After not quite finding the time All Week Long, and after a promise made last night for "today" to be the day... right after breakfast and morning ready-routine, the first thing DD wanted to do was MAKE PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM! Yes, I still had my pajamas on as *I* had not yet done *my* morning ready-routine. LOL (yawn)

But, as the best mom in the world dutiful mother that I am I gave in to her eagerness and shiny morning face and said, "Get the hammer, Girl, you've got crushing to do!" (or something to that effect.)

I set her up with supplies needed (a gallon Ziplock and two big candy cane sticks) and slid into my Crocs, donned a coat for myself, and headed outside to the garage (where our deep freeze chest is located) to get my Kitchen Aid Ice Cream attachment.  BBBBBBBrrrrrrrrrrrrr... have you SEEN the snow that is on the ground here? (And as of this writing it is snowing AGAIN!)

By this time DD is just about pounding the COLOR off the peppermint sticks! LOL She's really having at it. I stick the ice cream attachment in the inside freezer and quickly print a recipe for making vanilla ice cream from scratch (instead of a mix that I used to use.) I find a decent one, gather all the ingredients, and get it going on the stove. I now have to rescue the baggie of candy cane from getting completely  pulverized into minty dust. DD watches as a few drops of red food coloring & peppermint extract go into the pot and we watch it turn a bright pink (close enough to the Edy's Brand of peppermint ice cream color!)

The milky-eggy concoction is just about ready so I put together the mixer and ready it for ice cream making. A swift pour of the pot into the mixing bowl and I power up the Kitchen Aid. Twenty minutes later it is in "soft ice cream" stage and ready to be poured out.

(At this time the local Girl Scout council calls so I've got the phone in one ear, one arm wrapped around this sub-zero ice cream attachment while the other hand tries to scoop out the soft pink mess yumminess without oozing it all onto my white counter top. She called to say a spot in a workshop NEXT JUNE opened up and would I like to register my DD for it. YES, NEXT JUNE! Luckily I happen to have my credit card #, expiration date, AND security code memorized so while scooping out the last bit of icecream I registered my daughter for the forensic science workshop.)

Afterwards, since DD did a marvelous job of crushing the candy cane and most of it got mixed into the pink ice cream. (The small bowl that remained of it will be used to flavor cocoa and such.) But we didn't eat any ice cream today (and you'll see what later) but it is ready for tomorrow night!

After that side track, the morning has nearly escaped me and knowing we had a homeschool group game day to attend from 1-3pm, I opt to forego the Christmas shopping I wanted to do today.

Skip ahead a couple hours. 

Game day was great. The kids mingled, played board games and/or foosball, had snacks, etc. The moms chatted. We took two games to share, one of which was Quiddler. The other was some ol' Christmas Carols game I picked up a few weeks ago for next to nothing. Mostly, I just enjoyed talking to the other moms. I got more dates on our calendar for upcoming field trips so that was nice (I like being able to plan ahead.)

Skip ahead a couple more hours.


Tonight was Girl Scouts. Tonight was our field trip to the Zion Festival of Lights. It was FABULOUS!!! We loaded up the cars & vans and headed out. First the drive through portion then the walk-through portion. It was all just beautiful! The drive through portion wasn't very big, but the displays moved and were really neat to see in the snow. The walk through portion started with two gorgeous ice sculptures consisted of these little buildings strewn through the grounds (of the city pool of all things!LOL) and the windows were filled with animated and non-animated displays and scenes of all kinds! There was a larger human-size building with Santa there taking gift requests and passing out chocolates, too. Of course, as is habit, I couldn't pass by the "stick your head in the holes" toy soldiers display and got a photo of me with my DD. There was even a small toy train for kids to climb on if desired. What I thought was really neat was there were even lights on the pool slides! And the pool area somehow had a Santa sleigh & reindeer display right in the middle of it complete with a "runway" of lights!

I didn't take my nice Canon Digital Rebel camera with me so only had my camera phone. Here is a sampling of the photos took.

One of the displays seen from the van, as I drove!	One of the ice sculptures, this is a beautiful sleigh.
A Giant Santa on a big tree swing	us as toy soldiers
water slides all decked out with lights	a doll couple getting married in a wintery church
DD with Santa (American Girl doll, dressed in her snow clothes, tagged along)	Dolls doing their holiday baking
Display sign	A BEAUTIFUL back-lit stained glass Van Gogh's Starry Night... stunning!

After touring the walk-through portion we all loaded up again, drove through the drive-through portion again then headed back to the Girl Scout meeting place where we warmed up with hot chocolate and cookies.

Because we got home later than normal for Girl Scouts we didn't do any nighttime reading. We'll double up one day this weekend to catch up though!


**Side note for my seester.... hey girl, I emailed you the whole folder of these photos off my cell phone, to your home email account. MISS YOU. Wish you were here to have gone with us!