Recipes and an autumn weekend

Novelty cookie recipe: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies. I made these for my brother this weekend, and although it sounds like a terrible idea, try it before you decide! (Unless you just don't like bacon, chocolate, or cookies, of course.) The consensus here seemed to be that they're surprisingly good, and they don't taste "meaty."



And another recipe that might be of interest with the holidays coming up: Gingerbread House. It's much easier to buy one of the kits with the gingerbread already baked and cut in the right sized pieces, but if you want to do it from scratch, this could work. I did it last year and Allie and Layla helped decorate it; it was very fun. (Edit: My bad! Andy provided vital assistance in the construction and decoration of the gingerbread house, too.)



We got to spend a day with Allie and Layla this weekend, so I'll continue learning to work with Flickr and share some pictures. (I've edited the links so they lead to large versions of the photos, rather than the photo page on Flickr, which I've made Friends/Family only. Let me know if it doesn't work!)

Layla had fun with a pile of leaves in the front yard.




And here she is playing with Zoe, and with pudding.


Allie is as tall as Grandma now!

Veteran's Day

This dog is really, really excited that daddy is home from Afghanistan.



A French teacher in my department said today that not one of the students in her class knew why we celebrate Veteran's Day on November 11. Sadly, I don't think even prompting with "Armistice Day" would help those kids. I was momentarily tempted to create a photoessay on the subject, but none of the intended audience are going to read this blog, so I'll settle for saying Happy Veterans Day and thank you to the veterans in my life.