cake mix cookies

Happy Friday Eve! Compared to August and September, this month has seemed to fly by for me. Less than two weeks until Halloween. Let’s get started with tonight’s five topics…

Cerealflation – Let me vent for a minute. What you see below is ridiculous and nothing short of highway robbery. The fact that Safeway had the nerve to put a tag underneath those cereal boxes and associate it with a promotion makes me even angrier. How in good conscience can any retailer try to sell a small box of cereal for $6.99? Out of all the products I have seen impacted by inflation and greed over the past couple years, this takes the cake (or the cereal bowl). I will continue to buy our family’s cereal from Grocery Outlet at $.99 per box.

Listen right now: I will NOT pay almost $7 for a box of cereal.

ONE Stadium – On Friday night I took the kids to ONE Stadium, the brand new sports facility that Spokane District 81 built for its schools. Located smack in the middle of downtown, we visited the stadium to watch my alma mater Mead High School play Lewis and Clark High School. Although my Panthers fell short, we still had fun exploring the stadium. Perhaps the coolest feature is the magical scales that you put your concession items on. Once the items are placed, the accurate price is automatically reflected on the screen. Can’t wait to see the epic sporting events that ONE Stadium will hold over the many years to come.

A few photos from our first visit to Spokane’s ONE Stadium, including the scale that instantly tabulated your total.

Cookie Sandwiches – On Tuesday night I decided to whip up a treat for our Engaged Encounter meeting. I opted for chocolate cookie sandwiches. I baked the cookies with my famous cake mix recipe and then put vanilla frosting in the middle. They were a hit as not a single crumb was left.

I baked these for our Engaged Encounter meeting.

Trick-Or-Treat Chart – As we draw closer to Halloween I am sure many of you are starting to stock up on the candy you will pass out to trick-or-treaters. I thought that as you make your candy selections that I would re-share this “How Kids Judge Halloween” graphic that originally appeared in my blog five years ago. It always brings a smile to my face. The category that Sidney and I fall under? None of them! The past few years we have gone over to my parents’ house and helped them pass out candy to the nearly 300 trick-or-treaters who come to their door on any given Halloween. My mom definitely represents “The Trusty Provider” category.

This chart is golden.

Way Too Extreme – I love a good haunted house. Over the years I have heard about these “extreme” haunted houses that require you to sign a waiver and last for hours. It kind of appealed to me but not after the documentary I watched on Hulu this week. Called “Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House,” the film tells the story of the house of horrors that deranged Russ McKamey created. What the “experience” amounted to was Russ basically torturing the people who signed up to do it. There is absolutely no connection to Halloween or anything that resembles a classic haunted house. You won’t believe it until you watch the documentary…I don’t approve.