Adventures in Thanksgiving dinner

Our family celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving on Sunday. I had bought an 8lb turkey and was excited to have a pretty simple Thanksgiving dinner. As the delicious aroma of TURKEY filled the house, our stomachs started to growl. Man oh man, was this going to be good. The thermometer read that the turkey was done. Mmm, it looked brown and crisp. I took the turkey out and began mashing the potatoes, warming the buns, reheating the stuffing, cooling the cranberry sauce, and stirring the gravy. As Joel entertained the kids in the living room, I cut into the turkey. The skin was crisp and made that cracking sound that you only hear once or twice a year. I started carving and laying the white meat in a dish. I forced myself not to have a taste, no nibbling! The kitchen was warm and cozy and smelled so good, this was going to be great! I started on the leg bone. Hmm, having a bit of trouble here. I worked on it and finally got it off the bird. As I started in on the dark meat, I noticed some fluid pooling near the bottom. That doesn't look like drippings that you put in the gravy... uh-oh.
"OH NO!" Joel looks up and the kids stop playing.
I turn around. "The turkey's not done!"
I could hardly believe it. The dark meat didn't even look like meat, it was red and had a different consistency which I will not describe to you. The white meat now looked pink, too pink to eat. I looked at the drumstick which I had so much trouble with. Yup, it did not look done.
Well, 20 minutes later we all sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner. Without the turkey. We are grateful. Because, well, that's what you should be, especially on Thanksgiving Day.
What did we do with the turkey? There was no way I was going to throw it away, I cut off most of the meat. Or, what I guessed was probably the meat. Put it all in a baking dish and baked it for 2 hours at 325F. It worked. So on Monday for lunch we had turkey sandwiches. Monday dinner we had Turkey Divon. Tuesday lunch we had turkey sandwiches, and Tuesday supper we had leftover Turkey Divon. Ahhh, this feels more like Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Testimonies

So this is a call to you. Our family, our friends, those who read this blog:

Joel and I wish to put some sort of booklet together of the life story of our daughter Emily Grace. At the end of her story, we wish to pack it full of your stories and testimonies of how her life (though short) touched lives. Your lives. Lives around you who knew of Emily.

We will not put names in this booklet (just for privacy, and to give more glory to God). So please think about this, and if you wish to share it with us, please write it down and mail it to us or email it to us.

Reason? Ten years down the road I want to look at this book, at something, and see in front of me that Emily's life was not in vain. That her 8.5 months in the womb, and 9 days out of it, mattered. I want to be encouraged that God used Emily in other people's lives, not just Joel and I.

If you wish for a copy of this future booklet, let me know.

Firewood

Today Joel and Renee and the kiddos went to Okontoe to help split firewood. Okontoe is a Christian campground, sleigh ride, refuge ministry. We have some dear friends who live there and today we helped them split wood for the winter. Below are a couple videos that I hope you enjoy. One is of Jake splitting wood and the other is a good summary of what everyone did, Renee on the log splitter, Andrea stacking wood next to Renee, Joshua helping stack wood, Christy helping Josh, Joel splitting wood.

More apples...

What do you do with two bushels of apples? You give some away of course! But what do you do with the rest? You make applesauce! Hurrah! The kids love applesauce and they love to help. Joshua washed the apples, he was very thorough but quick. I could hardly keep up with him. My job was to cut up the apples and Rachel dropped the pieces in the pot. Then we played until the apples were soft enough to do something with. When Mama was done stirring in the cinnamon, the kids were served a bowl each of applesauce, still too hot to eat! Yum. Cortland are good apples, sweet enough not to add too much sugar, adds a pinkish color to the sauce because of their red skins and they are tasty.

Apple Festival in Bayfield, WI

Joel and I went to the Apple Festival in Bayfield last weekend. Without the kids.
It was a blast. We camped, ate apples, picked apples, listened to music, looked at art (exquisitely beautiful, much too pricey), bought coffee, ate apple pie and apple cheesecake, and just enjoyed each other's company without the distraction of children.
We took the ferry over to Madeline Island. I had never been on a ferry before, especially one that could carry automobiles. And looking over the railing and feeling the speed of the boat just amazed me. We rented bicycles and rode around the island (about 15 miles round trip).
When we returned to the mainland, it was really starting to crowd up. There was a carnival going on also, and we debated whether to go on the ferris wheel or not. We decided not and sampled apple cider and apple mustard instead. (yes apple mustard! it's the best!) Towards the end of the day we visited about six different apple orchards. We picked a total of 2 bushels, Cortland for applesauce and applebutter, Fireside for eating.
The fall colors were beautiful, most of them were just starting to turn.
So all in all it was a very good weekend, very fun, very relaxing. One of the mornings when I woke up, I looked at the clock and it said 8:24. I have not slept in like that for a long time!!!

When we returned home, we later learned that there had been 60,000 people, a record for that festival!