Hello Dolly!

We're to the east of Hurricane Dolly and so on the rainy side of the storm. We've been expecting rain. Yesterday we had some in the early morning, but then the weather held for swimming lessons and stayed drizzly most of the day. Last night we decided to take the dog for a walk and let the boys ride their new Razor scooters. There's a park with a walking path right near our house, and that's where we normally go, but my older son wanted to head out to the more distant park. Personally I didn't think either one of them would make it there and back without getting tired of their scooters, but I followed along after them.

When we were directly behind our house (maybe a quarter mile away from home by road), I heard this shimmery sound behind me and turned to check it out. It was rain, pouring down behind us, racing in our direction. I called up to my husband, but by the time I'd finished warning him, the rain had arrived. We were all drenched in seconds, our clothes clinging to our skin as we hustled it back home. It was freezing--quite the anomaly in Houston in July--and windy, and the dog was LOVING it, prancing and frisking and wanting to play.

Once we turned the corner back onto our street, it had pretty much stopped, and my husband, ever the optimist, tells the boys, 'Okay, so we've had our shower. Let's get dried off, brush teeth, and go to bed.' It didn't fly, and instead they all huddled on the couch watching some show about the chupacabra. (Luckily there were no nightmares...)

And now today it's been almost non-stop rain... But it's cooler! It occurs to me that this is the perfect opportunity to make some Hello Dollys. For those of you who haven't heard of these, they're a bar cookie, with a graham cracker base, then layers of coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans, covered with sweetened condensed milk and baked to a golden brown yummy goodness. I think I've just convinced myself that this is exactly what I need!