Great Cookie Recipe

Jeff and I have an ongoing fight over the right way to make chocolate chip cookies. He believes in adding oatmeal and I am a purist, ie no oatmeal. I found this recipe online. It is a copy cat recipe of the Double Tree Hotels famous cookies and yes it has oatmeal in it. As you can see by the picture, I almost ate an entire one before I could get the camera out. They are really that good. I might even change my mind about the addition of oatmeal to chocolate chip cookies!

Double Tree Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: approximately 4 dozen.
1 1/2 C. butter — softened
1 1/2 C. granulated sugar
3/4 C. firmly packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. lemon juice (I left this out since I did not have a lemon)
3 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 C. old-fashioned oatmeal — uncooked
3/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
3 C. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips — Ghirardelli
1 1/2 C. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the butter in a large bowl and cream lightly with an electric mixer. Add the sugars and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and lemon juice and mix well. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to the creamed butter mixture and stir well to blend. Add chocolate chips and walnuts and stir to combine. Using a 1/4 cup measure or a 2-oz ice cream scoop, drop the batter on the parchment-lined pans, leaving 2 -3 inches between each cookie. Bake for 13 – 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Remove from parchment and cool on wire racks

Tom Boy

Jeff and I thought that it would be a great idea if Avery got visited by the Norwegian Santa or julenisse this year. We had a plan to have a gift ready for when she walked in the door after getting off of the airplane. A few weeks before we left for the States we took her to Toys R Us and watched what she looked at. We decided to buy her this...She has played with it a total of three times. She would much rather play with these...
She has played with these about five times a day since we got back. Next year I'm just going spend about $10 on dragons, dinos and guns, that seems to be all she's interested in these days. Oh and I think the dinos are in t a meeting since they all keep talking to each other, the outer dino seems to be the leader.

Immigration

Every January that we are here in Norway, Avery and I have to make the trek downtown to the Police Station and deal with getting our Visa's renewed. A harrowing stress filled process that I was not looking forward to. I have been emailing people at UDI (Norwegian Immigration) and at the Police Station to try to figure out what all we needed to turn in this year since the website is entirely too vague. Jeff is set, his Visa does not expire until the end of 2012 but for some reason, Ave and I have to renew ours each year. Maybe the don't believe Avery is Jeff's child or maybe they think we'll get a divorce, who knows, but it is a pain in my ass.

When we came last February we had to report to UDI at the police station within 7 days of our arrival in Norway. So the Monday after we arrived, still jet lagged we took the 5:30 a.m. bus downtown. Luckily my Mom was in tow since we had to stand for two hours in a vestibule outside the doors of the police station before we could even get in to take a number. Luckily we arrived so early since by time the doors opened there were at least 100 immigrants waiting in line. I think we were like #15. Once we got our number we had to wait another hour until immigration opened and then continue to wait until they called our number.

After such a crappy experience at Immigration the first time, I was completely set for the same experience this time. We decided to go on a Tuesday, thinking the weekend rush would go on Monday, we also decided to just show up at 8 am and if we had to wait longer so be it. To our astonishment we got there a little after 8 and were only # 10 in line!! We were out of Immigration by 9:30. It was amazing how different of an experience it was. Everything is chance, some days are just as packed and crazy like our first trip and other days are slow, this time the Gods smiled upon us. All our paperwork got turned in they took more copies of our passports (they have like six of these now) and new applications, so now we just have to wait for the decision at which point we will have to go again to UDI to get the Visa's in our passport. Fun stuff but I've learned that if you go with no expectations and go prepared with toys, food, juice and an ipod it is not that bad. Ah the joys of being an immigrant!

Godt Nytt År!

Love, the Klines!

Christmas back home!

We made it back to Great Falls after two days of travel. Our flight got diverted when Minneapolis Airport closed so we had to spend a night in Detroit. Luckily we caught a flight the next day that got us in at four. We spent a little over two weeks in Great Falls and enjoyed every minute of it. I ate out every day, sometimes twice a day, mostly Mexican and I shopped until I was sick of shopping. I managed to get all of my Christmas shopping done in about two days. It was so nice to see everyone and Avery LOVED hanging out with all her cousins, she even got to see Ronnie and Rhiannon who came down from Kalispell with their Mom and Dad. It was hard to say goodbye but after 24 hours of travel we made it back to Norway with 5 suitcases packed to the max. We now have refried beans, coffee mate and taco treat hot sauce to last us for a few months! I just love going home!!The princess on Christmas Eve.
Getting ready to hot tub with cousin Shayden.

Being silly with Grandpa Bubba.
I love how Avery is trying to sneak her dinosaur in the picture. This is before her first Christmas with Grandma Lori.
Santa came to Grandma Lori's. The kids where in awe. This was the first year Avery really believed in Santa and she got so into Christmas, it was amazing.
Christmas Eve at my parents with her cousins Michael and Yoshi.
Opening yet more gifts, the kid got totally spoiled!
Cousin Hayden on Christmas Eve, he is so freaking cute and we were lucky enough to have his Daddy James, who just got back from a tour in Afghanistan, spend the evening with us.
Christmas morning, she got her bow and arrow and shooting gun! Santa hooked this girl up. So much so that she asked me when we got back to Norway (where Santa came yet another time and left more gifts) if Santa was coming again tomorrow.
The nerf shooting guns. Although I think her Daddy has enjoyed playing with these as much if not more than Avery.

We had such a great holiday. Thank you to all our families for sharing time with us!