getting ready for Christmas

 While I was in Cedar City, Joseph and Keith set up the tree and put on the lights since they didn't know when I would be home.

 The Sunday evening after getting home we decorated the tree.  Here is Ashley and Joseph putting on ornaments.

 My job has always been to take the ornaments out of the boxes and put hooks on.  I let everyone else put the ornaments on the tree.

 We always have Christmas cookies while we decorate.  So after church we made up a few of our favorite batches before getting the ornaments out.

 Here's one of our little sweethearts with her dad.

 What a preceious pitcure; as Audrey is watching the train go by.  Joseph sets up the village and trains every year.  This is all he has left from his childhood, when he was into model railroading.  Someday maybe he'll have time to get back into it.

The tree after decorating it.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2012

We had a fun and enjoyable Thanksgiving in Cedar City this year.

Kevin and Cheryl invited the family to spend Thanksgiving at their house this year. Cheryl indicated that this was her first year to host a family Thanksgiving dinner and it turned out great. We only had one burnt pie and that was mine due to not knowing that Grandma’s oven is hotter than it says (oops)

One week before Thanksgiving, Grandpa had another heart attack. For awhile we thought this might be it, but thanks to Grandpa’s strength and willpower to live, he made it through and is on the path to recovery. We were all able to breathe a sigh of relief and were able to not only celebrate Thanksgiving but also celebrate that Grandpa is still with us. With a newly installed pacemaker, those close to him say he hasn’t been this mentally awake in years. He just needs to recover his strength from the heart attack and things will be much better (still not fully out of the woods yet).

As for our Thanksgiving celebration, we spent the day at Kevin and Cheryl’s place enjoying the company of the Garrets and all the Cedar City Clarkes. We had a great feast with plenty of pies for all. Afterwards Aunt Cindy lead us in playing games. It was noted, that even Cheryl and Debra joined in the games and we all had great fun.

Because Keith was born on Thanksgiving Day, many of his birthdays have been celebrated on the road as was once again this year. Happy 20^th Keith. We Love you!

Due to School and work, Eric, Keith and I had to return to Latyon the day after Thanksgiving and Debra is staying in Cedar for anohter week or two to help take care of Grandpa.

 Let the feast begin

 The boys waiting in line for their turn

 Grandma and Grandpa Clarke

 Happy 20th Keith!

Celebrating Keith's birthday in Enoch

Farewell to our friend the refrigerator

Yes, after 23 years of service, our faithful friend the refrigerator finally gave out. We had a few clues that his time was coming over the last couple of months but we chose to ignore those signs; after all, with 23 years of service, who could imagine an end to our great relationship of leftovers and prime magnetic memo space. The first clue that his time was near was when the door fell off in Debra’s hand. It happened while I was at work so all I could do in reply to Debra’s panicked phone call was to tell her to put the door back in place and let the magnetic seals hold it there until I could get home. It was a close call but with a few moments in the operating room (commonly called the magic garage) the refrigerator was back in service with a rebuilt hinge. The next clue was when the water valve died. We couldn’t last long without our ice and chilled water so it was back to the operating room for a new solenoid valve. The final clue that the end was near was when I went to get some frozen waffles for breakfast and I noticed water dripping out the freezer door. Yes, the freezer was no longer freezing and the ice and everything else that should have been frozen was melting.

Well of course this story will have a happy ending, but the ending isn't here yet. You see, because we had the refrigerator so long, the size of refrigerators grew and when we went shopping for a new refrigerator, we quickly found out that opening for the refrigerator in our custom built cabinets was too small for the new larger refrigerators.

In order to install our new refrigerator I had to rip out some of our cabinets and will have to build new ones. As long as we don’t have any other disasters, hopefully by next summer I can have the cabinets rebuilt and all will be back as it once was with the one sad exception – stainless steel refrigerators don’t hold magnets

Old Refrigerator and custom cabintes

New refrigerator

We had to take out the cabinets so the new fridge would fit

Favorite magnetic fridge memorabilia

 

Eric and his roomates halloween

Eric and his roomates for Halloween



Halloween and other happenings

Halloween has always been a favorite holiday for us, mostly because it was the night of our first unofficial date where Joseph took me and my roomate to the hanunted theatre that the drama department did at SUU every year.  We enjoy the fun side of Halloween and not the scary, creepy stuff.

 

 This is my pumpkin that I carved.  My first attempt in many years as it has always been Joseph and the kids doing the carving.

 This one is Jospeh's.  He has much more experience doing this.

