A Day of Thanksgiving!

Someday, I will be a great cook and a great baker and make everything from scratch.  In the next life that is.  For now I am completely content (almost) to do things another way.  Costco style.  It's funner to have a group of friends and family over than know that I made it all myself.  It will be a great meal with great people.  Definitely a day of Thanksgiving.

**Spinach Aritchoke & Parmesan Dip

 **Rosemary Crackers for the dip for an appetizer before the meal.

**Bagged Spring Mix salad.  Add some roasted, salted, sliced almonds, blueberries, strawberries feta cheese and a raspberry vinegarette dressing.

**Golden Potatoes.  The one thing that I can and will make from scratch.  Mashed and seasoned to deliciousness!

** Stove Top Turkey Stuffing.  In the bird and separate.  Got to have plenty!

**TURKEY!  Of course.  It turns out perfect when you cook it in a bag.  

**Spiral Ham.  Mostly because Parker doesn't like turkey.  How can someone not like turkey on Thanksgiving.  He says its because one year he got really sick right after Thanksgiving.  He apparently had an appendicitis attack.  It was not due to the turkey or my cooking.

**Pumpkin Pie

**Apple Pie.  Riley is making an apple pie.  He became a pro on his mission.  It will be a bought crust to cook but homemade filling.  Excited!
**Green Beans too.  Forgot about those.  They are in the freezer so I'll skip the picture on that one.
**Rolls.  Our friends the Winders are bringing the rolls.  She does delicious rolls!
**No-Bake Cheesecake.  John asked for this since he didn't get a piece when I made it the other night.  

Cheese Cake Recipes - Delectable!

Just thought I'd share something for once.  Actually scanned in the finished product from our "Cheesecake Factory" YW Activity.  I think they had fun and we all LOVED tasting the finished product!  Best part!

Thankful for YW!

I am thankful that I get to work in the Young Women.  It is what I love. 

I have a strong testimony of the Primary Program and the great good it does for teaching little ones the right things at a young age.  It is amazing what they know.  That they above many of us recognize the love of their Savior and the importance He is in our lives.  Even those little nursery tikes can recognize this in simple lessons and songs.  But I love the Young Women.

Tonight they wanted to do cheesecakes.  What a great dessert night to do with them before the holidays.  Hopefully they will go home and try it on their own and WOW their families.

I'm in charge tonight, I guess.  I'm not the greatest cook so go figure on that one.  Anyway, I have a few simple recipes that I am sharing with them tonight:  Mini Cheese Cakes and No-Bake Cheesecake (thanks to my hometown Emerson II Ward Cookbook - tried and true recipes by some of the best).

I searched online and found some templates for recipe cards.  Printed those.  Copied and printed recipes form cookbook.  Going to let them cut and paste and laminate.  Wanted them to do a little hands on.  There's only so many that can do the mixing. 

I'm so thankful for so many great women who have such great ideas and put them out there online for me to use.  How they do it, I have no idea.  I'm lucky to just do the activity.  How they do a step-by-step of the whole process as they create it is beyond my realm!  I'm grateful none-the-less.

Today's To Do List

1.   Fix/Delete Banner I added yesterday to blog that didn't work so well.
2.   Schedule Riley's dentist appointment for cleaning after 2 year mission.
3.   Confirm Parkers orthodontic appointment for Dec.
4.   Schedule my annual Dr. appt.
5.   Call Pediatric Orthopedic Dr to see if Parker can start putting more weight on left leg (he's tired of being a cripple he says and it doesn't hurt as much).
6.   Go to Auto Parts store and purchase headlight for van.  Have them install!
7.   Schedule visiting teaching for Nov. now!  (since I've been so bad about making an actual visit)
8.   Finish laundry.
9.   Clean hamster cage (with Macey).
10. Give dog a bath.

I have so wanted to blog.  There's always a million other things that I feel I should do before I allow myself or have earned the right to blog.  Somehow that never seems to happen - so alas, I fall behind on the many things I wish to have said and documented of life.  (That and sharing 1 computer with 3 adults in the evening when we all have something we want to do online).

To Albania and Beyond!

October 5, 2011!  What an amazing thing to see our son, Riley, in person after two years apart.

We were so fortunate to be able to spend a week with him in Albania and Kosovo.  I will never regret the decision we made to take this trip.  We would not have been able to fully appreciate his experiences without being able to experience it firsthand ourselves.  We were able to see some of the country and meet some amazing people. 

I took close to 1000 pictures.  How do I go about choosing only a handful of those to share that will convey all that we experienced and all that we felt.

It is hard to believe we have been home a week already.

