Keeping Destiny busy

This week is just flying by, and I want to share some pictures of a few activities going on around here.  Destiny is still here (I'll be taking her home tomorrow), so all my pictures are of her this week.  

I registered her for a local 4-H club that was meeting Monday through Thursday evenings this week, doing wind energy projects.  What fun!  She LOVES it!  The kids get to be extremely creative, working independently, or together, figuring out how to design simple things that work.  The first night they were supposed to design a "boat" that would "sail" in front of a fan.  The goal was to make the boat go fast, straight, and far.  All kinds of materials were provided for them to try.  

At the end of the evening they had a little race where they timed them and measured how far they went.  Destiny's did really well - second place, I think.

The last two evenings they were working on making "windmills" that were fast enough to lift a "load" (a plastic cup of pennies).  It was very, very challenging, especially trying to figure out how to attach the load so that it could be lifted.  There were no "this is how you do it" instructions - just pure trial and error and thinking like an engineer.  Destiny's was the only one that worked, so far.  They will keep tweaking them this evening.  

She really does like to figure out how to make things work.  Yesterday afternoon she spent HOURS making a working windmill with Legos. (No picture - she left it at the 4-H location.)

She also likes to cook and bake.  She decided when I was cooking dinner that she wants to make cupcakes, but I told her they would have to wait until we came home from 4-H.  So she took "orders" from Anthony and Lori and from everyone at 4-H - what color of cupcake paper would they like their cupcake to be in?  She wrote everyone's order down.  

And when we came home we got busy and made cupcakes from "scratch", using my very favorite white cake recipe - Ice Water Cake.   She had never seen egg whites beaten until stiff and was amazed!  She had to add sprinkles on top of each one before we baked them.  

We also made frosting, but not my favorite kind, because we ran out of white flour.  There was extra cake batter that we baked in a square pan, and of course, we had to sample it as soon as possible.  Destiny needed a candle on hers.   Later we added cocoa powder to the frosting and turned it into chocolate frosting.  I did not get a picture of the cupcakes after we were finished. 

  
There were so many dirty dishes after we were finished, I remembered why I never bake desserts anymore.  That, and all the sugar and Crisco and white flour that went into it!  Yikes!  But we did have such fun, and she will love giving them out. 


I was reminded of a certain familiar sight in my farmhouse kitchen back in the 90's - a tall, teenage boy who loved to cook and bake, all the while talking on the phone with the 25-foot cord!  Destiny's dad, Frank!