Thanksgiving - Our Favorite Food Fest

Last Sunday on the CBS morning show there was a video editorial by a woman who vehemently denounced those who photograph their food and put it on social media.  I agree that there is a great deal of minutia on social media but I do think there is another way to look at the sharing of food...even if only a symbolic sharing such as a photograph.  From campfire to kitchen, to restaurants and now social media, civilizations have connected, shared ideas and enjoyed the company of friends and family around food.  I smiled as several of my nieces ( all sisters ) shared pictures of their Thanksgiving feast on instagram.  Each living in different parts of the United States and unable to spend Thanksgiving with their extended family, they shared their food and thus symbolically, their Thanksgiving with each other. 

 At one time people lived  their entire lives in the same community, but now we are on the move.  We are global, and this is how we feel connected to those not living close by.  So I will symbolically share Thanksgiving with those I care about and post some food pictures.  Sorry CBS...you didn't influence me! And that's my nice reply.

Cole and Tanisha's family made me laugh as the boys arrived in their interpretation of the first Thanksgiving.

Aaron and Georgia went all out with their vegetable contribution.

Liz was not to be out done by anyone with her creative "turkey" salad.

The children enjoyed the sunny outdoors.

Afton made wonderful pies that we were more excited about eating than photographing.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Great food. Great family. Great fun.  And undoubtedly everyone gained a pound or two.

Flat Stanley Visits Hawaii

In September we had a scheduled trip to our time share in Kauai.  It turned out to be fortunate timing as we were also homeless having sold our home and needing to mark time elsewhere before we could get moved into our new abode. School had just started in Arizona and our granddaughter Ashley had been given a Flat Stanley assignment.  She asked us if we would take Flat Stanley to Hawaii.  Trying to decide how to let Flat Stanley experience Kauai turned out to be one of the most entertaining trips we have taken. 

On an early morning walk I caught a sea turtle sunning himself in the sand.  I have often seen them in the water, but this is the first time I found one on the shore in Kauai.

I also caught a monk seal.  I would ask total strangers hold Flat Stanley so that I could get a picture.  Everyone was happy to help, even if they didn't know about Flat Stanley.  People who were aware of the "Flat Stanley Project"  would greet him like an old friend.  Sometimes they would be driving by in a car and yell out the window, "Hey Flat Stanley." and then wave.

Terry cut this inner tube out of a magazine so Flat Stanley had a flat tube for water safety.  I also had a shell necklace from Hilo Hattie's for him.  He wore it proudly.  This is Flat Stanley at the Spouting Horn.

Aside from regular attractions, we couldn't resist having some fun with the project.  Our children say they got their bizarre sense of humor from us.  I don't know what they are talking about????

Terry cut a slit in one of the magazines in our room and inserted Stanley.  Christian calls this creeper Stanley.  It was really an advertisement for a spa treatment.

  Flat Stanley having drinks with the ladies.  (Lest you think we are totally sick, we did not give these two pictures to Ashley.  We were just having some fun.)

Also one of our magazine creations.  We stuck a straw in to make it look like Stanley was snorkeling, one of the fun activities on the island.

This one was my personal favorite.  Flat Stanley hangin' with Flat froggie.  What a great find.  We let froggie have the umbrella as it looked to me like he had had a little too much sun already.

We had many more pictures, but as you can see, we had a great time having Flat Stanly join us on our vacation. 

Kitchen Project

Call us crazy but we decided to fix up the kitchen so that we could sell the house and downsize.  We knew the kitchen was outdated, but were we really up to that big of a project.  You be the judge.

Don't gag...we have enjoyed this kitchen for a long time.

The project begins,  Terry rips everything out of the kitchen, our garage is full of containers of cabinets, the family room & patio loaded with old cabinets, the double ovens and hutch are in the hall.  Every little thing in the kitchen is in Aaron's old bedroom and the laundry room becomes the kitchen.

Terry rips out the old soffits, I attack the wallpaper and we bring in a plumber to cap off the sink in the island.  Terry rewires everything,(I can hear Tim Allen grunting as I write) puts in canned lights, and eventually under counter lighting.

We put in new wallboard, have it textured, and we paint the kitchen.  Now that it is time to start putting in the new cabinets, I navigate the labyrinth in the garage and select each piece for each spot.  Terry sets about to prepare, and level the space. 

These pictures are to illustrate the hazard potential when working with power tools.  In the foreground of the first picture is Terry's table saw.  In the background you see the drill press, and imbedded into the wall next to the drill press is a speck.  The second picture shows the speck is a piece of wood about 3/4 in thick and about 4 inches by 4 inches.  While Terry was working on the saw cutting wood for this kitchen project and this piece broke off with so much power that it zipped back and lodged into the wall.  Fortunately it missed his head or he might have a hole like picture number 3.

I can't begin to describe the agony over getting the vent over the stove "just right".

Our Mexican guests installing our granite.  They came down from the Snowflake area and rather than make them get a hotel room while they were working on the granite, we let them stay upstairs.  They wouldn't sleep in the beds even though I washed the sheets.  They brought sleeping bags, and their own towels and slept on the floor.  They were here for 2 nights and 3 days. Fortunately both Terry and their supervisor are fluent in Spanish.

Now for the finished product.  Drum roll please, because it took us about 4 months.  Well, we did take time off to go to the cabin, and we don't exactly get up early and hit it at 6:00 am.  And since we had never done this before we took a long time to figure it out and measure, level and adjust and then measure, level and adjust again. 

Terry even did the stainless doors on the frig and warming oven saving about $1000.00.

We bought a new table and chairs so that it would look nicer when we put the house back on the market.

And we're done.

It's Puzzling

Over the last year, Terry and I have been involved in a lot of projects.  It's fun most of the time and it does keep us out of trouble.  One of my projects has been to make personal puzzles for young grandchildren on their birthdays.  I thought I would share some pictures of them.

This is one of Olie, Afton's youngest.  He is a character, and loves to do puzzles.

This is Ryan's puzzle.  He is Coleman's fourth son.  The pictures were taken at our neighbors in Colorado. Although the photos on the puzzle are very good, I lack the photo skills of some of my siblings to do them justice in this blog, but you get the idea.

Last year my sister Wanda visited and taught me how to do scrap booking on the computer.  Well she did her best.  Her skills in this field would be akin to a graduate with a masters degree and mine are more like a kindergartner.  When Terry purchased a new power tool, I decided to combine my new found "talent" (and I use the term loosely) and Terry's talent with wood to make puzzles.  He makes the frame, but he even let me cut the next puzzle.

This is Ashley's puzzle.  She also loves to do puzzles.  The second photo gives you an idea of the size of the pieces and shows depth.  This is Christian's family with baby Reid in the upper right corner.