I have been very busy this past week getting ready for our upcoming vacation to Knoxville, TN. Melody and I will be going to visit Auntie Tara, Uncle Don, Burke & Cassidy for five glorious days of Southern weather, hospitality, Dollywood and hysterical laughing. Hah, and you thought I was going to say historical, didn't you?  

What's that? You think I've been neglecting Notes for that other new blog I have? The recipe one? 

Ummmmm.....

Look! Here's a cute picture of Melody in her new Civil War dress!

I have been doing a lot of baking recently, not just for the Baking Gals organization, but for my new website Gram's Recipe Box. Here's a rundown on what we have been baking.

Operation Baking Gals (Give A Little Support)

4 doz cinnamon sugar cookies

1 pound cake

1 doz cranberry orange scones

These were all shipped to Bruce MacRitchie in Afghanistan, along with a bag of Jolly Ranchers, jelly beans, gum and mints. This round I think I learned that I need to bake less. It need to be less about the quantity and more about the quality. Next round I think I'm going to make cookies OR brownies, but not both.

Gram's Recipe Box

Coffee Cake

Applesauce Cake

Chocolate Syrup

Coffee Cake (again)

The fun of these recipes is sometiimes figuring out exactly what she was thinking or how things were supposed to go together. I made one coffee cake that didn't bake right because I put it in the wrong kind of pan. You might never think that the type of pan is just as important as what goes into it! The cake tasted very good, but I wish I had thought about that a little bit more.

Round 18 is open on Baking Gals, and I encourage you to join up if you can. This is the time of year they need us most, because the holiday season is past us and people are not in the "spread the love" sort of feeling. With Independence Day coming up in a few months, this is a great time to heat up your patriotic cookie recipes. :-)

New pictures in the gallery from Easter Sunday. We hunted for eggs in the morning and then went over to Gramma & Papa's house for brunch, bubbles and fun. All in all, a great day!

Click the picture for more like this one.

Recently Melody had been asking about ducks, feeding ducks, seeing ducks, etc., so I felt it high time we make a visit to Huntington Beach Central Park and their duck pond. A friend cued us in to taking bird seed instead of old bread (something about botulism). We have a bird feeder, so this was easily accomplished. We took a big container with about 5 cups or more of bird seed. I packed a picnic lunch and the camera, and away we went!

The duck pond is falling below its crest due to lack of rain, and the "streams" that connect all the ponds are all but dried out, but we managed to find plenty of hungry ducks! They were not right on top of us, but not afraid of us either. We started by luring them over to us with a wide cast of our seed. Then we slowly brought them closer so Melody could see how they move, look and sound. We talked about the fact that they don't really say "quack" but instead seem to say "mwaa, mwaa, mwaa." We laughed at how they waddled from side to side on their orange feet, and we marveled at how lovely the green of the mallard head looked in the late morning sun. We even became brave enough to put out our hands with a pile of seed on them, to see if the birds would eat from our hands - some did. The younger ducks (smaller in size) were at the back of the flock and stayed well clear of us.

We shared our bird seed with some other young girls who were watching and clearly wanted to feed the birds - only after they asked their dad, of which I was somehow proud of them - and later a squirrel came by and searched for the dregs after the ducks had mostly dissipated. As we were eating our picnic lunch and the ducks were enjoying theirs, a woman led her dog over to the flock, probably thinking it would be entertaining for the dog. At least half our minions left and never returned, but that's okay.

After lunch we walked the full circut around the park. There was a band playing music at thestage below the library, and we wandered through the field which in August every year turns into a Civil War reenactment. Toward the end of our walk we found the play area and Melody enjoyed playing with a younger boy named Julius and a slightly older boy who's name I didn't catch but he's starting kindergarten! :-)

Finally we made our way back to the car and headed home. It was a lovely outing, and one we are likely to repeat.

Click the picture above for more like this one!