Best Mac and Cheese Ever

I got this recipe from my sister Sharon out in Tacoma.  They use the fancy cheese out there!  And lots of it (it's almost embarrassing how much there is of it)!  Remember the Kraft commercial about renaming it cheese and macaroni?  Well, this is the true cheese and mac! But the cheese is what makes it so tasty (really...my boys loved it).  Sharon adds 4 roma tomatoes to hers but since i have a picky eater I leave  them out.  Here's the recipe:

Arbeit Macht Frei

"Mama, where are we going?"
    "Shh, Jakob, we will be there soon. Go back to sleep, mein Liebchen. "
    The boy laid his head against his mother's breast, her heartbeat through the thin poplin making time with the clacking of the train against the tracks. He closed his droopy eyes and drifted off to sleep.
    He woke to the sounds of shouting. People were quickly untangling themselves and filing out the door. Jakob could see very little through the bodies surrounding him, and his mother tightened her grip on his tiny hand. They disembarked with the flood of humanity and walked through a large iron gate. There was writing along the top of the gate, though Jakob did not understand what it meant. Was this some work place? It didn't look like his father's watch shop. But the watch shop was boarded up now; the boy had not seen his father in over a month. Hannah tugged on Jakob's hand as they took their place in the line that wrapped around a cinderblock building. The boy shivered against the morning cold and moved closer into his mother's side.

Savory Scones

Infandum Renovare Dolorem

(Or To Renew the Unspeakable Grief – from the Aeneid)

    Lanie shivered as she pulled her jacket tight across her chest. January in Ohio can be bitter. Frost had crystallized the grass, which crunched under her feet as she walked toward the bus stop. Each step was a little more sluggish than the one before. She didn't really dislike school; she just had an aversion to the sophomoric antics of the wild students on the school bus.
    Lanie was the only senior who rode the bus. Others either drove themselves or rode with friends. That's one of the pathetic aspects of being the new girl – very few friends yet. Her father had just retired from the military and this venture into civilian life was difficult for all of them. Saying good-bye to people is always traumatic, but within the military community it is simply a part of life. So is being new. Everybody is at one time or another, and transitions are rather fluid. Coming to rural Ohio meant trying to slip into an environment that was more like concrete; one is the "new girl" for years, not just days or weeks.

The Dragonfly

          This past Fourth of July I watched the fireworks in Algood from my upstairs balcony with two of my children. While we enjoyed the show, my middle child was sweating in the Georgia heat. He was finishing airborne school at Ft. Benning (he's an ROTC cadet at Tennessee Tech). He called the next day to say that family members were allowed to come to watch the jumps.

          Years ago I cringed as I watched a friend take my then two-year old firstborn on a Ferris wheel. I don't know why this child thought that I wanted to watch him jump out of a perfectly safe airplane. As his man voice asked the question, all I heard was the little boy voice asking if he could open his Christmas presents early. Where did the years go? When exactly did he grow up?