Twelve Hours, Five States and Three Rivers, Great Adventure!

Last Friday morning Musician and I headed out with 8 other students and 2 other adults for a FCCLA Cluster Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.

We traveled through the states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky; and across the Big Mo, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in just twelve hours.

We stayed at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville.

Friday night after our first meeting we headed out to have dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe.

Don't you think our waiter looked like Ben Stiller?

Saturday after the morning conferences we had 2 hours for lunch, so Musician and I headed over five blocks from our hotel to tour the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum. This was a really great time!!

Saturday night after our afternoon meetings we had dinner with the group at the Spaghetti Factory.

Sunday on our way home we stopped in St. Louis at the Arch. Musician and some of the others went up to the top of the Arch.

It was a quick trip, but a great time!!! So glad I got to be part of this adventure!!!

Crazy Two Weeks!!!

It has been a crazy two weeks!!!

It all started a week ago last Friday, October 30th to be exact. That was the first day of our Women's Ministry fundraiser at the Expo Center. I arrived at the Expo at 6am and learned how to open the concession stand. A couple hours later three other ladies from the church arrived to help for the morning shift. We worked the State Volleyball Tournament. I was able to leave for a couple of hours in the afternoon, while another shift of ladies came on board. I returned around 4pm to help out with the evening shift. I think I got home around 10:30pm or so.

We had several of the women from the church work the morning shift on Saturday, while I attended a funeral of a cousin on my husbands side. By Saturday afternoon I was back at it helping a lady from our church and her Relay For Life team get familiar with the concession stand and then helping to close the stand down. I was there for about 3 hours on Saturday.

The following weekend, November 6th, and then Monday, November 9th, was our 2nd annual pie baking fundraiser at church!!! WOW!!! We made 120 pies in those two days!!! This year we just made apple, pumpkin and pecan. We had canned our apples around the first week of October (see October blog about this). This is what we used to make our apple pies. This year we did do things a little differently. You see last year we made all of our pie crust - yes - homemade pie crust!!! However, this year we purchased Pillsbury pie crusts from Sams. Although, the pies still had a hint of that homemade taste because of using the apples we had canned, previously. We also added a little touch of lattice tops. So, it wasn't like we just plopped the filling in the pies and said, "Here you go!" The pecan and pumpkin pies we actually baked, but the apple pies we did not. We could only bake 10 pies at a time, so it took more time to bake, than make. It was a great time of fellowship with all the ladies!!! There were a total of 10 ladies and 2 young girls that helped us. It was an amazing accomplishment once again!!!

Next year we will have to take some video instead of just pictures.

I will make and bake around 30 pies on Saturday for those that will be given away on the 21st with the turkeys the church will be giving away this year. For every 4 pies that were sold, we are giving a pie away to someone in our church neighborhood.

Here is what my grocery cart looked like on Friday afternoon:

75lbs. sugar

20 boxes of 8 each pie crusts

141 pie pans

18 - 16oz. bottles corn syrup

9 - 2lb. bags of pecans

15 dz. eggs

8 - 1lb. boxes of butter

35 - 29oz. cans pumpkin pie filling

65 - 12 oz. cans evaporated milk

1lb. container cinnamon

2 - small spice containers cloves and ginger

I totally over bought by 50lbs. on the sugar. I went off of last years figures and that was processing the apples that day of the pie making/baking. We had already purchased our sugar last month and canned our apples, so we really only used about 30lbs. of sugar. Everything else was what we ended up using.

We celebrated Bassmaster being a quater of a century old on Sunday!!! Happy Birthday, buddy!!! That was a great time. We had Grandpa and Grandma over and his Girl friend's family. I made 2 big pans of lasagna, a lemon pie (just for Bassmaster - however, Catfish'n has been stealing pieces), and a sheet cake. Grandpa and Grandma brought a lettuce salad and coleslaw. Then Bassmaster's Girl friend and her mom made him a Nebraska Huskers cake!!! So awesome since they kicked Oklahoma's booty on Saturday!!! So we had ice cream and cake for dessert. Great food, great fellowship!!!

I have been swamped with College Biology homework as well. This class is really doing a number on me. I would probably be doing better if I would apply myself a little better. However, knowing I will only be teaching PreK-6th grade some day - I could really care less about all this DNA stuff and Pedigree stuff we have been learning. Don't think I will be teaching all this at such a complicated understanding as I have been learning. And, you know, regular life just gets in the way of school sometimes!!! Okay, no more excuses I am committed to tackling this stuff in the next few weeks and getting this class behind me, UGH!!!

