bake when we have no A/C? I love homemade baked goods. And when a friend brought over a giant zuchinni I had to make something with it. So I have been trying out new recipes and of course it gets a little (a lot) warm in the house after having the oven on.
No pictures of the zuchinni or the goods I made with it. But I did take pictures of these brownies! They are oh so good, but I highly recommend a cold tall glass of milk to go with them!

1 box German Chocolate Cake mix
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 bag wrapped caramels (50 individually wrapped caramels)
1/3 cup evaporated milk

1. Mix together the cake mix, melted butter and 1/2 cup evaporated milk. Mix until well incorporated. Press half of the batter into a 9×13 inch greased pan and bake at 350 degrrees for 7 minutes.

2. While batter is baking, melt caramels and 1/3 cup evaporated milk. I melted it in the microwave at 30 sec intervals and at half power (stirring at each 30 sec) until completely melted. When brownies are done, poor caramel on top of the cooked portion of brownies. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of caramel. Dot the remaining brownie mix on top of chips and caramel. Return to oven and bake for another 11 minutes. Cool in refrigerator for a bout 2 hours!

Two weeks ago we took the Cruiser out and went to Bill Moore Lake. The 4×4 trail is easy going and the view at the end is gorgeous! We brought lunch with us and ate it at the top. There were quite a few people out on the trail and it was a bit chilly up there. At the lake we saw some mountain goat up the hill side, they were hard to get a picture of because they camouflaged so well into the hill side. It was a great day and we were glad to make it home before the Cruiser died!

Here is a picture of the goat.

And here is Kyla with her dirty little face. If there are rocks and dirt she is in them. She did enjoy all the beautiful flowers as well!

I have been without a vehicle for the past two weeks! Go figure, we sold the car last month and two weeks ago the Cruiser gives us problems.

It started on our way out to Montrose (we didn’t realize this at the time). We were driving on Hwy 50 towards Monarch, while going up a hill the Cruiser started to heat up a little. Zane didn’t think much of it and turned the heater on a little and the gauge came back down. It didn’t heat up at all the rest of the trip. Well two weeks ago we went out to Bill Moore Lake (Will post pics on another post) and on the way home the Cruiser started to heat up. This time we were going downhill on I-70 before you get to c-470. There was also this odd vibration. Zane and I looked at each other and said, “that does not sound good”. Once we stopped at the light at C-470 and Kipling the Cruiser was really heating up, the vibration was worse, and it was idleing so weird. We made it home and parked in the driveway, I got out and noticed smoke coming out from underneath the Cruiser and Brian noticed fluid coming out. Zane and Brian heard the radiator boiling, so they let it cool off, checked the fluid levels, and added coolant. They then started it up and it was blowing smoke and idleing rough, one of the cylinders wasn’t firing. So they shut it off, rechecked the fluids and it mysteriously needed a bunch more coolant. They filled it up again, tried to take a spark plug out to diagnose the miss fire. By this point it was midnight, so they decided to leave it and look at it on the next day. They put the spark plugs back in and went to start it to put it in the garage and it made a terrible sound and wouldn’t start. Come to find out the head gasket was blown and the cylinders were filling up with water. So the Cruiser sat in our driveway for two weeks until we could figure out a game plan.

Matt came over yesterday and took apart the Engine with Zane (in our driveway). They later ran over to Toyota and got a bunch of parts that the Cruiser would need to be fixed, among those was new spark plugs, a head gasket, fuel filter, etc.. They came back and started putting the Cruiser back together. This morning Matt came back over and they finished putting the Cruiser back together and it is now running again. I can’t thank Matt enough for his help!

Here is the morning of the Big project, tools ready to go!

This is the start of taking the engine apart, the intake and exhaust are off the engine.

This is the wiring harness (all 8 feet of it) hanging out the engine compartment.

This is with the valve cover off.

Here all the twin cams are off.

The head is removed and those are our cylinders.

Here is Brian (on the left), Matt (on the right), and Zane (under the Cruiser) working!

And here is the Cruiser put back together and running. The white smoke is from coolant and other impurities being burned out of the system.

The guys took the Cruiser out for a test drive.

Happy Birthday David!! We Love You!!

David and Vanessa were here this past week visiting on their way to Arizona. Vanessa is taking classes at ASU. I will make a post on their visit with pictures of the family!

Since Barrett is such a messy eater, I find it easiest to just clean him off in the sink. This is easy on my back and I don’t have to give Kyla a bath every time as well!

Well Barrett has not been one to eat pureed foods or rice cereal. So I have opted for the mesh bag feeder. It allows me to put pieces of fruit or veggies inside and then he can chew and suck on it and get the food out in tiny pieces. He seems to like this method of eating much better than from a spoon. When I try feeding him with a spoon I can usually get two spoonfuls in his mouth before he holds his lips closed. The only draw back with the mesh bag feeder is that he gets sooooo messy. Oh well, at least he’s eating!