Keurig Brews Up Family Fun

Keurig K65 Brewing System

You don't usually think of "fun" when you think of coffee makers, but now that we have a Keurig brewing system in our kitchen I'm beginning to change my mind on that.

Granted, I love coffee (as you can see from my Krups coffee/espresso machine in the background), but this new machine ($99.99-$179.99) is great for a number of reasons -- mainly because it can make more than coffee.

Full disclosure: Keurig sent me the machine completely unprompted, and I was eager to try it out.

What I didn't expect, however, was how much Ian and CC would love it, too.

Besides coffee, the Keurig's K-Cups come in tea, hot chocolate, apple cider and more. And to brew one cup takes only about a minute.

Not only can my strictly tea-drinking husband brew a cup with the machine, CC can make hot chocolate on her own -- something she couldn't do before, what with steaming hot tea kettles and all.

And she loves placing the K-Cup in the machine, pulling down the handle and pushing the buttons. I'm sure they weren't thinking of kid-friendly fun with the whole process, but it's a handy bonus!

While I still have my coffee maker -- the K-Cups can be a little pricey, depending on where you shop (something to consider) -- we're still getting daily use out of the Keurig.

And it looks like we'll be brewing coffee, tea, hot chocolate and maybe even hot apple cider for months to come -- and it will be way easier than before.