A Widow's Might! Not As Strong As Mine!

Ooooo!  YUK!  Really?!  YES!!!  There is such a thing!
A Brown Widow.  In Florida!  Read this. Or this.

And we had (3) of them on our back lanai.  And who do you think took care of these awful creatures?  You are correct - ME!  (to give John credit, he offered to do it after work but I didn't want to wait until then)

Several weeks ago after mowing and edging the lawn I was sweeping the lanai.  I saw a couple of spider webs that had what I now know is the egg sack in the web.  I swept the webs down not thinking anything of it.

At our house in Pebblebrooke we always had spider webs at the top high corners of the pool lanai.  They were almost impossible to keep on top of.  They were the result of the 'golden silk banana spider.'  Spiders in Florida is not a new thing.

Well, Macey and her friend, Janiel had been collecting snails (since its been raining here so much lately).  They were creating a 'snail farm' in an old fish tank of ours.  They came bounding into the house with the announcement that we had BROWN WIDOW spider egg sacs on the lanai.

Now, how did these two smart girls know this, you might ask.  My friend Nicole (Janiel's mom) had told me about a month ago that she had killed several - one out front, two in the garage and one on their lanai.  Little did I know (but the girls did) that the distinctive egg sac is the tell-tell sign.  See it here.

The next day after talking to Nicole and deciding not to wait for John's help I headed out back armed with my trusty bug sprayer jug that has a 'pump  action' gun to spray a continuous stream of poison on its victim.

It didn't take long on the first web to determine that the spider was in the very corner of the deck box where the web was a little thicker.  You could just see parts of a couple legs sticking out beyond the cover.  I got ready and sprayed!  It stayed put at first and then it was on the move!  YIKES!  I just kept spraying and spraying and spraying and spraying.  It was a fighter.  Finally it lay on the ground in a puddle all done in.  Thank goodness.  YUK!  Did I say that already.

The 2nd one was even more hidden.  The web was from the top of the bucket the kids stash their swords, balls & stuff in outside and extended to the opening of a plastic watering can we have outside.

I started by spraying inside the opening of the watering can.  Then I noticed a spot where it connected to the bucket that was thicker.  I pumped the sprayer and aimed up under the edge of the bucket and started spraying (without getting too close, I wasn't going to stick my head down far enough to get a look under the edge).  It took a bit of spraying but sure enough - out came the spider!

After triumphing and sharing with my friend she told me they seemed to like the hinge area of the screen door.  I didn't check right away.  I remembered a couple of days later and when I went to check - there it was!  The 3rd one!

I saw the egg sac first and was having a hard time telling if the spider was there. Sure enough.  It was close to the same color as the dark color of the screen door.  I'm not sure if it was a darker Brown Widow Spider or if was indeed a Black Widow Spider.

I stood back and sprayed.  I was worried it would get away since it was up higher.  I was worried it would climb up and I was running out of juice in my trusty sprayer.  It eventually met it's demise and fell to the ground.  Can I say YUK one more time.

The phrase "the eensy, weensy spider went up the water spout" has a completely new creepy crawly eerie meaning now. 

Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel - Push Along

Tue, Jun 21, 2011

"Our week went really well, A lot of things happened really fast and we were able to see Joe and Paulette be baptized with two of the kids!  That was amazing, and I'm really sorry we didn't have time to go to our apartment so I can't send pictures.  The Daniels have investigated the Church for forever, and members of the ward even pitched in to but the three kids quads and Paulette and buy Joe the XLG print trio + bible, and I took a video of that on my camera.

Mon, Jun 27, 2011
This is the picture Elder Austin Smith wasn't able to send last week of the Daniel family's baptism.  The family had asked members of the ward to perform the baptism.

Wed, Jul 13, 2011
"It's a miracle to see what ward fellowship does to help our investigators progress towards baptism, it is VERY important."

Mon, Jul 18, 2011

We received this letter in the mail this afternoon and read it together during FHE.  Elder Austin Smith is so not about being in the spotlight.  He didn't even mention this in his weekly email. 

Instead this is part of what his letter said and in regards to his new 'greenie' companion -

"This week has been great!  We got twenty lessons, I don't know how.  My companion is very ambitious, we've been setting goals on how many Books of Mormon we're going to give away, and it's been going very well.  We're planning on going to a real estate office today to organize our area more, something I've been meaning to do for a while.  I guess we will see what happens - Elder Lopez sees opportunity in everything, it's really neat."

He also included,  "Caleb Daniels is getting baptized this Saturday."  (He is the son of the Daniel's family shown above that wasn't baptized last month at the same time as his dad, mom and other two siblings).