Jennifer, I LOVE school!

We LOVE school (on chocolate days)

I just love to hear that.  I will disregard the fact that it came from the mouth of a young child strolling through the sunshine en route to a hard-core session of chocolate making.  I'll take what I can get whenever I can get it.  I don't usually get anything except groans midway through math on a Monday or two minutes into English on a Tuesday.  Chocolate just makes everything better - including school.

Eloise embraces the subject matter.

Having spent the past six weeks exploring the history, geography and science of the cacao tree and the tree to market business strategy of chocolate companies, it was time to get our hands (and faces) dirty in the pursuit of knowledge.  Who was I to deny these hungry learners?  So, armed with recipes incorporating various chunks and tidbits garnered from family kitchens, we set off to our house to do some serious damage to the recent cleaning job of Lan (our dear, befuddled cleaning lady who just kept trying to clean up around us until I sent her away).

We mixed and melted, chopped and shredded, and finally each team concocted their secret chocolate recipes.  In the end, we had sixty-six blissful samples garnished with Gummi Bears, Mentos, nuts, raisins, sprinkles and butterscotch candies.   The taste testing began in earnest, and I am sorry to report that some children were defeated by the chocolate.  Three samples in, Foster cried. "Uncle."  In the end, we still had a plateful of untouched chocolate.  Evidently these children need to do this more often in order to build up their collective chocolate stamina.  How pathetic.

Mikayla, I LOVE school too.

The mixing phase

The end result

That's alotta chocolate!

Happy Girls