Rah Rah Rah Random

While David went on his 4+ hour bike ride around the central coast on Monday, Olivia and I chilled in the backyard for awhile and came in and made some of my mammaw's delicious zucchini bread.

Love that girl

A couple years ago for Christmas, I typed up a set of her recipes into a cookbook and gave copies to my mom, brother, aunt and cousins.  Unfortunately, most of her best desserts were made from memory so we don't have the recipes for them.  Anyway, this recipe is seriously delicious (and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the 2 cups of sugar that goes in it).  The recipe is at the end of the post if your garden is overgrowing with zucchini and need to put it to good use.

The cookbook

3 eggs, 1 cup oil, 2 cups sugar, 3 teaspoons vanilla, 1 cup chopped nuts (I leave those out), 2 cups (packed) grated zucchini, 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon baking soda, 3 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.  Beat eggs until foamy.  Add oil, sugar, vanilla and zucchini.  Sif dry ingredients together, add to first mixture, mix and add nuts last.  Pour into greased loaf pans.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  Makes 2 loaves. 

Enjoying that zucchini bread

Today, our Mommy and Me class met up at a local park and so I took the zucchini bread and also some banana chocolate chip bread up as well.  It was a gorgeous afternoon and Olivia loved having the run of the park.

Olivia probably just took her toy - today I busted her pilfering through multiple diaper bags looking for snacks.

She didn't take a nap this morning and so about five minutes into the ride home, she was passed out in her new car seat.

Before

After

And, since I am on the subject of my grandparents, I wanted to share this memory that one of my mom's friends shared with her the other day about my pappaw who was a teacher for 40 years.

Here is why I thought your Father was a Great Math Teacher: Even though he was not our math teacher in High School, I still sought lessons from him. He was always willing no matter how busy he may have been. When I would have something that would stump me, I would seek his input. He would never tell me the answer to a question I had about a math problem, he would explain the rule. If I still could not figure it out, I would go ask him again. He would show me how to use the rule, but never use a problem that was our homework. He said he could not "teach me" if he worked the problem or help me work the problem. He said the best way to learn is to work it out yourself. He said the best way to teach someone is to explain and encourage, but not to show how to work a particular problem or give the answer to the problem. If he did, the next time I would still be unable to work the math problem. Therefore, he was a "Teacher", not a "Helper".