Crispy

So one of the latest fun things Joel and I have been doing is drying food! We are just beginners but have high hopes and great dreams of drying camping food, tomato sauce, and veggies. Even venison jerky if Joel gets a deer this year. So far we've done apple slices, bananas, and applesauce leather. Now, leather is pretty new to me. My mother- in-law introduced me to it. It's simply a homemade fruit roll up. Way cheaper than the 'organic' fruit roll ups and so much healthier than a regular fruit roll up. So next time you buy a dehydrator, make sure you get the fruit roll trays. Slather on some homemade applesauce (don't forget to lightly grease it!) and dry for about 12-18 hours and presto! you have a round of leather. Snip with scissors into good size pieces and you have a cheap homemade snack. Genius. Except Rachel can't eat them yet. She rehydrates them for about 30 minutes and then gives up. Can't wait for those molars!

Deer, Sedatives and Our Hearts.

The inevitable has happened which all families experience every autumn. What could it possibly be? Oh, of course, the kids are sick. Oh, it's not too bad, just a cough and runny nose. Rachel didn't sleep well last night because she was coughing. Even though she's under two we gave her the 'Children's Tylenol cold and cough'. Why? Because "they" (whoever 'they' are) took 'Infant's Tylenol cold and cough' off the shelves. I guess parents were abusing it's capabilities to act as a sedative. Hmm...
The kids aren't doing too badly if you are concerned. The kids and I stayed home from church. Mommy made bread and muffins while Rachel napped and Joshua watched 'Go, Diego, Go'.
Some news:
-Rachel got two more teeth. That was a surprise, she hasn't been too irritable lately. Two more molars. So that makes eleven!
-Our friends Joshua and Stephanie moved this weekend.
-Deer Hunting is coming up soon, Joel is going out today to scope out some options on where to hunt.
-The last three Sundays we've been meeting with a few other parents to watch a series called "Shepherding a Child's Heart". It has been very helpful. The main idea is to focus on your child's heart rather than on the behavior. That way the Gospel will flow naturally and as your child sees how his heart needs Jesus, most likely will accept Jesus and then the behavior will follow. For everything, actions, words, thoughts, comes out of our hearts. And only Jesus can change a heart.

Prayer Request

On November 18th Joel and I will be meeting with Emily's Pediatric Cardiologist. On that day we will go over her autopsy report and learn the medical reason of why Emily passed away. This, obviously will be a hard day so we humbly ask for your prayers of peace.

Backpacking with Alfie

Alfie and I backpacked from Lutsen ski hill to Cascade state park a few weekends ago. We thoroughly enjoyed the hike through the fallen maple leaves, not even minding that we weren't climbing Alberta's Rockies like days of old.

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!