Non-dairy Frappucino Substitute

I just read a nifty tutorial on making a Frappucino substitute on thekurths.com

I left in the comments my own Frappucino substitute, so I thought I'd post it here.

I make a similar drink sans dairy. I mix 3 cups of vanilla soymilk (Silk brand) with 1/4 cup coffee (I like a richly-brewed French Roast) then add sugar to taste.

I found this because I brew half a pot of French Roast for myself almost every day, and sometimes when I use a smaller mug I end up with a little sitting in the pot that gets cold.

This is a great way to use "leftover coffee" - just don't let it sit on the burner too long.

I think a half-gallon of Vanilla Silk Soymilk runs about $2.80, the coffee varies in cost, but since I use "leftover coffee" from my daily pot I'll call it free. I don't add chocolate to mine and I add probably 1 tablespoon of sugar to a batch. I don't know how much one tablespoon of sugar costs.

This means that I make 3 cups of the stuff for a little over a dollar. It's probably a little more per serving than the Kurks' recipe, but much less than Frappucino - and non-dairy which I need due to my lactose intolerance.

March madness

No, I don't watch basketball, I have no idea what is going on in college sports, except that many people ask me if I'm watching the tournaments.

Last week was spring break for CSU and most of the local schools. I took 2 trips, one with the youth, one with the college and young adult group. Both nights we stayed with our friends, Todd and Missy - who live in Evergreen.

I took the youth group skiing at Keystone. Due to many families being out of town for the week, we only had 2 students go. It was fun, nonetheless. Tyler and Missy (college-age folks from Peak) came along to help out. I picked Keystone because they have great night skiing, which we took advantage of. Unfortunately I am sadly, sadly out of shape and have paid dearly for my long day of skiing.

Fortunately, since there were only 2 college-age folks who could go on a college-age spring break trip, and both of them had been snowboarding on the youth ski trip, I talked them out of skiing and into going to some hot springs. In theory this was a great idea. However, we went to Indian Springs Resort in Idaho Springs. Their website should have given me all the warning I needed as to the caliber of the "resort" - but I went anyway, hopeful based on a friend's past experience there.

We went to the mineral water swimming pool first. It was - how shall I describe it - ghetto? The water had all sorts of crud in it, apparently coming from growth in the pipe that brought in the hot water. The pool itself was cooler than a hotel swimming pool, and the only way to warm up at all was to stand directly beside the hot water inlet, which only warmed the water slightly directly in front of the pipe. It cost $14/person to "enjoy" the pool. We stayed about a half an hour then decided to check out the indoor private baths. I was not impressed with the indoor private baths either, although the water was very hot and did feel good for as long as I could tolerate it. If I was returning from a day of skiing and wanted to soak, it would almost be worth sitting in the hot water, although I would probably prefer getting a hotel room and enjoying their less-hot hot tub, so I could actually sit in it long enough to enjoy it more.

In all, for 3 of us it cost $81 for about an hour and a half of soaking. The facilities were very poor, given the cost of the whole experience. In the end, if you are lucky enough to read this review prior to a hot springs trip - my advice is DO NOT EVER GO, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TO INDIAN SPRINGS RESORT IN IDAHO SPRINGS. I have never been to any other hot springs, but any hotel pool and hot tub would have cost considerably less for 3 people, and the quality and experience would have been much better. I could go into more detail about the low quality of this facility, but I'll just leave it at "it was bad."

After our soaking misadventure, we decided to take the road-less-travelled through Nederland up to Estes Park and catch a movie. The drive was long, but pretty and peaceful, and we arrived in Estes Park in time to watch the matinee showing of "V is for Vendetta"

We enjoyed the movie. I certainly felt lots of ups and downs with the different stories told throughout the movie. It is graphically violent in a few spots, and there is plenty of controversial material for people who might consider themselves morally conservative, but there are a lot of important themes and messages - particularly (I think) for the American Church.

Over the weekend, I helped Nancy's dad drywall his basement. Nancy's sister Julie and her family are in town this week for their spring break, and Toby (our brother-in-law) has done a majority of the work this weekend and week. I was pretty sore from skiing, so it was a bit painful to work on the drywall, but we finished hanging it all, and it felt nice to work with my hands and see something big get accomplished.

Tyler and I are back in the office this week, busy as seems usual these days.

I think I need a break from it all soon. This summer is our tenth wedding anniversary, and I would love to take a real vacation with Nancy to celebrate. We can't go until the fall when Abby is weaned, but we're trying to plan something big for just the two of us - maybe a cruise or some tropical, all-inclusive resort - we'll see how money goes over the next few months.

great weekend

Well work is busy, but we had a great weekend.

Friday Tyler and I completed a very large project and it looks awesome. After work I went out with some folks from One Tribe who we've been working with on the large project.

Friday night Nancy and I had Missy (college student and leader in the youth group) come over and watch our kids so we could go out with some friends. We walked around old town for the first Friday gallery walk. I ran into a CoCoA member - Don Vogl - at Centennial Gallery. There is a show right now which features art from several of our members - much of which was created in the class that I ran last year. After the Gallery walk we had a late dinner and dessert with 2 other couples, which was great for us. I think we stayed out past 11 - something that we haven't done in a long time.

Saturday, Nancy went to Peak for a women's craft day - it may have been called a craft retreat. At any rate, she scrapbooked for a few hours with some other women, and I took the kids to Disney on Ice - Princess Classics thanks to some free tickets from Eric. Emma and Corben really enjoyed it. I held Abby up for part of it and she watched the skaters and made all sorts of happy baby noises. It was nice because we were in a private box suite so I could take her back and hold her so she could sleep once she got tired.

In order to adequately balance our kids after this event, I'm going to have to take them to a monster truck rally or hunting now. They also can't eat any sugar for a month.

Saturday night we hosted the college small group, which went well as usual. It's great to see the students opening up and learning to care for each other and be vulnerable with each other.

This morning was church, where I played my new guitar for worship again. We have several different sound guys, and today's was the "no guitar" sound guy, which is pretty frustrating. I suspect that we will be making some changes in worship style this summer, that I am looking forward to. I met a new family at church - there were 4 high school boys in the group, and I was able to talk with them before they left. We'll see if they come back or not.

After church we had two families over. There were 6 adults and 8 kids, so the kids were able to entertain themselves while the adults sat and talked. It was good to spend some time with our friends.