 times, had a sleepover in the hotel room, did some crafts and yoga and played on a playground. Next time I’d add a second night! It was a fun little vacation 20 minutes from home.
We came home from the lodge just in time for dinner on Saturday and made Valentine’s fondue! Will’s mom and her best friend Janet were in town for the evening so they got to join us! Since there were a couple more people than usual I used my induction cooktop with my enameled dutch oven in the center of the table for the cheese course and then used my hand me down fondue pot for the chocolate dessert course! It worked pretty well.
Then the next day we headed up to Maine to go visit my parents and go skiing. We skied all day presidents day and then drove back home. But we left Julius there! He got to spend the rest of the week hanging with my parents and skiing! Lucky! Patricia was heartbroken. She missed Julius a lot. Julius told me the first day he called that he missed us which broke my heart. And he told my mom that he missed Patricia several times. We were so glad to have him back home. We spent the weekend at the library, tapping maple trees with the scouts and vegging at home with movies and homemade pizza and treats. Then we had a snowpacolypse which lead to two days of cancelled school… (sidenote: I hate having to work on snow days). That brings us to today! Hooray!
I’m going to show you ladies’ night then next week I promise to show you the Valentines that the kids and I came up with this year…
So we made A LOT of truffles this year. Karoline brought key lime filling and oreo filling (my favorite) and I made chocolate, mint (sidenote I used “mint” instead of “peppermint” extract and I disliked it), peanut butter and lavender. The lavender and key lime were white chocolate and were total disasters! We couldn’t figure out why both mine and Karolines both came out bad until Amy discovered that due to chocolate supply issues they have been swapping cocoa butter with vegetable oil… which does not work for truffles. The centers never set! It was awful! The worst part was we both used tried and true Ghiradelli white chocolate, confirmation Ghiradelli is using inferior emulsifiers. There should be some warning their recipe has changed!
We did the same thing we did last year which was roll all the truffles centers before we ate and them placed them in the freezer (or this year the porch covered in snow) to set. After dinner we dipped them in chocolate that I melted in a double boiler over the portable induction cooktop in the center of the counter. And I got a new double boiler from the thrift shop a few weeks ago that fits right in my existing pans! This is great because the last one I owned was not induction friendly and I donated it.
This year for food I went with my vegetarian cassoulet that I usually serve at Solstice, plus French bread and a spinach salad with onions, apples and pecans that Amy threw together for me while I put everything else on the table. I did remember to take pictures of the ladies this time though so you’ll have to enjoy these instead. I need to have ladies’ nights more often they always bring me joy (and hopefully they bring everyone else joy).
