Life Lately: September

We celebrated Heb's birthday.  I threw him a pizza party at his request and made funfetti cupcakes (one of his favs).  It sure is different with kids.   Remember our party last year?

I've been singing in a choir.  Our Visiting Teaching conference in our ward is coming up and I was asked to sing.  I can't tell you how much I've missed singing.  It just means that I need to get out and sing in our regular choir but Sundays are one of the few times I get to spend time with Hebs so...yeah, it doesn't happen.  I am, ahem, singing a solo too.

I taught another of my jewelry classes last week at the bead store.  The projects that the students made turned out great! And I seem to be getting in the swing of teaching.  I have another class coming up next month.  I went to a big bead convention and spent way too much money but have been making some projects that I love. Here are a couple.

We took our first trip of the year to the farmer's market.  Yes, I know it's September.  Saturdays have been pretty busy lately. We bought apples and baked an apple pie.  That's when I knew it was fall.  We took it to Sunday dinner with the Scharman's and we enjoyed every bite.  I may have figured out the secret to getting the perfect consistency for apples.  It's all about slicing them up, covering them in sugar and letting them sit for a half hour.  Tons of water comes off and the sauce comes out perfect.  See, pie advice in a post, just what you needed.

Heb is still working on designing the satellite and serving with the scouts.  They've started a biking merit badge. 

We are excitedly preparing for our vacation to Outer Banks at the end of the month.  I've been dying to get to a beach town.   We have rented a cute vacation home with some friends and I'm looking forward to enjoying the beach. We are hoping to make a stop to see some old friends from Logan, yay!!

Our Leo is 10 months old and crawling all over.  He's standing too and loves to play games with us like hide and seek.  He's quite the personality.  He loves popcycles, he must be my child.  I've written much more about him over on his blog, drop your email in a comment if you want to view. 

So that's what we've been up to. 

Mystery Solved

I am a hot chocolate snob. It's absolutely true. The regular old watery hot chocolate that most places serve up just does not cut it for me. If it came from a powder at any time, it's just not good enough for me to pay $4.00 a glass. Not even Stephens or Starbucks could compete. Am I speaking blasphemy?

Hot cocoa consumption should be an experience. It doesn't just consist of a good cut of hot chocolate, it is so much more. It should be a comfortable environment and thick chocolatey goodness with the real whip cream.

I'm sure I've written about the Cocoa Cafe before. It was perfection. A charming Salt Lake City cafe that had deliciously thick cocoa and real whip cream. The ambiance was so comfortable with mismatched mugs, big arm chairs, a fireplace and lots of wood. I can't tell you how many times I went to the cafe. It was discovered accidentally one night (bless you Adam Sagers, wherever you are) and became one of my favorite places to visit. It became the place that Heb and I would often stop in. We would meet our families for a cocoa that drank like a meal, good conversation and occasionally a board game. One day, it suddenly shut it's doors. A victim of the terrible economy, it was gone and I was sad.

Since then, I have been looking for hot cocoa like that, for a place like that. After searching and searching, I lowered my expectations to finding a place that served cocoa like that - not even the comfortable environment. For years, I have been unsuccessful....until tonight.

We had passed the Pitangelo Gelato on a recent trip to the Eastern Market. They had a sign out for hot chocolate that looked like it might fit the bill. This evening, we made our way into the city to try it out (see the post right before: distraction). It was exactly what I have been looking for, the technical name for it is Italian Hot Chocolate. Thick, creamy goodness. Now the ambiance could stand some improvement but I can finally enjoy cocoa again. Yay!


If you're out that way, stop and give it a try.