War eagle!

Last weekend, we watched Auburn beat Ball State at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Before football, we got to campus early, and Keith showed Jennifer where he had horticulture classes. He was surprised by all of the changes on campus since he graduated. We tried to see the Tiger Walk before the game, but Keith felt rain drops and saw rain clouds in the sky. We took off to find shelter, and we got into a building before the downpour.

It was Jennifer's first SEC football game, and Keith hadn't been to an Auburn game in seven years. We sat on the 25 yard line on the eighth row. It rained for the entire first half, but we were prepared for it.

We'll certainly be going back for some more football in the future.

Rain cancelled our camping plans, so we found another adventure

We are working with Patrick to throw a party in two weeks, and I agreed to bring our ice cream maker and ingredients for ice cream.  We got our ice cream maker as a wedding gift, and we had barely opened the box until yesterday.

When we got a whim to make ice cream a couple of months ago, we read the instructions and knew it wasn't a "whim" kind of project.  So, with some advance notice, we decided to do a practice run this weekend.

We cleaned the parts, soaked the bucket so the wood would seal, and bought ingredients last night.  The user's manual got us concerned about raw eggs, so we chose a recipe that required cooking.  

This morning I got up and checked to see how much milk was needed and realized that we didn't have enough at all.  So, Keith went to the store for milk and a bag of ice while I started the process.

I combined sugar, corn starch, and salt.  Then, I beat four eggs and melted six squares of chocolate.  Keith got home, and I poured six cups of milk into the dry ingredients.  I was supposed to "stir constantly until the mixture started to simmer," but I didn't think it would ever do that!  So, once the steam was coming off the top, I decided it was close enough.  I added the beaten eggs, and Keith started the stirring job.  He was supposed to "stir until the mixture thickens slightly," whatever THAT means.  Then, the melted chocolate went in next.  I added vanilla, half and half, and heavy cream.  

We were doing all of this in a stock pot, and we were supposed to pour the mixture into a glass container to go into the refrigerator.  I found two glass containers that barely held it all, and we let it sit in the refrigerator four a little more than four hours.  

Later in the day, we poured the mixture into the frozen canister, put the canister in the bucket, and turned on the motor.  We poured ice and rock salt and ice and rock salt and more ice and more rock salt around the spinning canister.  Then, we poured water in on top.  The motor stopped spinning in about 35 minutes, and I opened the canister to find a milkshake-like mixture.  Keith attached the hand crank and turned that for several minutes to try to fluff the mixture.

We poured our ice cream into plastic containers of 4 cups, another 4 cups, 6 cups, 1 cup, and another 1 cup.  We ate the 1 cup containers and put the rest in the freezer.

This is definitely a labor of love for ourselves, and we'll do it again in two weeks for a dozen of our friends.  We think there must be a simpler way to do it all, so we want your help.  If you have an easy recipe that calls for no eggs or cooked eggs, we want to hear about it.  Also, if you have tricks for thickening the mixture, let us know that, too.  Maybe what we need to be told is that making ice cream is, in fact, an all day process!  :) 

Thanks to our friends who gave us the ice cream maker!  We had an adventurous day after a week of rain made us cancel our plans to go camping for the weekend.  And, now we've got some good tasting ice cream for the next week.  We've also got some confidence for our endeavor in two weeks!

Just call her "Jennifer the Plumber"

The shower in the hall bathroom was dripping for a few weeks and getting worse along the way. Last fall, we learned how to fix a drip in the master bathroom shower, and we had to buy a new tool to do the work. This time, the grand total of the money spent was $1.44 on new washers since we already had the right tools. The job took just under two hours, and Keith contributed his strength to loosen snug pieces on two separate occasions.

If you need some basic plumbing advice or help, save yourself the plumber fee, and call Jennifer!