Homemade Mini Moon Pies

Mardi Gras is a fun holiday for us. I know that it's not as big of a deal in other parts of the U.S., but we are right in the middle of  Mardi Gras country! To our east is Mobile, the official birthplace of Mardi Gras, and  to our west is New Orleans, the place best known for it {sometimes} wild Mardi Gras ways! It is such a big holiday were we live, that the kids get three days out of school for it!

We usually celebrate by going to a local {very family friendly} parade. The boys love all the decorated floats, catching beads, listening to the marching bands, and eating yummy Mardi Gras snacks. Besides the traditional King Cake {which must be from the fabulous Paul's Pastry Shop} that we eat every year around Mardi Gras, we also LOVE a Moon Pie. These sweet treats are so yummy, and they are even better if you catch them at a parade! Unfortunately we missed our usual parade because of storms that came through on Saturday...so no parade caught Moon Pies for us! I decided making some homemade ones would be a fun replacement, and I'm sharing the step by step for those of you who can't get your hands on a store bought Moon Pie!

 Start with some really easy ingredients: graham crackers, marshmallow creme, and chocolate. 

 There technically isn't any cooking in this recipe...just melting and assembling:)

Start by using a small round cookie cutter {mine was 2 inches in diameter} to cut your graham crackers into circle. Each cracker should make two rounds.

 Put a good dollop of marshmallow creme on one graham cracker round and then sandwich it together with another cracker. This is easiest to do if you put the marshmallow creme into a ziploc bag and then squeeze it out onto the crackers! Place them in the freezer to chill while you melt the chocolate.

 Toss the graham cracker sandwiches into the melted chocolate and use a fork to turn and coat them. Lift them out of the chocolate and tap off any excess chocolate then place them on foil to harden.

 These aren't exactly the same as a traditional Moon Pie. The crackers are a little bit crunchier, and the chocolate isn't quite the same but they are a pretty close match without a whole lot of effort...and they taste really yummy!

How do you celebrate Mardi Gras?!?

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Planning is Half the Fun

We are 98 days from our BIG TRIP! It doesn't seem possible that in less than 100 days we will be off on a journey to see parts of the world we've only ever seen in pictures {and on the Brady Bunch}. All kidding aside, we are SUPER excited about our trip! Jason and I sat down and mapped out a tentative course. We've made a few reservations at campsites, but the whole trip isn't set in stone just yet. This is a map that I used to figure out how far we will be going on our trip. In total it will be over 5,000 miles! That is a long way to drive...and a really long way to pull an rv! There are some definite stops on our trip, and I've included most of them on the map below. 

We are still looking for great places to visit along the way, so any and all suggestions or links are welcome! I picked up a few books at the library yesterday so that we could start looking for some "off the beaten path" types of places and make sure that we hit all the "must see" sites too! I would love to take the boys to some fun "kitschy" places along with all the great wilderness & learning things we are planning to see!

We are pretty set in our plan up until we leave the Grand Canyon. We have either made reservations or called about places to stay up to that point, but after the Grand Canyon it gets a little complicated. Apparently Yosemite & Kings Canyon can get a lot of snow in the spring so they don't always make reservations for their campsites until they know they will be able to open. I get that...but I also don't want to drive more than halfway across the country without a plan of where we will be staying {I'm not very spontaneous, can you tell?}. And after we leave Yosemite & Kings Canyon we are moving on to big cities...while pulling an rv. I have to say that is just a little bit scary! But we want to see San Francisco{which btw is totally spelled wrong on my map!} and our plan for heading home is to drive through Los Angeles and hit 1-10 and come all the way back to Mississippi {with a couple of stops on the way}.  
Even though we have a map, some reservations, and sort of a plan, we still have a lot of planning to do....and planning is half the fun:) Oh and we have still have a TON of work to do on the Airstream too!

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