Thursday, July 24, 2008

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!

5 comments:

mslizalou said...

Sorry y'all got caught in the cold rain. I hope some of that rain heads to TN. We haven't had rain in well over 10 days and we need something to cool us down.

I love Hello Dolly cookies/bars. They are great to make on a rainy day.

Vicki said...

The cookies sound yummy!! My mom called them magic cookie bars (I have no idea why), but I like the Hello Dolly name much better.

Lucy said...

Is that the exact recipe? If not, I'd love to have the recipe. :)

Oh, and the rain is supposed STOP by tomorrow. Yay! :)

Stephanie J said...

I love the rain. I really wish it were raining up here!

The chupacabra...was that a show on the Animal Planet? I think I saw previews.

I'm with Lucy, care to post the recipe? Those sound SO GOOD. They might be a weird combo with tea but I'm having visions of a plate of Hello Dolly's next to me and nice hot cup of tea while I read a good book!

Unknown said...

cold rain? i'm convinced we don't really live in the same city. we got muggy rain here on campus. :(

the weekend is supposed to clear up so looking forward to that.

happy friday!