Buckeyes and Bananagrams

We are both officially on Thanksgiving Break (after Kara gets out of class at 5:00) - which I must say is much needed. Kara and I have both had difficult semesters this year. What makes it even harder is that some of our friends are either taking a lighter course load this year or have just lost motivation in general. But Kara and I are still our typical nerdy selves, studying and working hard like always. So, when a break comes along (like Thanksgiving), we are definitely taking full advantage.
To start off the "festivities", Kara brought over her set of Bananagrams to play. Since no one else wanted in, we both played by ourselves. Let me tell you from experience, playing Bananagrams with just two people makes for a much longer game, but we enjoyed ourselves. I think Kara enjoyed it more because she not only won both games, but she also called me out when I had claimed to win and one of my letters was misplaced. Let's just say that apparently when this happens, gloating is encouraged. And since I know you are curious, our boards are below. (Note: In Kamaron Gray-like fashion, after losing the first game, I quickly destroyed my board so no pictures could be taken).

Kara's Winning Words

My Not-Quite-Winning Words

As you may have noted in my picture above, there were several strange ingredients laying on the table while we were playing the game. Most notably - Gulf Wax. The only thing I have ever known this to be used for is Buckeyes, but apparently it serves some sort of canning purpose that I am not yet aware of. Anyways, Kara and I spent an evening this weekend making some Buckeyes!

Step 1: Mix and Mash

We had a lot of fun making these together. Last year, we resorted to using one of Kara's bobby pins to poke the Buckeyes with in order to dip them in the chocolate. This year, there were no bobby pins or toothpicks to be found, so I suggested what I thought was a great idea - Q-tips with one end cut off. Kara definitely objected, but I ended up persuading her, and I think it turned out pretty well (although you won't hear her say the same).

We only had two problems with the entire operation: 1) We had excess chocolate. 2) We had no wax paper.
The excess chocolate, of course, was not really a problem at all. We were dipping everything we could scrounge up into the chocolate - including my roommate's LIFE cereal. The second problem turned out to be kind of frustrating. After cooling the candy off, we tried to remove them from the pans. Needless to say, they were not coming off very easily. We even resorted to flossing them off at one point (Kara's idea - Again, let's compare the Q-tip idea to the floss idea...)

Trying to Pry Them Out

Overall, it turned out good, even if 1/2 of our Buckeyes are bottomless. Enjoy Thanksgiving Week! I know we will.