Monday, November 23, 2009

Should Be Sleepin'

I really should be sleeping right now - it's only 9:40pm (2140 for you Brett), but I want to get 8 hours, I should be getting some shuteye. But I needed some wind down time when I got home.

Brett's working, so I went to my sister, Anne's house for dinner with our parents and our other sister, Sarah who's in town with her hubby, Brent. We had a good dinner, went to a piano recital for 2 of the kids, and played some fun card games. It's always a good time at Anne's house and with Sarah home.

I'm hoping to do a photosynthesis lab with 8th grade and a carbon cycle lab with 9th grade tomorrow. Wish me luck... I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work...

Ok, that was a boring post - hope you aren't asleep. Or maybe you should be.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Ice Cream with 8th Graders


So... today my 8th graders made ice cream (they've been studying "phase changes" - it fits into the curriculum, right?). They had a blast of course, but the room also became a huge mess. There's salt crystals from the salt water all over the tables and I'm sure on the floor (which I can't really see since the floor is white tile - nice). The room also smells like warm milk. But, should you have a desire to make homemade ice cream here's how we did it:

Serves 3 hungry 8th graders:
1. In a quart sized double-zip ziplock bag add 2 C of half & half.
2. Add 1 tsp. vanilla
3. Add 1/4 C sugar
4. Zip the bag and put it into 2 more ziplocks (just in case it decides to explode, you'll be safe)
5. In a gallon sized double-zip ziplock bag add 4 C of ice.
6. Add 1/4 C rock salt to the ice.
7. Put in your triple bagged ice cream ingredients.
8. Add 4 more cups of ice on top
9. Add another 1/4 C. rock salt.
10. Put this bag into another gallon sized bag.
11. Mash and shake the bags with your hands (using winter gloves is recommended).
12. The longer you shake, the more solid it gets (so long as there's still ice in the salt/ice mixture).
13. Pull out of the bags, scoop into a cup, and enjoy.
***** After trying it today, I'd definitely say it would be worth it to get some oreos to top it off*****

The kids will love it! All 500 8th graders in my school did.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Hello World.

Katie and I started this blog a month or so ago, and have yet to tell anyone we did it -- of course, part of that is due to the fact that there is nothing on the blog to read.

Until now.

Not that there is still much to read. It will serve as a type of journaling tool for me, and later as our lives get more exciting, family members and such may find it worth reading. I echo my sister Christa who started her blog with the same philosophies:  It ain't cute.  It might not be interesting.  I'm not forcing you to read it either.

Now family of mine, I know what you're saying. It goes something like "You never post on the family blog. Do you really plan on posting on your own?" Answer: Nope. I sure don't.

The second reason to create a blog now is because of the fact that as far as we know, Katie is not pregnant -- despite the "Bert and Kate plus 8" title that the blog window is currently showing. We've talked about how so many of our friends start blogs as soon as there's an addition to the family coming. Don't get me wrong -- it makes sense to start a blog for those reasons -- suddenly life gets more interesting and you want to share the details about it with the world. Those days will come some time, and I'm sure we'll be a whole lot more excited to post about it than people are to read about it.

We're blogging mutineers
among a generation of pregnancy-induced blogs. This is not a blog started because we have any great important news to share or offer. As such, this blog will likely be ... sparse. For those of you who use news feed "readers" and care to follow, I suggest just adding this to it so the updates will come to you, because as often as I post, you may forget this blog exists between posts.