Cookies and coffee and a weekend

This past weekend the kids and I took a little road trip to visit some friends. (Dear hubs stayed home to work on the garage.....our friends have cats which my hubby is allergic to; the garage project involved paint fumes that bother me so this was a win-win for all sinuses involved!) Anyhoo, due to the weather our oldest daughter's softball game was cancelled on Saturday morning, so we were able to get a somewhat earlier start on our drive. It went well for the first hour or so and then the skies opened up and I drove through that kind of rain where you can't see but you can't pull over and you can't stop and you can't speed up so you clutch the steering wheel and pray alot!! Fortunately, this only happened twice and just for a few minutes (that felt like hours!) so I had told myself and the kids that we would stop for a pick-me-up once we were past the half-way point. I turned the wrong direction at the exit, so I drove into the left lane in an effort to put us back on the right track. All at once the skies cleared, the sun shone and this is what I found:

And within 5 minutes the cheerfully caffeinated 20-something barista handed me this:

Don't mind the plant on the right that is seemingly growing out of the passenger side. I keep a messy car, but it's not that horrible.....I was bringing a transplant to my friend:)

Since a promise is a promise, I drove to a McDonald's a couple of miles down the road to buy 3 chocolate chip cookies and milk for the kiddos. We pulled into the drive-thru, placed our order only to hear: "Umm, we don't have chocolate chip cookies at this location." Soft-talkingalmost-done-with-my-shiftdrive-thruemployeeSAYWHAT!! I did the momentary mental mom panic before I said "Thank you anyway" and pulled away assuring the kids that there was another McD's a few miles down the road and determined to make good on my promise. We arrived (in yet another rain shower) at the next drive-thru and ordered 3 chocolate chip cookies plus milks when we were told "They don't do chocolate chip cookies only the shortbread". To make a long story short, we ordered ice cream cones for 2 kids, a sundae for the third and I reminded the kids that we had this safely stored under one of the seats:

I should explain the decorating on the cookie. Our friends that we were going to see used to live in our neighborhood. Our kids are about the same age and Parker and I hit it off immediately. Then about 4 years ago I received the devastating news that due to a job change, our best good neighbor friends were moving 8 hours away. EIGHT HOURS AWAY! How can you possibly keep up a babysitting swap and emergency runs for pregnancy chocolate shakes with a friend that is EIGHT HOURS AWAY!! But we made the best of it and each family took turns making the days drive to spend long weekends together. Then, a little over a year ago, they moved just 2 hours away. TWO HOURS - oh, the possibilities!! So of course we cook up all kinds of crazy plans and kid swaps and days of meeting for lunches half-way.

With the real estate situation being what it is, the house far, far away took just over a year to sell. It finally closed 2 weeks ago so I made this cookie to celebrate. If you look closely at the printing, you'll see a warning message:

Because I can handle 2 hours or closer.....but not any farther:)

It was full of chocolatey goodness. The recipe is from Nestle so I thought about trying to link up to their site, but since I'm me and I'm posting at THIS computer I will go about this the old-fashioned way.

White Chip Chocolate Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 large eggs

Cream the above ingredients together, then add the following:

2 1/4 cups flour

2/3 cup Nestle baking cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Mix completely then add up to 1 bag white chocolate chips. I only had about 1/3 bag white chips, so I also added some semi-sweet chips which just added to the rich chocolate taste.
I pre-heated my now working oven to 350 (an ignitor problem, all fixed - yea!) and lined a small cookie sheet with parchment paper and then sprayed Pam over it. I used about 2/3 of the dough and spread it over the sheet with my hands. I think it took about 20-30 minutes to bake. I always slightly underbake cookies and brownies so I keep an eye on it toward the end to make sure it's not too "done." Cool completely and then decorate with as much buttercream as you want!!