I was in the Guinness Book of World Records!

     On Monday October 15, 1979, I joined a group of 1800+ tap dancers and danced my way down Hennepin Avenue to the song, "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" to help celebrate the opening of the Hennepin Center for the Arts. “Sounds like a herd of buffalo,” said an observer. “Nah, it sounds more like a herd of buffalo wearing tap shoes,” said the observer’s friend. We all wore red, white and blue dance costumes and tapped our way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people tap dancing to a single piece of music at one time. I was so amazed at how many tap dancers there were all in one place and I remember it being really loud and so much fun! Here's the video if you want to see it! It's kid of long but you can skip ahead to the dancing part!
                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY712_hK6CE
     Going totally off topic--for those that know me, it’s not unusual--it is dance-related, however. When I was in High School, I tried out for and made the All-Stars Just for Kix Dance Team that met in San Diego and danced in the Holiday Bowl halftime show! This was a huge deal because I was one of only five girls in my state to make this team and I had never been away from home by myself before. We learned the dance in the week we were there and performed in a Hawaiian bathing suit and sarong with a beach ball for part of it and it was a blast! One thing they weren’t thinking about in choreographing our dance was that the field would be all tore up from the football players. There were a couple moves that put us on the ground so we ended up getting kind of muddy! Halfway through the dance, we were supposed to throw the beach ball into the crowd and I was so bummed that I didn’t get to keep it. Some girls kept them anyway, but it was fun watching all those balls bouncing around up in the stands. I bought a video of the performance, but one of my parents accidentally videotaped one of my brother's football games over a part of it.
     Anyway, these are the two times in my life where I was almost famous!

I Didn't Die in the Back of a Station Wagon!

     Family vacations were always fun. Our family owned a station wagon, the kind where the far back seat actually faced backward. Yes, you heard me, it was backward! The window rolled down and we loved to wave and stick our tongues out to the people in the cars behind us. We never wore seatbelts and half the time barely stayed seated!
     The far back seat was the best because it didn’t have the “hump” on the floor that the middle back seat had. No one wanted to sit in the middle back seat because the two people on the sides wouldn’t let you put your feet on their side so you had to keep your feet up on the hump the whole time. This was a major source of contention in the car when I was growing up, especially since I was the smallest of the three kids. I wasn’t the youngest, just the smallest, so it was totally unfair!
     You could also put all the seats down so you could lay down in the back and that is exactly what we did. No seat belts or car seats just a big open area and we kids jumping around back there. Those were good times! All of us could lay down in the back seat at the same time and read books or take naps. The car rides were a lot more fun and would seem to go much faster not being confined to a seat and a seatbelt. Car seats were used but often just as a place for the baby to sit but they were not buckled in for safety.

This is not me or my siblings!

     We took a trip to New Jersey in the station wagon when I was a kid and we stayed in an oceanside beach house which was pretty cool. We kids all stretched out in the back, comfortable and reading good books; life was never better. This was the first time I was introduced to an adult book. Up until that time, I mostly read Judy Blume books, Sweet Valley High and Little House on the Prairie series-type books. It was a V.C. Andrews book called Flowers in the Attic and it was really intense for my age. I read several of her other books and, finally, decided they weren’t for me. It was also the first time I had ever seen the ocean. For my whole life, I have been fascinated and terrified of the ocean with its monstrous waves, ships, submarines, and all the ocean animals, such as whales, dolphins, sharks, octopus and more. I remember being both thrilled and scared to go into the ocean and never really went in past my knees. My sister and I were more interested in looking for boys. My brother, John, on the other hand, was in it up to his head, and would bob along with the waves that would crash over him.
     One car trip we took was most notable because my brother, John threw up on the floor in the middle back seat just a short time before we made it home. That was awful! You just couldn’t get away from the smell.
     We took a trip to Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd when I was a kid. There is a picture of me looking up at him, he was HUGE! I think there are a couple of pictures of us with Babe the Blue Ox as well. That was quite memorable because he was so large and I was so small.

     I know that I will not remember all the trips I went on as a youth but going to Wisconsin Dells was one I would never forget! We stayed at the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park campground and it was cool because it had a bunch of statues from the Yogi Bear cartoon (on a side note, I ended up marrying a man that can quote and imitate Yogi Bear and Snagglepuss perfectly! Ask him to do it sometime!) This campground had a pool! We visited The Wonder spot, a “mysterious cabin where people can’t stand up straight, water runs uphill and chairs balance on two legs”. They describe the place as a Gravity vortex “where the laws of natural gravity seem to be repealed”. It’s sad to know that this place is no more and a highway took its place. We also had day passes for the Noah’s Ark Waterpark and I had never seen anything more glorious in my life! I always was a water-loving girl and it had everything I needed to have fun forever. I was so sad when we had to leave.

     I’m sure there were other trips we took when I was a kid, but I won’t bore you with any more of them. The important part is that we did things together as a family to build a strong bond together even though we were a his, mine, and ours family; we got there in a trusty old station wagon either seated forward or backward, probably laying down and never once did we wear seatbelts! And we didn’t die!

Special "K" Bars - This recipe changed my life!

     This is the first recipe I can ever remember making. I was in Home Ec class in Junior High School. I still have the original copy of it in my file box. It’s an 8 x 11” piece of paper yellowed with time, stained and fairly fragile. I remember we made these and it changed my life. I don’t think I had ever had any dessert so perfect in my young life! I was so proud of myself that I could actually bake! Up to this point, I thought that was something only moms could do.
Special “K” Bars

Heat in saucepan ½ cup sugar and ½ cup white syrup (light corn syrup). Remove from heat before it boils. Add 2/3 cup of peanut butter and blend. Pour this mixture over 3 cups of Special “K” breakfast food. Mix and pat in greased pan (8 in. square). Frosting – Heat ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup butterscotch chip in top of double boiler (one pan on top of the other with boiling water in the lower one). When melted, spread over top of bars. Cool.

     These days, a double boiler is unnecessary since we have microwaves and they melt chocolate so much easier.
     I made these for years and I still love them very much, but now I make Scotcheroos. They are essentially the same thing but they are made with Rice Krispies instead of Special “K” cereal. Every one of my kids love these and they are highly requested at family events. I do remember using these to bribe Tanner on several occasions to do what I wanted of him! Here’s the recipe for comparison:
Scotcheroos

1 c. light Karo Syrup

1 c. sugar

1 c. peanut butter

6 c. Rice Krispies

10 oz. chocolate chips

10 oz. butterscotch chips

Bring sugar and syrup to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat when the sugar is dissolved and add peanut butter. Mix until smooth. Stir in Rice Krispies. Spread in a buttered 9 x 13 pan. Melt chips in microwave 90 seconds, then stir, and then 30 seconds stirring until smooth. Spread on bars and let cool. Do not refrigerate! 24 servings

     These are supposed to serve 24 people but the boys would cut the whole pan puzzle-style into seven pieces so that we’d each get one. Crazy kids!

     Eventually, I would just double this recipe and put it into a 10 x 15 jelly roll because they were so popular that they never lasted. I made a few jelly roll pans of these for Dallin’s 200+ friend birthday party and they disappeared right away!
     The only other dessert I can remember making at this age was brownies from a box mix for Family Night. My parents never let me forget (even to this day) that they were about ½ inch thick because I had “tasted” the brownie batter so much! This began my great love of brownie batter, it IS better than the actual brownies and almost better than Scotcheroos!