The Search for Miss Direction: Heaven Only Knows

It has been a really great Saturday here at the Gatchel's. Then again, when you start with a breakfast consisting of chocolate pancake, marshmallows, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and walnuts toasted to perfection how could it not be a good day? Happy Heavenly Hash Day, everyone!

But wait right there. What exactly is Heavenly Hash, you ask? Excellent question! Because apparently it depends on who you ask. My research turned up two very distinctly different foods both called Heavenly Hash. Not wanting to celebrate incorrectly, we of course had both :-p

The first Heavenly Hash gets even more confusing. Basically any dessert that contains chocolate, marshmallows and nuts kind of falls under this category. A lot of people remember it as an ice cream flavor (kind of like Rocky Road) and there is also a candy (kind of like a fudge) with chocolate and marshmallows (and a nut of your choosing) that is referred to as Heavenly Hash. I even came across cookie and cake recipes claiming to be Heavenly Hash. I had originally intended to celebrate via a cookie recipe I found, but since yesterday we had a dessert and tomorrow is a dessert I decided to confuse the situation even further and turn our Heavenly Hash into a breakfast! I figured as long as it had those key components, I could call it Heavenly Hash, too. Who's to say it's not?

The second Heavenly Hash is also kind of all over the board. It's a salad that at least contains marshmallow, usually pineapple, sometimes rice, sometimes cherries, sometimes other fruit and whipped cream. (Grant says he remembers having something similar with coconut instead of rice) It kind of reminded me of the pink fluff we made back in November.

So after dinner we took a vote to determine what the Gatchel household would consider Heavenly Hash to be. Noah was hands down for the pancakes. Mikayla loved the salad. Grant said he liked both but if you twisted his arm he'd go with the pancakes. So there you have it, Heavenly Hash.

Also, though I'm not going down this road on a regular basis, a little birdie informed me that today is Crepes Day in France. I've always said that I'm going to make them but never had so I decided to whip up a batch for dessert tonight. I got the hang of it fairly quickly and came up with some yummy crepes stuffed with raspberry preserves (thanks, peach melba!) and some homemade whipped cream.

This morning Grant and the kiddos did their favorite monthly outing - Home Depot Kid's build. Just like my love of the library, I have to give props to Home Depot. My kids adore going with Grant one Saturday morning a month and creating a project with him. The staff where they go know them by name (and have recognized the kiddos when they are there with me!) and do a great job leading the project. They made adorable valentines mail boxes today which we of course have already hung in their rooms.

After a quick lunch we headed outside. It had been snowing pretty consistently all morning and we'd gotten at least an inch. So while Grant and I tackled the driveway the kiddos played outside. The snow was so light and fluffy Grant and I finished in record time and got in on the playing. Since then we've accumulated probably at least another inch of snow which I'm sure we'll venture out in tomorrow.

After naps we started work on some Valentine's Day projects. Any project that consumes an hour and a half without fighting rocks! I had made some salt dough cut outs earlier in the day and we decorated to turn them into magnets. The kids did an awesome job.

Right now, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are in the bath tub and then I think we're going to do some Wii Dance Party to wrap up the evening. Grant and I are looking forward to watching the basketball game later (GO BLUE!). Bring on carrot cake (in two forms!) tomorrow and Sesame Street as well! Until then...