I have been telling Catfish'n that I really need a tutor on some of this stuff, which has been really hard for me to admit, since this is really the first class in all the classes I have taken, that I have struggled with. Anyway, Sunday night after the birthday party for Catfish'n, playing our Sunday night ritual of Skibo (Catfish'n, His Girl, Musician and myself), and running to Sam's to pick up the rest of the pie crusts (that's a whole other story for another blog); I worked on what I could of my Biology homework. Then Musician came in the computer room and asked how it was going. I told her that I didn't quite understand all this pedigree, recessive, dominant stuff. She proceeded to look at my homework and said how much she loved all of this when she did it in her high school biology class a couple of years ago. So, she sat down and was able to talk me through my homework. So cool!!! I still haven't got my grade for that assignment, but I am sure it is going to be much better than if I had done it alone!!!

Anyway, I am hoping the craziness will slow down before the holidays.

Halloween

This past Saturday was Halloween. We have a long standing tradition at our house of allowing the kids that come to trick-or-treat at our house, to make smores!! I am pretty sure we have been doing this for at least 7 or 8 years, because I know Bassmaster was still in high school when we started this.

When we first moved to our little town I was so excited, because, I thought living in a little town we would have a ton of trick-or-treaters. I was wrong. Since we don't live on mainstreet, we don't get as many. The first year we might have had a total of 6, I don't really remember, but it wasn't anything significant, and really for several years after, until doing the smores, probably nothing over a dozen or so.

When we first gave out treats, we put Scripture verses around our candy. Then one day, I was trying to think of a way that we would be able to visit with the people better when they came to our house. I thought and thought, and that's when I came up with the smores idea. We could play Christian music on the radio, build a fire in the fire pit, the parents and kids could get warm, and enjoy a little treat, as well as fellowship. In this way, it would help us to get to know the families in our town a little better.

This year, we almost didn't stand by our tradition, because I was working at a fundraiser on Friday and Saturday, and thought I wasn't going to get home until after 6pm on Saturday. Although, I got home early enough, and before it was dark, so I could get things ready, and we had the trick-or-treaters do smores that stopped by our house.

So glad we did too!!!

We ended up with just over 2 dozen kids stopping by!!! This is the most we have ever had.

Several of the families said, "This has become our families tradition as well!"

They usually go down to the school for Trick-or-Trunk, then take their kids down mainstreet (over a mile long), then load up in the car and head over to our house to finish their night!!! I was so glad to hear this from so many. One mom even said, "This is our third year, coming to your house for smores!" I really hadn't got to know one of her kids until this year when he came to the middle school and is now in the 5th grade there.

Another boy that is a 5th grade student at the middle school said, "I've never made a smore on Halloween, this made my whole night!"

This was also the first year that my nieces have come up and made a smore, and trick-or-treated. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for bringing them up!!! The youngest was Daphne from Scooby -Doo and then the oldest was a Piratess. So cute!!! Check out the orange hair on Daphne!!! That sword is rather scarey as well!!!

Okay, so I don't think I'll be giving up on the smore making anytime soon. Especially now that I know so many enjoy our tradition and have made it their tradition as well!!!

October Appleseed's Meeting

Last Sunday was the second meeting of our fall Appleseed's class. We tried our had at making chocolate covered Pretzels before we started our lesson. We then let them freeze in the freezer and the picture above, is what they turned out like. The girls had so much fun!!!! And their preztels turned out great!!!!

Future Appleseed, isn't she cute!!!!

Spread Love!!!! Spread Love!!!!

26 Years of Blessings

Yesterday, Catfish'n and I celebrated 26 years of marriage. WOW!!! In those 26 years, there has been a lot of blessings as well as our fair share of troubles/sorrows. However, I am going to choose to look at all the blessings. These are just some I could think of when I didn't have to think too hard. Maybe this weekend when Catfish'n and I have a moment together, we can think of some more together, and I will edit the list.


Year 1 = Married (Oct 15th, 1983); young love (18 & 20),
high school sweet-hearts (what were we thinking?!?!?)

Year 2 = One year and a month after we were married
our first child was born, a son (future Bassmaster!)

Year 3 = Purchased our first vehicle brand new
(never again will we do that!)

Year 4 = Sunflower started working for dental office
Catfish’n started working for PCA

Year 5 = Purchased our first home

Year 6 = Catfish’n starts Refereeing

Year 7 = Catfish’n does a lot of landscaping, etc.
to the outside of our home

Year 8 = Bassmaster starts Kindergarten!

Year 9 = Our second child was born, a daughter
(future Musician!)

