I'm a wife, mom and grandma. I have 4 grown children and 8 precious grandchildren.I started baking with my grandma when I was a young girl, she gave me my first cook book when I was around 12 years old. I remember always being in the kitchen with her. I live in a small town on the Oregon Coast. My hobbies are flower gardening, scrapbooking, baking, collecting recipes and garage sale and thrift store treasure hunting. I like making foods that make my family happy, especially my husband, I never tire of his compliments. I recently started making character cakes for my grandchildrens birthdays. It's been a lot of fun and my grandchildren love it. In my family all the cooking traditions center around the holidays.Any time we can all gather together, enjoy each others company and eat good food is my favorite.As my family grows and spreads out it's getting harder to do. One big triumph for me was winning first prize a few years ago at our annual chili cook off contest at work. I entered my own version of white bean chili. My biggest disaster in the kitchen was baking empty pie shells for strawberry rhubarb pie. The pie dough kept shrinking no matter what I did. I had some strange looking pies but they sure tasted good.