Time in Kansas City

The last official day of the campaign with the Christ Chapel Bible Church youth was Friday, July 18.  When the team headed to the beach for the day, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Kansas City.  Unfortunately for us, there were storms along the east coast so, even though we had no problems getting into Houston, our flight to KC was delayed two hours--11:00 p.m. arrival into KC instead of 9:00 p.m.  Originally, my dad was going to pick us up at the airport, but I'm so glad we changed it.  I can't image how he would have handled the two hour delay--probably would have tried to sleep in his car in the KCI parking lot.  By the time we got to Lee's Summit it was after midnight, but we still managed to talk to the Guenthers for an hour or so before we crawled into bed.

Stephen and two of his brothers worked in a game of golf on Saturday afternoon and then we all went out to dinner (minus Michael and Denise.)  

We went to the traditional 8:00 a.m. service at Abundant Life on Sunday morning and then on Sunday afternoon we drove to Topeka to visit with Jeff and Paula Rhoades.  It was great to go to church with them and see their home/town.

Stephen drove to Marshall early (5:00 a.m.) Monday morning to have breakfast and play golf with Michael.  In the afternoon, he stopped to see our friend, Kimberly Kelley in Seymour, Missouri, and pick up a Peruvian drum for our church in Guatemala City.  Kimberly tried to bring it to Guatemala in June, but the airlines wouldn't let her carry it on.  We're going to put in a box and check it as luggage.  Hopefully, it will make the trip safely.

He also managed to find time to play the piano and give her brothers a quick lesson.

He's spent the last two days visiting his parents in West Plains while I've filled my time with various annual doctor and dentist appointments.  Our son, Jon, flew in on Monday night so I've been able to spend some time with him, too.

Candy, Cookies and Best Friends

There's nothing like time spent with your best girl friend!  Stephen is in West Plains visiting his parents, so I've been staying with the Guenthers to get in some extra girl friend time.  Terisa went to work early so she could come home early and we could get started on Christmas treats.  
Last night's cooled strawberry cake was the foundation for cake balls!  Love those little sweet morsels of goodness.  

Also on the agenda was "never-fail" microwave peanut brittle.  The recipe sounded too good to be true since my memory of making peanut brittle is of stirring the mixture forever while using the candy thermometer to be sure it gets to the correct "hard-ball" stage (about 305 degrees.)   In fact, the first batch proved the recipe title wrong!  Guess the old saying that the power of microwave ovens varies is true because the 4-, 4-, 2-minute recipe resulted in over cooked peanut brittle which just tasted burned.  We had enough stuff for a second batch, but the dilemma--how long to cook it?  We found some other recipes which suggested a 4-, 3-, 2-minute cooking time so we opted for that.  Success!  It really tasted amazing and is very easy.  Here's the link--same recipe works for all kinds of nuts, including cashews, almond, pecan, macadamia, etc.  Just be sure to adjust the time for your microwave!

The sugar cookie dough chilled while we made these treats and ate dinner, which was a delicious homemade chicken pot pie!  We tried the sour cream sugar cookie recipe that's been all over Facebook for the last month.  It is supposed to render very soft, not crispy sugar cookies.  Ethan and Chloe helped us cut them out (Michael took pictures, but I don't have them.)  Chloe loved adding the sprinkles after they were frosted.  They turned out cute, the dough was easy to work with, the frosting is simple, but I'm not convinced they are the best tasting sugar cookies.  

However, baking was just the medium to spend time together and that was a rousing success.  Love how God has knitted our lives together so that even though we've been apart for 5+ months, we can pick up right where we left off.