oh summer days...

What a whirlwind week!  Up to Ellensburg, WA and back with dogs in tow.  Tater made new friends, she was surrounded by young pups too and was so happy to play n roughhouse every day.  We actually got the pups to sit still long enough to snap the cutest photo!!

From left to right...

Phoebe (Bea for short!); our pups Tater and Molly; Cairo; Sasha; Mya (Cairo's sister)  please forgive the misspells!

It was a challenge to get them all to sit still for the 5 seconds we got, so silly.  I'm still in shock we got this one.  Can you tell where the group of people are standing in this picture!?  I'm pumped Molly let Tater sit by her in the pic (not to mention the trip up and back.)  My hat is off to Jen Martens for her persistence in getting the shot; Andy was ready to give up and abandon the idea.  I'm glad we stuck with it!!  4 of the 6 dogs photographed are 7months young and less!

I baked up a slew of goods... Coffee Cake, Compost Cookies (for the next blog!, thanks for sending the pin Jen Martens and sorry you didn't get to sample), Moon Pies to start.  Sadly, in the hubbub of trying to get on the road Wednesday night, in the shuffle mix of getting everything into Andy's car we somehow took out the bag with these 3 baked goods in them to rearrange some things and they got left behind.  Needless to say, I was a little devastated; Andy felt absolutely terrible since he was the one who brought them to the car and shuffled things around.  It was an honest mistake, and we didn't even realize it until the next day we were crossing the Hood River, ie the OR/WA border!  Thankfully, the clementine cake and blueberry muffins made it into the car.  Oh well. Our step sister (who kindly fed our kitty!) threw them in our freezer so they wouldn't go to waste.  My co-workers have been enjoying now instead :)  BTW, the fricking ANTS got into the moon pies after I'd left them out to thaw Monday night.  SO GD ANNOYING because that shit was tedious and not cheap.  My waistline thanks me though lol. GRR.

Since we needed a dessert, I pulled my patriotic pie pin real quick when we got into Yakima and grabbed what I'd need at Safeway to make at the house.  Semi homemade doesn't really cover it because really it was just about all store bought stuff: canned filling (omg, not cheap), pie tins, and pie dough... that pie rang me about $20, so annoyed.  But I wanted patriotic pie damnit!  Next time: HOMEMADE.  it was a crowd pleaser and patriotic to the max.

So I made these Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Bars well before the trip to try out.  As I mentioned, Andy thoroughly enjoyed them multiple times before the next day when the ants ruined them.  Andy liked them so much I guess I will have to make again!!  It's been almost 2 weeks since I made them...I don't think I deviated from the recipe AT ALL actually.  I think mine took the full 26min.  I am not a big baked bar fan so I thought I'd mix it up...this is basically like a big ol cookie.  It might be fun to add in some toasted coconut.  Maybe some toffee bits.  It's a solid recipe and you can never go wrong with Chocolate/PB/Oats in any recipe!  I think they'd make for great tailgating food :)

Speaking of, guess who's got two thumbs and headed to the A's @ Giants game tomorrow afternoon?!  THIS LADY!  So so excited...we're so lucky friends and family think of us whenever they are unable to use tickets for an A's game!  Should be a fun, fun day :) gorgeous weather to boot, woo whoo!

I also experimented with some vegan ice cream recipes...the sister in law sent a bourbon caramel one.  I think it's missing something, like ya know, caramel flavor?  The other one I found and wanted to taste was a blueberry chocolate chip number made with coconut milk...that one I can get behind!  Not sure i'm into vegan ice cream yet, but i imagine i just need some time and testing to get it right :)