Keith had plans to make a suit of armer for Halloween.  He spent many hours designing the pattern  and cutting out the cardboard.

He then put paper mache on it to give it strength.  But alas the week before Halloween he got the stomach flu and was very sick and was unable to finish his masterpiece. It actually looked quite good on him.

He wanted to dress up for work, so a Jedi Master he became.  Keith also spent Halloween with a friend from high school helping to take her siblings trick-or-treating and then watching a movie afterwards.

For our Halloween dinner I made Haunted Chicken pot pie. For dessert I made:

 

Caremel Apple Creme Brulee

From Taste of Home

 

3 medium tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced

6 Tbs. caramel ice cream topping

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs sugar, divided

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbls packed brown sugar, divided

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 cups heavy whipping cream

5 egg yolks, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

Place apples in a microwave-safe dish; cover with water. Cover and microwave on high for 3-4 minutes or until tender; drain well. Arrange apples in the bottoms of six 6-oz. ramikins or custard cups. Top with caramel topping; set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar and cinnamon; sir in cream. :Heat over medium heat unti bubbles form around sides of pan.  Remove from the heat; stir a small amount of hot mixture into the egg yolks. Return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Stir in vanilla.

Pour inot  prepared ramekins.  Place ramekins in a baking pan; add 1 in. of boiling wter to pan. Bake, uncovered, at 325 for 25-30 minutes or until centers are just set (mixture will jiggle). Remove ramekins from water bath; cool for 10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate.

If using a creme brulee torch, combine the remaining sugars (or use raw sugar) and sprinkle evenly over custards.  Heat sugar with the torch until caramelized. Serve immediately.

If broiling the custards, place ramekins on a bakin sheet; let stand at room tepmerature for 15 minutes. Combine remaining suars; sprinkle over custards. Broil 8 in. from the heat for 4-7 minutes or unitl sugar is caramelized.  

 

Creme Brulee is one of my most favorite desserts.  This one is excellent and easy to make.

 

I also made donuts using a recipe that was in the Standard Examiner a few weeks ago. It is from a 13 year old boy who claims to make the perfect donut.  He has been making donuts since he was five years old and now does demonstrations to groups.  Wow! They probably were the best donuts I have ever made. He gave some good tips in the article as well so I am going to try other recipes that I have. We also had wassail which we always have on Halloween.  Ashley and Tyler came over and watched Hocus Pocus with us.  Sadly, we only had about 20 Trick-or-treaters so we had lots of leftover treats.

Raking leaves now won't be as much work as before.  We really have had a beautiful fall this year.

 

This is a wreath I made for our front door.  I have seen so many pretty fall wreaths  that people have put on their doors this year, so when I had the same bug Keith had this was a good project for me to do.  I started off at the dollar store and got what supplies I could there and then went to Michael's for picks that had the pumpkins, acorns and pinecones on.  I cut the leaves and picks apart and then glued them onto a grapevine wreath. 

 We started off the week with beautiful weather and then on Friday we woke up to a snowstorm.  It snowed all day long without breaking and into Saturday morning. We ended up with 10 inches of snow.  I know; more snow pitcures but just wanted to show you how much we got.

 By January we won't be as excited for the snow, but we certainly need it as the reservoirs are low.

 I thought the pine tree looked beautiful with the snow hanging on the leaves.

 On Saturday after this big storm, our Stake did a mock disaster where Joseph was able to participate as a Cert member.  He wore his vest, ID and helmet. Then they had to go help a family that had been hurt in the mock disaster.  Joseph has lots of experience with this sort of stuff having taught first aid in Scouts through the years as well as his Cert training.  Those in his group were impressed with his resoursefulness and knowledge. The kids in the family that they helped had fun participating.  All in all the mock disaster went well. Hopefully we never have to use these skills in a real disaster, but it is a comfort to be prepared as possible.  I was at my sewing class so I wasn't able to participate.  I got a new Bernina this past month as the one I have been looking at was on sale at a price I felt I could afford. I have had my Pfaff for 30 years (which I have loved) and can't get parts for it anymore unless they can get them off of another machine.  Joseph has actually made parts to keep it running. Thank goodness for my talented husband. I really feel like my skills are outdated so this has been a fun class to attend.  I still have two more classes. I will probably take other types of classes that they offer through the store just to learn some new skills. I don't sew as much as I once did and haven't made a quilt top in the last year as it has been a very stressful year. I hope things are calming down and I can actually do some fun sewing.



