labor day weekend

What a weekend! Mom and Maddie made a road trip down to beautiful Iowa and we wined and dined them! Here are just a few of the photos from their visit.

We spent Saturday morning in Kalona. A stop by the Kalona General Store for some cashew crunch and the Kalona Bakery started our morning off on the right foot.

A visit to Kalona is not complete without stopping at at least 489 of their 43895 antique stores!

We had a wonderful lunch at the Tuscan Moon.

And then headed out for a hike at Clemons Creek wildlife area.

Of course the weekend was also full of messing with the new Canon, a trip up to Iowa City to see 'Julie and Julia' (a wonderful movie), lots of wine drinking, and a Sunday BBQ with the Nichols family.

Labor Day 2007: Friends, Fun, & Food (and house hunting)

Labor Day is all about the food right? What a great day to knock some of the Rollings' family recipes out of the way! Besides the great time that we had hanging out with three of our favorite families in Washington (plus our realtor, who is almost family now that we spend so much time with her) Nic and I had some great meals. We started off the morning with some of "Roger's Favorite - Cranberry Walnut Scones." This breakfast is a must have at Mom's house on a Sunday morning. I did have to make this "Kier's Version" as we did not have cranberries or walnuts, so I substituted dried plums and pecans. I cut the recipe in half, but still used the whole egg which produced a nice fluffy scone. I also added some cinnamon into the dough and then sprinkled the top with a little bit of cinnamon and sugar. This was a great wake me up for Nic at 4:15am.

This Taco Soup recipe from Jennifer is like a chili. I just browned up the meat and then threw everything into a crock pot.

Mom used to make this for quite a few family functions. I haven't had it for quite a while so I thought I'd give it a try. It needs more seasoning that what the recipe calls for, but I am not sure what. It was good though.

These cookies from Emily are really good. This may become my staple chocolate chip cookie. I cut the recipe in fourths so that I would not be tempted to eat them for weeks on end.