Jason's baking experiment

We were at Wal-Mart this morning, and Jason wanted to buy some yeast but he wouldn't tell me what for. So we bought two little packets of yeast, and when we came home I wasn't allowed in the kitchen. He told me that he was going to have to put flour on the counter top, and I was really worried and very curious at that point. You can tell how much baking he's done by himself because he had to ask me if he needed to pre-heat the oven. I said yes, and he replies back that the recipe doesn't tell him to.

So anyways...a little bit later, he comes back down and says that he thinks he needs my assistance. He finally had to tell me that he was trying to make pretzels. So I went upstairs and his "dough" was the consistency of pancake batter. You certainly can't knead that. Come to find out, he added 1 3/4 cups of water instead of just 3/4 cups of water. Oops! So then he made another batch...luckily he had bought that 2nd package of yeast. Then he needed my help again because he didn't know how to shape the pretzels. He was trying to do it all fancy and spin the dough in the air, but it definitely wasn't working. So I just shaped them lying on the cookie sheet.

They turned out really well (but they kinda looked like piles of dog poo) and tasted pretty good, but we didn't have any course salt which would have made them better. Next time, I think we're going to make four giant pretzels instead of the smaller ones.

The year of weddings continues...

On Saturday we set out in a different direction than we have all year...St. Louis. I've been so used to going to Chicago for weddings that it was a nice change. Our friends, Andrew and Jamie, got married, and we were able to catch up with a lot of my friends from high school. Fun was definitely had by all!

Landscaping is finally done!

Mom and Dad came to visit us this weekend, and we put them to work. On Friday night we had 7 tons of rock delivered...that's a lot of rock! We got started around 8:00 on Saturday morning and we were done with the project by 5:00. Our friend Matt also came over to help, so that made things go faster too.

When Jason and I were picking up the original rock, we found a bunch of flagstone that was hidden by our huge hostas. We thought we might use it, but ended up not needed it. So on Saturday evening we set it out by the street with a for sale sign on it. Around 10:00 on Sunday morning, a guy came by and bought it all. How lucky is that?? Anyways, here are some pictures from the weekend.













We still have a few places where I want to put some more flowers or plants, but we may just wait until next spring to do that. We're both a little tired of working on this project and have other things that need done...like our school work! At least this was only a month project...the bathroom remodel took us five months!