Year 10 = Sunflower became a stay at home-mom
and started in-home licensed daycare

Year 11 = Purchased our pop-up camper

Year 12 = Catfish’n accepted Christ and was Baptised,
then he baptised our whole family;
1st Family vacation camping

Year 13 = Catfish’n started working for US Foodservice

Year 14 = Started homeschooling Bassmaster,
fall he started 6th grade and Musician
started Kindergarten that January

Year 15 = Sunflower started classes at Washburn
We start helping with Jr. High Youth Group

Year 16 = Purchased fishing/recreational boat
1st Trip with Youth @ church for Jr. High Camp

Year 17 = Purchased our 2nd home and
2nd Family vacation ski trip to Colorado
2nd Trip with Youth @ church for Jr. High Camp
Sunflower breaks her leg
Bassmaster goes off to public high school in fall
we attended a lot of football and wrestling matches
in the next four years

Year 18 = Bassmaster takes 3nd place in State 3-2-1A Wrestling

Year 19 = Leave our church home 13 years to start attending in
our own community, to help two other couples in our
small community get a Youth Group going again

Year 20 = Purchased our second vehicle (new to us but used)
Spring Break we took 4 Youth to Colorado skiing D-Group
Snowed 84.7” we never skied – snowed in!!!

Year 21 = Bassmaster graduates from public high school in spring
then goes off to college in fall
Sunflower goes back to work after twelve years at home
part-time – still homeschooling Musician

Year 22 = Catfish’n elected to City Council

Year 23 = Musician starts public school for the first time,
as a Freshmen; Sunflower starts job as para
Musician also letters as a Freshmen as football manager

Year 24 = Musician switches from playing flute to french horn
Musician tries her hand as a wrestling manager - she letters!!!

Year 25 = Bassmaster graduates from college in spring,
and we celebrate being married a quarter of a century
that fall!

Year 26 = Musician goes to the Jr./Sr. Prom in the Spring
Bassmaster is a quarter of a century old, and
Musican turned 18 and will graduate from high school this spring!

Canning

What a day!!!

I got up around 6:45 this morning, and was out of the house by 7:45am. Headed to the church for a day of learning how to can apples for apple pie filling.

Last year, as some of you may recall, the Women's Ministry at our church had a fund-raiser in which we took orders for 4 different kinds of pies (apple, cherry, pecan and pumpkin), then made the pie crust and the pies - homemade - from scratch!!! We ended up making over 100 pies in two days.

At that time, some of the ladies had said it would be fun to do this again next year and learn how to can apples. Well, that's what we did today!!

We used two pressure cookers, 3 bushel of apples, 39 quart jars with lids, 15 pint jars with lids, 17 quart size freezer bags, 12 lbs. of sugar, 1 1/2 lbs. cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, water, and lemon juice.

The result?!?!? 54 1/2 quarts of apple pie filling, and 85 cups of fresh apples (pre-cut) that we put into the freezer for use when we make apple pies again this year, for our annual pie making in November!!!

It was a great day of learning, as well as one full of fellowship!!!

A Set-Apart Holiness

My Pastor's wife shared with us a story today in Bible study, about a song sung by Steven Curtis Chapman. The song is called God Follower. The reason why she brought this up, was in our study it spoke of missionary to Ecuador (1956), Jim Eliott (and others). "Grandfather", one of the six natives in Ecuador that participated in killing Eliott and the others, toured with Chapman in 2001-02. This man, now a "God Follower", speaks of how he came to love the Lord, and sings of it as well (in his own native tongue).

However, that wasn't the point of why Pastor's wife brought this up, "Grandfather" had told those listening that he was "shocked at how Christians in America seem to so closely resemble the rest of society." "Grandfather" was "dismayed at how we didn't seem to be living in a way that would clearly show we served a different God."

Priscilla Shirer, the author of "He Speaks To Me", says this, "it occurred to us that we had not just been saved to spend eternity with Christ but to live for Him while we are in history. Like the savage Indians changed by a relationship with Christ, we must choose to live a lifestyle of santification that sets us apart from the world and speaks of a relationship with our great God."

I must ask myself this question: since my salvation, what signs are there in my life that I am "set-apart" for God? Do people know I am "set-apart"? Not uppitty and pious like the Sadducees and the Pharisees, but "set-apart" for God's purpose. Do people ask the question when they meet me, "There's something different about her, something good different, I want what she has." Make people wonder to the point of asking, "Why are you different?"

Romans 12:2: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

I Peter 1:15: "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

Here is the video telling the story of Jim Elliot and "Grandfather", check it out!!!