The real snowstorm

When Joseph got up this morning he said: "Your'e going to need to take more pitcures" . So here are pitcures taken in our backyard of "the real snowstorm".  We probably have 3 1/2 inches right now and it is still snowing. Most of the trees haven't lost their leaves yet, so they are all drooping down.  Because of the weight of the snow on the branches, our ash tree has already lost a branch. Before the day is over there may be more casualties. So enjoy the pitcures and think of us in your warmer climates.

 

Today may be a good day to have a fire in the fireplace, curl up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.

First Snow of the season

Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow.  Oh, wait, not yet! it seems a little early for snow in the valley. This wasn't predicted until Thursday.  It rained hard all night and I could hear the water coming off the roof in droves.  I was quite surprised this morning when I got up and looked out the window and white stuff was falling out of the sky. So I went out and took a few pitcures just to share. It is suppose to storm all week so it will be interesting to see what we end up with.

 

 This is looking at the play house where Joseph is in the process of replacing the deck and railing.  You can see the pear tree in it's fall grandeur.  We really have had a beautiful fall this year, despite the hot dry summer. We have finally got all the wood chopped and stacked.  We gave wood to two other families in our neighborhood and still had plenty for ourselves.  Joseph has been working hard getting the yard cleaned up.  He has been working on killing the stumps so that next spring we don't end up with a forest growing in our backyard.Next year we are going to take out our quakies because we do have a forest trying to grow in our front yard. We are thinking of replacing them with either a pecan tree or an almond tree.

 Looking toward the arbor. It is a very wet snow.

Yesterday I finished raking the leaves from the maples. They are the first of our trees to shed their leaves.

Snow on the durango.  As I am typing I can see out the window and the snowflakes are getting bigger.

 

For a little nostalgia.

  This pitcure was taken in 2005

October conference 2012

My, how they have grown into such handsome young men.

 Both of them are either taller than their dad or almost even with him.



Our sad backyard (part 3)

 

We thought last week we would wait a few weeks before tackling the last four trees, but Joseph found out the boom was available to rent this weekend.  He thought these last four would be easier than the first six, but in reality I think they were a lot harder. 

Friday evening Joseph went up in the boom to start cutting on the end tree as it was the biggest and the one we had the most concern about.

 he started by cutting off banches that were just monsterous.  All of them but one came down the way he hoped.  The last one hit our neighbors fence up on the hill.  It only took out a backet that holds the railing to the post. So I was up there cutting off smaller branches so we could swing it back into our yard. He realized that it was going to be impossible for him to do this by himself so he called the Syndergaards and asked for his help again.  Michael was more than happy to come and help us.  We simply could not have done it without him.  We are so grateful he was willing ot give up two Saturdays in a row.  This took alot of hard work. He brought two of his sons to help remove the branches after they fell. 

Starting off the morning.

  We had hoped to use a rope tied to the Durango to help guide the direction the end tree fell, but the plan didn't work. As I pulled away with the Durango the tree went sideways and the rope broke.  The bolts on the tree sheared off.  Thankfully no one was hurt or any damage was done.

 Down to two trees.

 the small brnaches on these trees are so brittle that you could just snap them off.  One branch that came down vertically hit the grould and then snap, snap as all the smaller branches on it literally came off.  All that was left standing was the branch itself.  It was quite the sight to see happen.

Our barren skyline.

This is the last tree.  I took the pitcure from across the street in front of our house. As you can see they were using the extending ladder from the boom to climb up in.

 Just the main trunk left.  What a sad sight to behold. 

 Cutting down the bottom of the stumps

These were just huge and heavy. Joseph took our fence down on Friday so that we could drop the trees without doing anymore damage to the fence.

Our huge pile of small branches. 

 The playhouse took some damage and a few other things will need repairing. We also lost the peach tree next to the playhouse, but it simply couldn't be helped. I will be planting some fruit trees in the near future to replace that and the pear tree.  Along the fence we will just do grapes and hope the fruit trees along the bottom of the fence now have the sun they need to grow like they should.  First priority will be the fence and getting it back up.  We will have a lot of work ahead of us.  Today we are sore and bruised.  My arms took a beating from all the branches we hauled out of the way.  At least we are finished with the worse part. Our backyard that has been such a pleasant oasis has now changed and the privacy we have enjoyed is gone as well. At least we don't have to worry about these monsterous trees coming down in a storm and doing some major damage to the houses around us.  I guess I will be thinking of ways over the winter to do some different landscaping.