Slutty Brownies & A Short Visit With Family

Yes you heard right, slutty brownies… I made them for our work party last week and it was pretty evident that my co-workers enjoyed them that much more after hearing the name of them!

I tweaked the recipe below a bit (I cheated and bought the “store bought” cookie and brownie mix) and the “oreos” or shall we say; “Joe Joe’s” are Trader Joes all chocolate version of Oreo but taste pretty similar. I did stick to the same mixing directions and cook time as below…

Click here for Recipe!

I used a small baking pan so I had plenty of mix left over to make them in cupcake form as well but they ended up being WAY over cooked! I recommend shortening the cupcake version by at least 5 minutes!

  YUM!!!

After the cupcake shaped ones cooled the liner was completely stuck to the cupcake and was a nightmare to get off!

So i spent an hour peeling and shaving the edges of the cupcakes until all the paper was of and then threw them away because they were too hard!

So I went with the pie shape and they turned out amazing!

There you have it, slutty brownies! I can now put another check mark on my Pinterest recipe board!

  Our weekend at home was WAY to short especially for all the family my mom had in town…. yeah I thought I had a lot of company lately! Mom had every room in the house packed tight with a total of 15 people under one roof!

(Nope, this isn’t even all of them!)

Grams, Aunt Doreen and Lauren and Jessica all came to visit as well as some more of moms family from Virginia that Alex and I got to meet for the first time!

Delaney (11) on the left, their mom Lorraine, Aunt Barbara and Victoria (16) on the right..

Victoria very quickly gave me puppy eyes and a convincing sob story on day one and talked me into going to Splash in the Boro… which was a LARGE nightmare… never again will I attempt that on the hottest day of the year and a holiday weekend!

So I made a quick call to Nicole and we quickly ditched Splash and landed at Beaumont! Not quite the same as Splash but after a few times down the big slide and ordering a pizza (vegan of course) everyone was happy!

It was pretty much the hottest couple of days I can remember in years so unless we were in a moving golf cart or at the pool we stayed inside!

I wouldn’t let Tucker run or walk with the golf cart and barely let milly because it was just to hot and i was scared they would get over heated but as soon as they saw the water they were itching to be let free…

How cute are these two!

So IO gave in and let them swim and they couldn’t be happier! They must have gotten in and out the water 15 times in 10 minutes! It was a good solution to both the heat and the gnats!

Milly really was the cutest swimmer ever, she drags her back legs and her hiney basically just floats so her front legs are doing all the work!

You have to watch the video below, for the first time ever she dunked her head under water and would come out and splash! I got it on video once but she must have done it 3 or 4 times!

Is that not the cutest? I think it was a good solution to the bugs bothering her!

I was so glad to spend time with grams but dividing my tiny little weekend up with that many others left me feeling like i didn’t get any time with her at all!

What a hoot that grams is, she always calls me the paparazzi; I wonder why? Grams is on dialysis now so she was attending the dialysis center in Statesboro 3 times during the week she was here… we tried talking her into staying but that woman is a creature of habit and was not budging!

Victoria and Jessica had Alex take them out to shoot again before dinner so I ran out there only to snap a few pictures and literally ran back inside… it cooled off at night but the bugs were even worse!

That night at dinner mom kept saying “we’re never going to get a family picture”… I convinced her we would if we set a time for it! So we did! I’m pretty sure that had little to do with it in the end it was really just my loud mouth yelling “Family picture time people”!

We took a few and then realized Tara was MIA…. so we sent Lauren to find her and we were losing daylight by the second!

  Tucker, Milly and Jackson were casually walking around in all the pictures…. Jackson was throwin up right in front of us, Tucker and milly were licking each others private parts and so on….

I tried my best to crop them out…

Cousin pick with grams!!

It was getting darker and darker with each picture but we got as many as we could before it went completely dark!

“Older cousin pic”

Siblings on the left and right… their mothers were sisters :)

     Mom was so sad to see grams leave :( but she promised to come back next summer!

