It's raining, it's pouring...

in the rainforests that is. Rainforests get anywhere from 30-100 feet of rain each year. Makes the miserly 47 inches we get each year seem like only a drop. Though yesterday we finished up our study as a record-breaking 2 inches of rain fell from the sky during the day. And since it was fiercely thundering as the rain began pelting the earth, the kids were up before the roosters. So we jumped into our final day of rainforest study by making chocolate.


Chocolate pods are native to the rainforests. You break open one to find the beans:

You crush the beans, add some sugar and cocoa butter a la Milton Hershey (who perfected the process for chocolate-happy Americans) and viola! you've got chocolate:

Very enjoyable, rich, smooth tasty chocolate...until Micah gets a hold of it. :)
Did you know that the aztecs enjoyed hot chocolate? Of course theirs was crushed cacao beans mixed with water and hot peppers! So glad Mr. Hershey left out the spices...or chocolate would be worthless bribe for my kids. ;)