Sooooooo behind

I'm SOOOOOO behind on blogging. The last few months have been really, really busy and it looks like it's not letting up until January. So, I'll have to post snippets when I can.

Major stuff that's been going on over the last few months:

• Went to San Francisco for Oracle Open World in October,
• Went to Belgium, Amsterdam & Essen, Germany with Chris & Jeremiah,
• Went to BGG.CON in Dallas,
• Went to the Bohemian Grove with Dave for Thanksgiving,
• Baked lots and lots of cookies, and finally...
• Have gone on lots and lots of dates, especially over the last month!

In between all that, I've been working, gaming, cooking, eating and trying to sleep! I'll have to post little tidbits about those adventures (plus any other little ones)!

Bakefest 2007 has wrapped up

It started early this afternoon and after everything was said, done and baked, we'd gone through...

• almost 10 lbs. of flour
• 5+ lbs of butter
• 3+ lbs. of sugar
• 2 lbs. of bacon

Bacon? Why would you need two pounds of bacon? Because, we had to try BACON chocolate chip cookies. Wow, they are pretty darn tasty! We left off the maple cinnamon glaze and hunk of bacon on top. We made some with only semi-sweet chocolate chips and some with both semi-sweet and white and the combo chips tasted much better.

It was a full house! Chris came early and helped me take some old games to Goodwill and pick out/up a Christmas tree. I'm in LOVE with the one we picked. It's beautiful and perfect. I started decorating it while cookies were in the oven and let me say, Brian and I did a fabulous job at proper light distribution! It is one good looking tree.

Travis and Shane stopped by to bake and play some Guitar Hero. Brian and his girlfriend Martha came over and brought Cynthia, a co-worker/friend of Martha's. She's German and has lived here for two years. She seemed to have a lot of fun baking the cookies. They were here most of the day.

In total we made:

• Bacon chocolate chip cookies - 4 dozen
  
• Snickerdoodles - 4-5 dozen
  
• Almond Crescents - 10 dozen
  
• Oatmeal Scotchies with chocolate chips - 4 dozen
  
• Sugar cookies (some iced and decorated!) - 3 dozen (more dough to roll)
  
• Jam Thumbprints - 4 dozen
  
• Snowball cookies (pecan shortbread balls coated with powdered sugar) - 8 dozen
  

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to bake the chocolate rads that I adore from last year, but there's still time. I may make them tomorrow if I can squeeze it in after church, gaming, a cookie exchange and a holiday party.

Some photos:
Brian getting ready to stir in the bacon

Jam Thumbprints

Almond Crescents, Snowball Cookies and a lone Bacon Chocolate Chip cookie

The Sugar Cookie inspired by Dexter!!

It was tiring, but fun. Now I have plenty of cookies for my bosses' and co-workers' cookie baskets on Monday. I'm definitely ready to go to sleep!