REAL post title: What To Do When It's Sunday and You're Out of Milk and Have Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies To Be Eaten.

I recently stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest and it just looked so dang delicious I HAD to try it. I've never been an especially good cookie-maker and I tried a different Pinterest recipe a couple months ago that turned out....less than desirable, so I was a bit apprehensive. BUT, these seemed pretty fool proof so I decided to give them a go. Funny thing is that the recipe talks about how THE most important ingredient in these cookies is corn starch, but I didn't have any and was much too lazy to go to the store so I just left it out and they were delicious! (At least they were a mile and a half beyond the last failed attempt...)

I made the dough on Friday evening, but the recipe made a big deal about refrigerating the dough for at least three hours... I went ahead and baked a small batch on Friday to have a little taste test and then I refrigerated the rest. Yesterday was crazy and I didn't have time to make them, so I decided to bake the rest today.




[FYI: I couldn't tell even the slightest difference between the cookies that were made from the refrigerated dough and the ones that weren't, so I'm beginning to wonder if that step in the recipe is really just an exercise of self-control...]

What I DIDN'T factor into this whole situation was the fact that we were out of milk!!!!!!!!!! This is quite the catastrophe at the Olson household when you understand how much milk Stephen regularly drinks in a day. I'm not a big milk drinker, but there are certain times that milk is required and warm-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies is one of those times.

Luckily, we're pretty innovative around these parts - so we just made them into little ice cream sandwiches :) It really is the perfect solution when you're out of milk. Plus, the cookies-in-cream ice cream we have claims to be 25% less fat than regular cookies-in-cream ice cream, so I didn't even feel a little bit bad about it! (haha.)


(Stephen says mine weren't sandwiches because there was only one cookie, but I told him it was an "open-faced" sandwich, obviously.)

We very much enjoyed our ice-cream sandwiches (open-faced and otherwise) while cuddled up watching VeggieTales on Netflix.



PS If you haven't had a chance to check out the recently published "About" section, feel free to do so by clicking here.

Stephen and I were selected to participate in The Amazing Race!!!! - A group date organized by my good friend Kristyn and her husband Tanner. I was pretty dang excited when the official invite showed up on our doorstep a couple weeks ago. We arrived at their house at 6:30 pm SHARP on Friday with our game faces ON. (The invitation stated that if you were the last team to show up you may be eliminated.) Luckily we were the first to arrive. Within minutes, the rest of our competitors came and the GAMES BEGAN!

Stephen's and my first challenge was to find the nearest arcade and win 15 tickets. We went to Fat Cats, but after buying $1 worth of tokens we were informed that their games don't give tickets!!!! We jumped into the car and raced (obeying all laws of course) to Nickel City were Stephen was able to quickly (...after some needed coaching from myself) win the needed tickets.

Our next mission was to find license plates from 12 different states. We pulled into the nearest BYU approved housing parking lot, and found state after state after state. (We were pretty impressed with our time during this task.)

The following challenge was to find quarters from four different states. We saw a Walgreens just across the street and speedily exchanged a one dollar bill for quarters from different states.

The final challenge was hardest of all. To buy an extra-large Slurpee from 7/11 and drink the entire thing before leaving the store. It was during this task that I dropped the ball. For some reason I thought that only ONE team member could complete this challenge, and since Stephen had won the tickets at the arcade, iiiiiiiiii had to drink the Slurpee - by myself! While I was chuggin' away (wincing with every sip) The PURPLE team also arrived at 7/11 and we watched as both of them took turns drinking the slurpee. Stephen ran to the car to again read the challenge and we realized that we'd been doing it wrong! (Thank goodness, too, because my stomach had about reached its Slurpee capacity.)


Eventually...(seeing the wisdom of the PURPLE team) we put the slurpee in the Microwave, downed its contents as fast as humanly possible and raced back to Kristyn and Tanner's house!

We were the FOURTH team to arrive!! Thank goodness that only the LAST team to arrive was eliminated. Once at the house we competed in two more tasks (placing dominos in a line and making them all fall over - with only the use of our pointer fingers, and then building a 3D pyramid out of cups) and in the end, were awarded THIRD place!!!!!!!

After prizes were distributed, we all chatted and ate some DELICIOUS cupcakes made by our host Kristyn.

Last Sunday, Stephen, Isaac, Chelsee and I drove the scenic and ever so popular Alpine Loop. I was a little disappointed because it snowed in the mountains earlier in the week, so quite a few of the leaves had already fallen and the colors weren't quite as vibrant as when I did the drive last year with some JERU friends - but it was still a gorgeous day and a gorgeous drive with some of my favorite people. :)

...I hate to sound like a blogger-cop-out, but I really do think fall might be my favorite season. Although, I'd much prefer warm weather all year round - the fall colors of nature truly are breathtaking. Especially here surrounded by brightly colored trees dotting the mountainside.


Isaac and Chelsee's Polaroid camera added a special something to the outing as well. Polaroid cameras really might be the coolest thing ever.

On Saturday night, while the men were all at Priesthood Session, the girls went to dinner at Gloria's Little Italy.

Not only was it a blast to catch up with some of my cousins and my grandma and Aunt Lisa, I also got to cross something off my BYU bucket list!

One day (in the last month or so) Stephen commented on how he, "loves casseroles." I thought that was a very funny and relief-society-sounding thing to say. haha. It's amazing the things you learn about a person you thought you knew after you're married. (haha just kidding.) Anyway, he said that his mom makes a delicious Poppyseed Casserole that he loves. We texted her and asked for the recipe that she uses, but she was at the store and couldn't send it right then, and we were impatient, so I just googled one and decided to give it a go.

This is the recipe I used.

It was good! When the ingredients consist of: chicken, sour cream, butter, ritz crackers and cream of chicken soup....how could it be anything but good? haha.

My mother-in-law later sent us the recipe she uses and it was pretty similar, but looked even better because it has rice baked into it which would make it a lot more filling. (Her recipe also called for less sour cream and butter and cream of chicken which is a plus.)

Positives: Stephen was one happy husband and was singing praises to my name. It was delicious!

Negatives: Let's face it. It's not the most healthy recipe. ha. And, it wasn't super filling.

What I would do differently: Try the other recipe. (I'll post that recipe when I make it.) Also, I wish I had shredded the chicken instead of cutting it into cubes (which is something that the new recipe says to do).

SO, ya. I'm not sure how to end this post now. haha.

[Also, I recognize that it's weird I'm posting about a full meal and it's barely 9:00 am on a Saturday. Next time I'll try to post more appropriate foods for the time of day, I'm just currently at work and biding my time until General Conference starts!] 

The other day I was going through some "notes" on my phone and I came across one that had me laughing out loud. On July 24 at approximately 11:38 am Stephen wrote me a haiku poem. We were in the car coming back from Grace, Idaho. I was asleep and only semi-coherent at the time and I completely forgot about it until stumbling across it just recently.