Mom had home cooked meals for everyone for each night they were all there so it was time for El Som as soon as everyone left!

   Tara had her Starbucks and Diet Coke with El Som… I loved it!

Mom and Dad’s “adopted daughter” my cousin Lauren :) … her and daddy are two pea’s in a pod! I just noticed I don’t have one picture of Billy from the weekend! Woops! It’s his fault though, him and Angela were so nice to give their bed up for us for the weekend and stayed at a friends house the second night so they missed out on picture time and then headed to Hilton Head Sunday so missed out on the family’s El Som trip!

Thanks for the bed Billy and Angela!

Speaking of which, we are back on the road again tomorrow and heading to Hilton Head ourselves for the Fourth!

Get me through tomorrow and to the beach; Happy Fourth everyone!!

Is it to Late too say Happy 4th?

Well I’m going to try it out anyway:

HAPPY 4th OF JULY EVERYONE!!

I have obviously been away from technology (thank goodness) for the 4th but am happy to be back with a few moments to myself to report back  on our second, FABULOUS trip to the Clark Hill for the 4th with fabulous company… thanks to Josh’s wonderful family for having us again :)

The only requirement was for us to bring something sweet… besides myself Lou, of course ;)

I was so excited with this news because I knew just what to make…

Click here for Dulce De Leche recipe

Here’s a few more pics of this salivating master piece including Alex coming home only to dip the outer edges I cut off into the caramel… guess who had a tummy ache that night:

View Full Album

There were many other versions of how to make this that I can’t wait to try, especially the cheesecake praline and toffee bars one!

On to our trip:

Does it surprise you that Lou felt the need to bring every bit of his toys? Nope, me either.

It also didn’t surprise me that we got there super late….similar to last year :(

But how could I complain after waking up to the sound of this cute little bug yelling “JennyLouuuuu wake uppppp”!!

The same wake up call as last year and I couldn’t have asked for anything better!

Speaking of waking up, can we talk about our sleeping arrangements:

That would be Lou and I’s tent in the far right corner (look very closely)… and the massive one straight ahead fit EVERYONE else (3 air mattresses) not to mention a freaking air conditioner that allowed me the privilege of hearing Renee and Stephanie complain about being COLD.

You poor things.

Anyway, besides Kaileys wake up call, we also woke up to the smell of Mrs. Georgette and Mr. Eric making eggs, bacon and cheese grits… mmm, mmm, mmm!

So we scarfed it down along with my caramel bars (although I hadn’t planned on them being a breakfast option?) and then loaded up the boats, made sandwiches and headed to the beach!

(the picture above may be the only time Mrs. Georgette sat down the entire weekend- LOVE YOU!)

Lets move on to the lake shall we!

   Day 1 : Little did I know this would be almost the only day that I was ALL about water sports! Probably because the night before (when we arrived) was the only night we didn’t drink ourselves to sleep….

It’s not fun to be thrown off a tube or jet ski after a full night of drinking the night before :)

Kailey held this dead fish for about 30 minutes, no one knows how she found it but she was intrigued (and in case anyone doesn’t know 30 minutes is a long time for a kid to hold something in water!)

Papa is PROUD of anything Kailey does :)

as are the rest of us…..

Hey Stinkster, it’s lunch and cookie time :) 

  This is what the beach chairs look like at lunch time: empty!

Oh Joe, Stop being so romantic….

The picture above was taken way earlier into day one than you would think….. and this big fella had a lot to do with it!

   Just an FYI, Renee and Josh’s family are either the largest 2 families in Statesboro or the most likely to be at Clarke hill during July 4th…. I swear, we not only had a family reunion (upon accident after getting there and seeing how many Thompsons were there) but ran into pieces of them on the lake all weekend!

Which is extremely bizarre for Alex and I to comprehend since we have to drive a minimum of 9 hours to see any of our family members…

I’m not sure how this woman does it but by the time we got back to the camper Mrs. Georgette was already peeling potatoes for dinner…. and had recruited Stephanie to help!

