A glass of strawberry tea and time with Hilary

I think I mentioned earlier in the week a cute little cookbook my sister sent me as part of my birthday celebration. It is written by the fabulous tea room near her home. I was looking through it and found a recipe for strawberry tea that sounded so good that I decided to make it to take to work today along with other goodies to celebrate my bday and a co-workers. Oh boy! that recipe is a keeper. It was so divinely delicious. I am going to give the recipe here for anyone else who would like to have a glass of strawberry tea.

Steep 3 family size teabags in 1 1/2 qts. boiling water for 5 min. Add 1/2 c. sugar, one large can of thawed lemonade, and 1 10 oz bag of thawed, pureed strawberries. Chill. When ready to serve, add a 2 litre bottle of lemon-lime soda. That's it. You gotta try it.

When I got off work I had big plans with my granddaughter Hilary. She recently lost 2 teeth and had a stash of $ from the Tooth Fairy and wanted to take me out to eat Chinese food and then go to my house to do make-overs on each other. The dinner ended up costing more than she had so I paid, but that was o.k.

We headed home and for the duration of the 25 min. drive we played, "guess my favorite number, Lovey" It was always "6". Every single time, all 15 miles.

The makeovers were a lesson in color theory. I ended up looking rather bruised and battered as it turned out because purple was the favorite color of the day (along with number "6" of course.).Then we moved onto water colors, then bubbles outside that she and the dog tried to bite. That was followed by a bit of singing from my "50 Songs for Children", also a gift from my sister. Next was watercolors (again), a snack, and behold! What did my ears hear? It was the sound of her parent's car in the drive coming to pick up the little general. I think that girl could whip an army battalion into shape.

All of this was accompanied by running commentary about life in the kindergarten fast lane, the boy she is "absolutely crazy about" (her words), why she thinks I should get some pet mice, what should we play after we finished playing, and the clincher, "Lovey, you are my favorite Lovey." After that little affirmation I was just about ready to start all over again. Almost.