My Best Friend's Wedding, Part I

Last weekend, my best friend from school (Renai) got married.  She lives in Arizona, and I thought, "You know what?  It's really not that far away, it's the perfect time of year to visit, and I haven't been there in a long time.  What better excuse to visit Arizona than my friend's wedding?"  So I filled out the RSVP card and said I was coming.  She seemed pretty thrilled that I was going to come!  Apparently, one of her OTHER best childhood friends (from New Jersey) was coming out, too!  "How awesome is it that my best friend from Arizona and my best friend from New Jersey are going to be at my wedding!" she gushed.

On Wednesday evening, we drove down to Richfield to stay with my grandparents.  It would cut off about 2.5 hours from the total length of the trip, and it's always nice to stop and visit with family for a while.

Kids get restless after spending long periods of time in the car, so we took a few breaks at rest stops to change diapers, eat snacks, and run around.

For the record, scorpions are arachnids, not insects.

She's just so cute ... I can't resist!

We got to Phoenix early Thursday evening, and I took the opportunity to go by the house I lived in until I was 8.

We used to have bunch of cacti and stuff in the front yard.  It looks a lot like the last time we came by (about 8 years ago) ... I'm disappointed they haven't gotten around to landscaping the front yard.  It looks terrible.  But they DID put a pool and a hot tub in the backyard.  I wanted to peek over the fence to get a good look at the yard, but there were a few ladies in the hot tub out back and that would've been awkward ... "Um, hi, I lived here 15 years ago and I just wanted to see what you've done with the place!  Don't mind me ... can we steal some of your neighbors' lemons, too?"

After making that quick trip down memory lane, we went to Ahwatukee and had dinner at my friend Carmen's house.  Yes, that is the Carmen my little Carmen is named after.  We met her sweet boyfriend, James, and her scaredy rottweiler puppy, Eza.  (I'll refer to my friend Carmen as either Big Carmen or CJ from now on ...)  Carmen was so excited to meet them both she learned a bunch of new words quickly.

CJ had fun playing with Carmen.  She and her mom (Gina) showered Carmen with gifts - clothes, a bead necklace CJ made when she was little, and a pink Beanie Baby bear.  Gina tried offering Carmen TWO Beanie Babies, but Carmen soundly rejected one.  (Like, smacked it onto the floor saying, "No!")  Carmen's favorite activity was bouncing down the stairs with Big Carmen.



Soon, it was time for bed so we went to Jeanni's house, where our family was going to sleep.  Jeanni was my piano teacher and Beehive leader when I was 8-13.  She's pretty much one of my other favorite people in the world ... but Mark won't let me name a kid Jeanni.  Yet.

I had baked a big batch of tasty oatmeal chocolate chip butterscotch cookies (with coconut, too!) to give as a gift to Jeanni when we arrived.  The bag of cookies made it the whole trip and Mark and I enjoyed snacking on them ... then something must've happened on that final stretch to Phoenix, because when we got to Jeanni's house the cookies were totally smashed up.

Mark walked into the house with the bag of mooshed cookies and said, "Hey, was I supposed to give these to Jeanni?" and she was standing right there in front of him.  I was thinking, "Oh, great presentation there, Marky." and Jeanni looked at him, looked at the bag of cookies, and totally cracked up.  She graciously accepted our offering and went into the kitchen to get some milk.  "Brian," she called to her husband, "Would you like some incredibly tasty cookie crumbs?"  We still managed to find several intact cookies!!!

Speaking of that particular batch of cookies ... when I was making the final pan of cookies, I turned off the oven when the cookies were almost done and forgot to take the pan out of the oven.  They weren't really burned, but they were incredibly crunchy.  Want to know something I learned from this experience?  FEED THEM TO BABIES.  They'll be highly entertained because they're getting cookies, but it will take them forever to eat each cookie because they're so hard!  Our trip to Phoenix was made a lot easier because Carmen was kept quiet in the back seat with her crunchy cookies. ;)

Or, just don't overcook your cookies in the first place.
You know.  Lemons, lemonade.

Recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 c butter
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
--cream ingredients together--
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
--cream ingredients together--
4 1/2 c flour
4 1/2 c oatmeal
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
--mix ingredients together--
12 oz chocolate chips (if you want butterscotch, make it half and half)
(If you want coconut too, you can put in about 1/2 c coconut flakes.  I didn't measure it ... I just added the stuff that was left over from making coconut shrimp the week before.  hahaha.)

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes, like you do with just about every other cookie recipe.

I decided to invent this recipe because I bought butterscotch chips at Winco and didn't have the right ingredients for magic cookie bars.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the wedding and how much I love Renai's new husband!