"Students of the Snow" (I mean COLD!)

So . . . It's been almost a month since my last post. Ugh! It's not because we have been bored out of our minds with nothing exciting to write about. Oh no, quite the opposite. Since my last post, we have been very busy with Thanksgiving, Christmas parties, Christmas parties and more Christmas parties followed by ice storms and most of Tulsa without power. Thankfully, we didn't lose power and were able to allow family and friends to stay at our house.

During this whole time, Colorado has been getting plenty of snow which gave Chris and my Dad the Ski bug. Thursday, during all the power outages, Mom, Dad, Chris and I packed up our ski gear and headed too Winter Park Ski Resort. Below are some pictures from the very VERY cold trip. As you can see from one of the pictures, the temperature was well below freezing. The Weather Channel recorded the temperature at -18F! I don't think I have ever been this cold before. BRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the trip.

Thanksgiving Favorites. . .

Thanksgiving is my most favorite holiday. I love . . .

• The color of the trees
• The smells of all the different kinds of foods
• Of course eating all the good food
• Cramming all four or five of us girls in the kitchen and trying to cook all at the same time
• Decorating the house and setting the table to look festive

My most favorite activity is sitting around the table and telling of the many things or one special thing we are Thankful to God for. Its like our own time of setting up stones as memorials to God’s faithfulness, grace and mercy. Just like the Israelites did after crossing over the Jordon River.

Here is a few other Thanksgiving Day thoughts . . .

Tradition
Unlike Chris’s family, we were never allowed to have dessert for breakfast . . . except at Thanksgiving. Each year at Thanksgiving, we make about 10 pumpkin pies and we are allowed to have a piece for breakfast on Thanksgiving Day and every day after for as long as there is pumpkin pie (which only lasts until Friday or Saturday)

Memory
My most unusual memory about Thanksgiving occurred while we lived on the farm. We were about 15 minutes from sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, when we realized that Red (our cow) was giving birth to her first calf. We had never had a cow give birth before so this was a new experience. Needless to say, dinner was postponed until after the calf was born. In honor of Red having her calf on Thanksgiving, we named the calf Pilgrim.

First
After eating “mold injected” turkey for Thanksgiving dinner at college for three year, my senior year we had a real Thanksgiving dinner. We called PCC’s turkey “mold injected” after taking some engineering class because the turkey looked like it had been chopped up and then pressed into a mold to look like a turkey. I was married my last year of school, so dinner was at my house. The night before, Miriam, Tamra, Amber and Julie all came over each person made a special Thanksgiving dish that their family always made. It was really neat to see the different types of food people call Thanksgiving. One fun memory from that night was that we had to make an emergency run to wal-mart for NEW shortening. As Miriam and I made pies, we could never get the pie crust dough to the right consistency and we finally determined that our shortening must be bad. Once we had new shortening, the pie crust came together beautifully.

Resolutions

It is really hard to break a habit you didn't even realize you had.

When purchasing laundry detergent, I have always wondered if you really get as many loads out of the bottle as they claim, because it just doesn't seem like it. So, last time I got a new bottle of detergent, I actually read the bottle instructions. The instructions really surprised me. They stated that level 1 on the measuring cup is for NORMAL loads and level 2 is for LARGE or heavily soiled loads. The measuring cup didn't mention anything about level 3 which is clearly marked on the cup. My own determination of what the levels meant was obviously wrong. I had assumed that level 1 was for small loads, level 2 for medium loads and level 3 for full loads. I wonder if the manufacture actually intends for us to use level 3 or if I am blindly using it and wasting 1/3 of a cup of detergent on every load.

Since realizing this, I have determined or resolved to use level 1 on the measuring cup only. I would never of thought this would be such a hard resolution; but every time I do laundry, I fill the cup and empty it without even thinking about what I am doing. It is certainly interesting the things that become habits. Do you have any unusual habits?

Costume Contest

Though it can be scary, our office Halloween costume contest is always fun. Several years ago, Shannon (a co-worker) and I challenged the office to dress up for Halloween and we would have a costume contest in which a cash prize would be given. Though participation varies each year, it is neat to see the different levels of effort and the different ideas that people come up with for a costume. Here are some pictures of Chris and me dressed up for Halloween.

Little Red Riding hood and the Woodsman who saved her and her grandmother

Popeye and Olive
The year Chris and I did Popeye and Olive, we won 1st prize.

Cow Girl

! PUMPKINS !

Here is the finished product of today's pumpkins carvin'. More to come later.

Gettin' Ready

Today, we are baking all the desserts for our Annual Pumpkin Carvin'. Chris's Mom is here visiting us this week and she wanted to make apples dumplings. So, Chris and I peeled and cored the apples and she filled them with cinnamon and sugar, covered them with dough and made a carmel praline sauce to cook them in. I made two pumpkin rolls. Pumpkin roll is a family favorite and it is really quick and easy to make. Leter today, we will go pick out pumpkins and then go to Mom's house where we will carve them. By the end of the day we will have about 10 - 15 pumpkins carved. Below is the recipe for the pumpkin roll and some pictures of us getting it all done.

PUMPKIN ROLL

3 eggs
2/3 C pumpkin
1 C sugar
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
½ t ground cinnamon
¾ C flour

Preheat oven to 375. Cut waxed paper to fit a 10X15-inch jellyroll pan. Spray pan and paper with Pam.

Mix eggs, pumpkin and sugar. Add salt, soda, cinnamon and flour. Mix well and spread in prepared pan. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Be sure center of cake is done. Let cool in pan 10 minutes. Sprinkle clean towel heavily with confectioner’s sugar. Turn cake out onto towel and roll; cool about 20 minutes.

Filling
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
2 T margarine
1 t vanilla
1 C confectioners sugar
½ C toasted chopped pecans.
Whip cream cheese, margarine and vanilla until smooth. Add sugar, mixing well after each addition. Stir in pecans.
Unroll pumpkin roll and spread with filling; re-roll and refrigerate. Slice and serve.

Apples and Apples

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Elaine (Chris's cousin Nathan's wife) in which she metioned that the family had been to several orchards this year but were never able to pick the apples because it was too expensive. However, they were able to find an orchard that would let them pick apples for free. Here are some pictures of them picking apples. The children are Isaiah, Alethia and Hadden.

After I saw the pictures of all the apples they had picked, I asked Elaine what she did with all of them. She said, "Last year, we picked a bit more; and I made 20 lbs. of apple butter, 20 lbs. of applesauce, and about a dozen cups of sliced apples (which I froze to use for apple crisp--in fact, I still have some in the freezer). We used the rest as snacks or for Nathan's lunches. It's quite a task to peel, core, chop, and/or puree all of it. I had to carve out almost 4 or 5 mornings to do it all. My favorite thing was apple butter. I cooked it in a slower cooker over night and woke up to the sweetest aroma! So, I'll probably do mostly apple butter this year (since I hardly used the apple slices for apple crisp, and I can get applesauce cheap in the stores). "

I remember when our family went and picked peaches at an orchard here in OK. It wasn't free and between me and my four siblings, we picked our money limit in about 5 mins. But, it was alot of fun.