I know, I know, it’s not Wednesday but get used to this because I am going with Wednesday being the new Thursday? Really, I just didn’t have time to write this yesterday because I was writing this and the kids had early out and room cleaning and a church activity and had to get a humidifier at Walgreens for Blake which was $24 but really $44, so that was a bummer. But we lived. Plus, I am supposed to be doing laundry like I said here, but my sister Sarah said, “Laundry doesn’t go away, while a good thought does.” She’s a genius and fellow writer.
If you haven’t met my father in law, which most of you haven’t (sad for you, he’s awesome.), you haven’t had his milk cake. When I first met Blake, his dad made this milk cake, really it’s coffee cake, but we don’t drink coffee so we call it milk cake. Because you must have milk with it. It’s like a donut, you can’t have water after, it must be milk and hopefully chocolate. Stan would make this cake and it would be eaten up in about four minutes and that’s what happens when you have five sons, one daughter, grandkids and in-laws all trying to get in on the action.
Once he added chocolate chips. That was no Bueno. There was much revolting in the house and begrudged eating because we needed it the original way! (How spoiled are we?) Once he added pudding and that was yum. And usually he tries to add secret ingredients, in well, secret, because he knows we will revolt against him and his newfangled ideas. Usually it turns out perfect though and he is secretly patting himself on the back while ours bellies grow. Stan is a great baker/cooker. I talked about my dad’s amazing spaghetti last week and warned him that Las Vegas residents would be knocking down his door to get some. Turned out my aunt and uncle were the ones. Well, Idaho Falls residents, Stan should open a café devoted solely to milk cake.
Plus, he serves it to you, usually on a paper plate, sometimes on a glass plate and always with milk. And he is happy about it and kind and generous. He likes to bring happiness to people through food. It is one of his great qualities. Because while we don’t feel like making anything good but want something good, he will always make something good just because he loves us. When I married into the family, I was the first girl in-law, soon to be followed by three other wonderful girls. He has shared the milk cake tradition with all of us.
He, Candy and Jordan came out to visit us this Christmas and we had to have the milk cake. He didn’t have his recipe though but used this recipe from one of my favorite blogs. Actually it’s my favorite cooking blog and the only one I read because yum. He made a few modifications to match his own recipe and it was like coming home. Except we were already home. But it was like coming home to Idaho where Blake and I lived together for four years and spent a lot of time with the Bells. When you woke up in the morning to the smell of that cake, it was like magic. And now the magic has been shared with our kids. They were in milk cake heaven thanks to Grandpa.
Stan is a cowboy, a hard working dig a hole six feet in the ground for the swingset so the wind won’t blow it down. (It’s never going to move.) He is a tinkerer, making things, building things, working with fuses and pipes and engines. He has an engineers mind and a readers heart and is a believer in Jesus Christ. He is a soft hearted man with a no nonsense and tactless approach but that’s Stan and we love him for it.
Stan is the one on the right.Ha. Don’t ask me why the Jesus Christmas picture came up though I do like it very much. But now these two are attached and I have to run to get Hailey for the orthodontist. It’s actually kind of perfect though because Stan has one of the strongest testimonies of Jesus Christ and shares it willingly. He is a great example.
Write it out 