• 1 box spice or German chocolate cake mix
• 1 box of white cake mix
• 1 package white sandwich cookies
• 1 large package vanilla instant pudding mix
• A few drops green food coloring
• 12 small Tootsie Rolls or equivalent   --- (Well, THAT'S a relief!!)

• 1 NEW cat-litter box
• 1 NEW cat-litter box liner
• 1 NEW pooper scooper

1. Prepare and bake cake mixes, according to directions, in any size pan. Prepare pudding and chill. Crumble cookies in small batches in blender or food processor. Add a few drops of green food coloring to 1 cup of cookie crumbs. Mix with a fork or shake in a jar. Set aside.
2. When cakes are at room temperature, crumble them into a large bowl. Toss with half of the remaining cookie crumbs and enough pudding to make the mixture moist but not soggy. Place liner in litter box and pour in mixture.
3. Unwrap 3 Tootsie Rolls and heat in a microwave until soft and pliable. Shape the blunt ends into slightly curved point "s". Repeat with three more rolls. Bury the rolls decoratively in the cake mixture. Sprinkle remaining white cookie crumbs over the mixture, then scatter green crumbs lightly over top.
4. Heat 5 more Tootsie Rolls until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake and sprinkle with crumbs from the litter box. Heat the remaining Tootsie Roll until pliable and hang it over the edge of the box. Place box on a sheet of newspaper and serve with scooper. Enjoy!

Sorry about the site being down for the last 5 days. It took me a while to find the time and figure out what the matter was. First I had to eliminate all problems until it boiled down to being a problem with the router. Which made sense since the problem all started when it froze up and I had to unplug and reset it 5 days ago. The problem was in the IP addresses. Comcast gives me one IP address, which goes to the router, and then the router issues all the computers it's own IP addresses, which are all the same except for the last 3 digits. Since I have 2 computers hooked up to it, one has 100 as it's last 3, the other 101. The computer that has the web site on it was 101, the one upstairs being 100. When I had to reset the router, it also reset the IP addresses, switching them around. So, whenever someone tried to access the web site, the router was sending them to the computer upstairs, which is the wrong computer. All I had to do was change the address that the router sent website requests to, and voila, it's working again. Just like electrical problems in a car, 4 hours of troubleshooting and 37 seconds (or 37 cents) to fix.

Went down to Lockhart Basin this weekend. I didn't leave until Friday morning, but Alex, Marijke, Madison, Lynda, Todd, Paige, Landon, Jenny, Scott, Kinley and a couple more families that are friends with A & M and have kids that are friends with Madison were there. 18 in all. I left around 9:00 and it took me only 4 hours to get to Moab, and that included a stop in Green River for bypass surgery. Not me, on Alex's truck. It sprung a leak in the heater core, all over one of my blankets, and I had to reroute the coolant hoses to bypass the heater. Which made for a cold ride through Spanish Fork canyon on the way home. But at least I had the forethought to bring my tools and it only took 20 minutes. Got to the campground without any more problems, around 2:00 and had a great afternoon and evening. We were camped right in between Bubba & his clan to the north and bunch of teenagers with the local County Rec. At least we couldn't see the County Rec people, except that evening when one of them came over to ask if we'd seen Tim, or Jim, or whatever his name was, who had "gone bezerk" and decided to leave. All we knew was that he probably passed our camp a half hour ago because Chloe, Todd & Lynda's dog, had been growling at the Tamarisk trees like someone was skulking behind them. Which he probably had been. Either that or there was a rabbit hiding in there. Either way, the growling and the missing kid out in the wilderness were kinda spooky, especially once we realized it was Friday the 13th. But it was a fun afternoon & evening, and I slept really well that night. Until Bubba & Co. decided to rev up their 4 wheelers at 5:30 in the morning. That lasted about 15 minutes, and just as I was falling asleep again his kids started screaming at the top of their lungs and chasing each other around. That was fun to listen to. Then came the popping sound, which sounded like a gun, but not a real gun. Jenn told me later that she had looked out her window and saw their 3 or 4 year old out there shooting off what looked like a paint ball gun. At 6 in the morning. Unsupervised. I suggested we nominate them for "Parents of the Year", but I didn't get any support for it so I let it go. Saturday was a day of contradictions. At times it was fun, others it was frustrating. The rain started sometime in the night, it was kinda nice sleeping in a tent with the rain falling, but it kept up on and off all day long, lightly sometimes, heavily others. We'd get about a half hour of cloudy without rain, then half hour of rain, whatever level the clouds were in the mood for. When it wasn't raining, we'd all come out of our respective tents and sit around the fire, which we did keep going, or go on a short hike, or go rock hunting in the creek (I got some nice ones for my yard). Then it would start raining again and we'd all slink back into our tents, or over to Alex & Marijke's "Event Tent" as Alex called it. It was, on and off, a good time, but around 5:00, when it started raining heavier, my tent was beginning to get waterlogged and the thunder started, I decided I was coming home. I'd been soggy all day and just didn't look forward to a soggy night's sleep. So, I loaded up the truck, added a bike rack and three bikes that had a hard time on the bumper of Alex's trailer, and headed home. Now, you may or may not know it, but rain, humidity, warm breath and no heater do not go well together. I drove all the way to Moab wiping off the windshield every two minutes or so. Fortunatly I had gotten some napkins from Marijke, for some other reason I can't remember now. In Moab I got some window cleaner and paper towels, which cleaned it up good, but the air driedout anyway so the windshield was fine from there on out. Except it did get real cold coming over the pass in Spanish Fork canyon, but I was wearing 4 shirts (all my coats were soaked), so I was just shy of comfortable. Got home safe, went to bed, end of story..........

Put in a new dishwasher today. Well, not a new-new one, but a new one for me. When Danny and I were over at Alex's house helping him switch the axle over on his trailer, he had this dishwasher sitting in the corner of his garage. Said it was Jeff's old dishwasher and he was going to put it in a dumpster for him. Said it was a waste since the thing worked, it's just that Jeff & Amy remodeled their kitchen and got a brand new one that goes with the rest of their new appliances. Good for me, because my old one wasn't working so great, and I was planning on getting a new one soon anyway. So, I pulled out the old one and put in theirs, took me less than 2 hours all together. And now it's in there washing my dishes. So far we're one up on the old one, I didn't have to fill it with water by hand. Plus #2, it's quieter than the old one. Now if it just dries the dishes I'll be leaps and bounds ahead of the old one. Thanks Jeff & Amy.

Well, it's October already. The last couple of weeks have been busy. Parent/Teacher conferences went well, I only had about 20 parents show up, but considering I only have 90 students, that's not as bad as it sounds.

School's going well, I've got a couple of really good classes and I'm getting to know the people I work with. Good group. Not as goofy and off the wall as the Jr. High groups, though I'm still having fun there. The hard part is balancing teaching, principals priorities, district priorities and what the teachers need. But I'm figuring it out, and I'm learning a ton about computers, networking and holding teacher trainings.