cakes · Celebrations

Chocolate Cake From Scratch – Easy and Delicious!

Birthdays and cake just go together! I think it would be a sad celebration without one! When my girls asked me to make a cake for our family vacation and family celebration, I looked at lots of options, then landed on our long-time favorite – Triple Chocolate Cake. I think deciding which cake to make was harder than actually making it! First on the list was making sure I had all the ingredients on hand. That didn’t mean a run to the store because I am enjoying the blessing of occasionally having my Kroger grocery order delivered. I was able to get a rate for being a Kroger Boost member $35 for the year. That allows me to have groceries delivered the next day at no charge. For the most part it’s been wonderful. Why?

  • It keeps me home.
  • If I forget something, it allows me to add things to my order up to about two hours prior to my delivery time.
  • For the most part, I’ve gotten everything I’ve ordered.

However, a happy accident happened when the Devil’s Food Cake Mix didn’t show up in my delivery. I was planning to make the cake layers for the Triple Chocolate Cake on that day. Since I didn’t want to undo the blessing of the delivery, I went looking for a cook chocolate cake recipe that I could make from scratch instead. The happy accident was that the recipe I baked made the Triple Chocolate cake recipe so much better that I’ll never use that box mix again!

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Family life · traditions

Family Vacation Memories

This Labor Day was the third Ham Fam Vacay, the first being 2017 and the next, 2022. We had the blessing of a three bedroom condo in Pigeon Forge – just perfect for all three families to have room to sleep, cook and play for three days and nights.

We are blessed with family relationships that are not stressful or forced. We can only credit this to each of us having a relationship with the Lord. He models perfect love and acceptance to us that we then strive for towards one another. Of course, we often miss, but for the most part, we enjoy a human love based on God’s Divine love.

We wanted to enjoy meals at the table together in the peace and quiet (well, kind of quiet!) of our condo, and also as a way to reduce our cost, so my girls and I divided up the mealtimes and each of us were assigned certain meals. We did go out for one special lunch – more on that in a minute. First, let me give you a sampling of what was enjoyed in our condo…

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aging · serving

Coasting Into Heaven

There is so much more information on the Refresh Her podcast. Listen here.

I heard a statement last weekend that I’ve pondered over and over in my mind. Here it is:

God doesn’t want us to just coast into heaven.

Something that coasts has been in motion, then comes to an eventual stop. The comment was made toward senior citizens and was referring to their gradual decline in serving the Lord. They were once busy, but are obviously slowing down. The encouragement was to not come to a complete stop this side of eternity.

As we age, I’m sure it would be easy to think, “I’ve done my share of work (in the church, in Sunday school, VBS, being hospitable, witnessing, etc), it’s my time to be retired and rest.” However, the Lord has something for us to do for Him until He calls us home to heaven. A shut-in, an invalid, a blind person, a person with no mobility or transportation can all serve the Lord. Consider:

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Uncategorized

Labor Day Plans

Oh, the last holiday (perhaps vacation time?) before the autumn season is here! We have some fun plans that I’ll share with you on Friday. It involves a little travel, time with family, a celebration, and of course some good food! Be sure to check back at the end of the week for all the details!

Here’s one thing I made for the celebration. Picture was taken mid-way in the process.

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Family life · Marriage · memories · traditions

Memorable Moments at Hilton Head Island

Our loving and kind Heavenly Father is so good to precede us with blessings from His hand. After a very busy summer of serving, we were given a week to rest and refresh on Hilton Head Island, one of our favorite vacation destinations. HHI holds many memories for us from bringing our girls here beginning when they were about eight and fifteen. We first started vacationing there when we lived in Indiana. To travel from snow in the early spring to the deep south where temps were definitely warmer, was such a wonderful reprieve. Bike rides, ice cream cones, days in the surf, and seafood dinners are part of the memories from every year we’ve gone.

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