Green Bluff

John and I met up with Kathy and the boys to enjoy Green Bluff today. (Audrey was sick and wanted us to go). The first thing John and I did was buy our gallon of apple cider - so good! Then we checked out the craft booths and displays while the boys checked out the maze. Of course we had to try out the food - Italian Sausage, Hawaiian-type chicken & rice and huge cinnamon rolls. I also bought a dozen pumpkin donuts that did not last very long. It was fun to play today! We were glad we had gotten there early...on the drive home we could not believe how far the cars were backed up down the road. Yeah for timing!!

Rocky Road Popcorn Truffles

I had found a bag of these Halloween marshmallows at Target and really wanted to make some type of treat with them. Rice Krispie treats would be 'out' since the colored marshmallows would just melt into a gray mass. So I went hunting on the Internet and found this recipe. The flavors were good (sweet & salty) but I would definitely do things a little different next time. Putting them in the cupcake liners was OK, but I was so worried that they were not getting enough chocolate while making them. Funny thing was, they got a TON of chocolate. So next time I would just place the popcorn, marshmallows and nuts on a wax paper sheet and drizzle the chocolate over them. Wait until they are set and then break them into chunks and serve in a popcorn bowl. But below is the original recipe:

ROCKY ROAD POPCORN TRUFFLES
1 cup plain popped popcorn (already popped, that's right, not very much at all!)
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup salted peanuts
1 pound semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
Coat a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray (or just use liners like I did). Divide popcorn, marshmallows and peanuts evenly among the cups. Place the chocolate into a microwave-safe container. Heat on high for 45 seconds, then continue to heat at 15 second intervals, stirring each time, until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour into the muffin cups, filling to the top. Gently tap the pan on the counter to release nay bubbles. Refrigerate until chocolate is set. Remove from pan and enjoy.

Wassail

I made this for both of the scrapping events. It is rather delicious and makes your house smell fabulous too!

WASSAIL
1 gallon cider
1 can frozen OJ
1 can frozen Lemonade
2/3 c. sugar (can add less)
2 tsp whole cloves
2 tsp allspice
2 cinnamon sticks
Water (3 of the OJ cans worth, more or less)

Put all ingredients in a large pot (or crockpot) and heat. Refrigerate leftovers.

More Scrapping

Jessie had mentioned earlier in the month that it would be fun to get together with a bunch of gals from church and scrapbook. I agreed to host it at my home. I sent out a few invitations and was rather surprised when all of them said yes. In fact, one even asked if they could bring another person. When you scrapbook, you need a bit of room to spread out your pages and your supplies, so a 6 foot long table really fits only 2 comfortably. So when my numbers jumped to 8 confirmed attendees the night before the event, John and I ran to the store to buy more tables. Audrey helped me set everything in the room and even got into decorating the house. I thought she did a great job and especially loved her window decoration!! But unfortunately, her scary decorations must have warned our scrapbookers away since at 7pm when the event started absolutely no one was there. 30 minutes is a long time to sit around wondering where everyone is, and I got to feeling a bit unloved. Finally at 7:30 three of the original eight guests showed up. We did have a nice time visiting, but at the back of my mind I kept wondering why no calls from the other five folks? And the other thing, of course, was I could have saved myself the $'s spent to buy the extra tables, as they sat lonely and unused the entire night. I'm not sure I'm hosting next month...

Train...

My sister's son is enamoured with trains so Kathy & he headed into town because a real Steam Train would be passing through Spokane. They got to see it traveling on the tracks as they headed into town, but specifically wanted to get to see it up-close. They got into town late afternoon, but since the train was not going to be at the overnight resting spot until about 7pm, we decided to have dinner together at Casa de Oro. When we finished dinner we headed over to wait. And wait. And wait. It was getting cold out so we sat in the car and got kind of silly. But finally the crowd that had gathered to also wait for the train let us know the train was here! We got out of the car and headed over only to find out that it was too dark, so not safe, to allow us to get close to the train. Oh well. We had a fun evening anyway with Kathy & Cameron!

Scrap Event

It was about time for another scrapping event with my sister and her buddies. When I go to these events (especially an hour away from my home), I like to bring pages "ready-to-go". That means that I've already picked out the pictures, the paper, embellishments and typed my journaling. So even though I can get a lot of pages done that day, it does take a lot of prep work. I stayed up until about midnight Friday working on this and then got up at my normal 5am to continue the prep. I also had signed up to bring wassail for our potluck. I left my house a 8AM and stopped by Kathy's before we went over to her church building. We scrapped and scrapped and ate and scrapped. By about 4pm I was tuckered out! I stuck around until about 6pm rather than the planned 10pm end time and headed home = right when it started to pour down rain. I white-knuckled it the 50 miles home only to find a pleasant surprise there. John had spent the day cutting and laying the tile in our laundry room. What a guy! Especially when he had told me since I got the day off to play, so did he : )

Birthday in Newport

After church today and then a YW Presidency Meeting, we headed up to Newport to celebrate James' birthday. Mom took this picture of John and I... but then took this next one of the three cousins: