Ken's Birthday And March Fairbanks Trip

Yesterday was Ken's Birthday. It was a pretty informal affair. I made him bacon and real (store bought) eggs for breakfast. Then he took the backhoe out to clear a neighbors (about 1 mile down highway) driveway. He has just returned for the summer. I went to work baking a cake and since the oven was hot made some fresh rolls and a loaf of bread. For dinner I made salmon on the grill with mayo and parmesian cheese. I usually just gut the salmon and take off the head, tail and fins for the dogs and cook the rest whole so that I can get as much meat off as possible. Since this was a special occasion I tried my hand at filleting it with one of our lowsy knifes. NOTE TO SELF: GET BETTER KNIVES AND GOOD SHARPENER. They came out ok I didn't mutilate it too badly and they still tasted wonderful. I had also planned on making baked potatoes but the potatoes that Ken brought home from Fairbanks were so huge that they weren't even close to done on time even though I started them an hour and a half early in the woodstove before putting the Salmon on the grill. Soooo, I ended up just frying some up with dried bell pepper, onion and seasoning. They turned out fine but I was still disapointed. We'll have the baked potatoes for dinner tonight. I also made some baked beans. So we had grilled salmon, fried potatoes, baked beans and fresh rolls. Not a bad spread. Then we had the grande finalle of Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake. Ken's not a big cake eater but he loves fluffy chocolate chip cookies. So I decided to attempt to make a fluffy cake that tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. It actually came out really good. Here is my recipe:

I made this recipe up but it came out so good I thought I would share.


2 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/2c butter softened
1 tbsp Vanilla
1 c milk
2 eggs
2 c Chocolate chips (I used semi sweet)

Sift together dry ingrediants, cut in butter until crumbs add eggs, milk, vanilla. Mix well scraping bowl (batter will be a little lumpy). Fold in Chocolate chips. Pour into greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake in pre-heated oven. Aprox 350* 25-30min.

For frosting I melted 1 cup of chocolate chips with 1 tbsp butter and 1/4 c milk in a double boiler. Then I spread it over the top of the hot cake after I took it out of the oven. Then I let it cool for a while and put butter cream frosting on top and then swirled it with the chocolate.

*I think this would be really good also with mint. Either a mint extract in the cake or frosting or even using mint chocolate chips.

Unfortunatly Lisa didn't get to eat with us or get cake. She started complaining that she was just too tired so we sent her to bed. I went up after supper to check on her and she had a fever of 102.6*F. I gave her some fever reducer, striped her naked, put a cold cloth on her head and gave her some chamomile tea. The fever came down but the hives that she has been getting off and on the past few days came back. We've all been fighting a head bug.

We all went into Fairbanks on Monday March 28th for the kids anual checkup. Things in Fairbanks went pretty smooth. We got Lisa an Epi-Pen and scheduled her for allergy testing in May. Which I am not looking forward to. On the way home on Tuesday an axel on the gooseneck trailer snaped clean at the hub and the tire went flying off. On it's way off it managed to mangle another tire. The pickup truck that pulled up behind us after just happened to be an older couple that lives about a mile from us in the warmer months. They stayed as a flag truck while we limped to a pullout. We had to leave the trailer with $4,000.00 in lumber and fuel sitting on the highway about 100 miles from home. The next morning we all woke up sick, we couldn't even hold down water. Ken didn't get out of bed the entire day which has only happened one other time in our 8 years together. The day after that we were still sick but doing a little better. Ken and our neighbor Mark went to go and get the lumber. They left with the Ken's semi, Trapper's drop deck trailer and Ken's F350. They come home with the F350 and the broken trailer with the fuel on it. When they got to the same pull off were the trailer was sitting the air pump went out in the Semi. So now the semi with the drop deck trailer and still all of the lumber are still sitting at that turnout 100 miles from here. Then we all got slammed with this nasty head cold that we are still fighting. Seems like everytime we all go into Fairbanks we come home sick. Yet another reason to stay AWAY from the city. With Ken driving the bus though he is still exposed to all kinds of junk. Ken rode in on the bus today and will get dropped off at the Semi and hopefully fix it and bring it home. If not he'll be camping out and riding the bus home tomorrow. We really need to get all the lumber and supplies back to the build site before thaw when the trail turns to mud. We had hoped to start building last week. With all the extra snow we've had in the past few days hopefully that has bought us a little more time. Yesterday and Today so far have been nice and sunny. Was up to 40*F yesterday and it's about 34*F today.

Sunrise: 6:49 AM AKDT
Sunset: 9:22 PM AKDT
Length of Day: 14h 32m
Tomorrow will be 6m 56s longer.
Moon Rise: 8:11 AM AKDT
Moon Set: 5:08 AM AKDT
Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
36% Illuminated

Oak



Wyatt

When life gets tough sleep it off LOL...

Blessings,

Sarah Sue Smith