So Lauren, Renee and I ran off to find a shower house that Mr. Eric had totally talked up…. after getting lost and seeing they all looked the same and were all busy we decided to just pick one…. apparently it was the one he talked up?

On a good note it fit all 3 of us and had good water pressure which is a rare form in bath houses!

Luckily we got back just in time for “Show time” starring Josh Whitfield and Joe’s bike…..

(notice the black truck behind him: they waited to load their boat until after he went because they just “had to see this” they also video taped him….)

 

We are pretty sure he got some hits on his head and You Tube!

Yay Josh!

Back to the food… we were all super excited about dinner that every night which allowed us to equate helping with getting it in our bellies faster!

 

others waited and entertained Kay bug….

Which was includes teaching Kailey how to use my “big girl camera”!

The pics below may be the only 2 not of boobs that Kailey shot  :) GO Kay!

By then it was time for me to be entertained….. so Steph put a BEAUTIFUL braid in my hair that made me feel the need to get a haircut appt. ASAP after seeing this!

Ew- but yayyy for dinner time!

  

…and yayyy for 8 layer cakes!

Let the drinking games begin!

I believe this was the night Alex opted out of the guys fishing trip (to sleep off Mrs. Georgettes good southern cooking) that lasted about 5 hours only for them to come home empty handed… so they allowed us to come on board to play drinking games with them on the water!

Only after some pretty “convincing” text messages from Stephanie Renee and Lauren….. of course!

Thankfully that night came to a successfully drunk ending and we woke up early ready to do it all over again!

Kailey woke up painting seashells and ready to hit the water!

The “choo choo” and “Jump to Lou” entertained her until Mrs. Georgettes huge family reunion feast was ready back at the camp site!

The boys did a little trade off with entertaining Kay bug….

Time to eat!

Highlights of the meal: POTATO SALAD!

Not to eat and run or anything but the water was calling us! 

Have i mentioned yet that I love these girls!?!?

….well I do!

And I know I don’t need to mention my love for this little cutie but he’s not so bad himself either ;)

Lou was pumped and ready on our second day to try out his wake board for the first time since last year on the fourth!

  Yayyy Lou!

…such the little ladies man!

Our fun was quickly interrupted when Lauren and I started spotting clouds and lightening that quickly turned into a massive storm!

Our storm plan was to “grab the drinks and head for the tent”!!  

No complaints here!

It ended up getting pretty bad though, so we made a run for it but unlike Stephanie I managed to down my amazing Margarita before taking off (thanks Joe)!

Home Safe!

Do not hate: Kay and I had some pretty wild hair (and I had some nice coon eyes)….

No worries here though, nothing a pair of sunglasses can’t fix :)

Thankfully we all made it back to shore safely to enjoy another night of drinking games and me, Stephanie and our men stayed up hours past the rest of the crew to enjoy a long walk with Lous night vision in attempts to make my dizzies go away:)

“More walking please”

Our last day was amazing and patriotic of course :)

Ok, not really any more “patriotic” than the rest of the weekend (fyi: we did have red, white and blue tablecloths all weekend) but leave it to me to wear my most patriotic bathing suit on the actual 4th of July :)

We had a blast and similar to last year did not want this trip to end! Especially after seeing the woman who “does it all” do even more by trying her luck on the skis and wake board!!

She was amazing on the ski’s and although she didn’t master the wake board she was the closest to getting up on it out of Josh and his cousins :)

What a great way to spend the 4th of July yet again this year! I know I try to turn every vacation into a yearly trip but honestly, I would love to see this as something we do every year with our own children in the future!

It’s an amazing tradition Josh’s family has given to him and Erica to grow up with and that him and Renee have passed down to Kailey….

We love ya’ll all and are so honored to be a part of your very special Fourth at Clark Hill.

Happy [belated] Fourth of July everyone!