It's Cookie Walk Time!

Yesterday was the Algona Methodist Church's annual Cookie Walk.  I happened to find out about it 3 years ago and went to my first one that year.  This was my 3rd time to go.  So fun to walk in the room and see and smell row after row of brightly colored little Christmas cookies all layed out neatly in rows!  Bill's mom went with me this year.  She said she had never been to a big Cookie Walk and she LOVES cookies.  

A couple of years ago I asked lots of questions in case our P.E.O. group would want to do one for a fundraiser.  I think the lady said that every family in the church makes 4 dozen cookies to donate for this.  We pay $8 to fill our buckets.  Even though it only takes 10 min. to fill your bucket, it's such a fun Christmas tradition!

Exciting Day at the Library

This past Wed. was an exciting day for our little library.  For about four years, we've been hearing about and learning more about my fellow transplant, Ruth Agle's, repair and resale of O.L.D.s (Once-Loved Dolls).  She's so talented and creative with being able to repair broken arms and repaint lips and eyebrows of these composite dolls.  Not only that but she sews 2-3 outfits and makes accessories for each doll using old jewelry, lace, wool and leather from her stash. You can read about each O.L.D. that she has restored and sold on eBay at her blog hazeltwigg.com.

In her spare time, Ruth has been writing her first book, Hazel Twigg & The Hollyhock Hideaway.  Its finish has been much awaited by many of us here in Rolfe so we were thrilled to be able to be at her library program and first book signing this past Wed.!!  We actually got to buy the books which she personally signed for us! 

Bill's mom has already finished hers!  I'm on page 111 and loving it already.  There is so much to tell you - this might be another one of my posts that has to be done in multiple posts!  The really FUN thing is that this book is actually based on our town which Ruth calls Reliance in the book.  One of the main characters is Aunt Ruth which is really our Ruth! 

Throughout the book she mentions many of the things I've talked about here on my blog like when you're driving here, people wave at you even if they don't know you.  One of my LOL! parts was on page 55 when Hazel saw "the thinnest phone book she had ever seen.  It had both the yellow and white pages and was still less than a half-inch thick."  I thought the same thing when I saw it after moving here from the Indianapolis area where the white pages alone were at least three inches thick!  Glenn and his girlfriend were here recently, and I had even showed our phone book to Lori and she couldn't believe it either!  It's going to be fun to see how she works all the things us transplants notice when we first arrive here into the story!

Ruth had her latest O.L.D. with her Wed., Cora, the Town Crier.  I see that she sold for over $400, and she was a small doll!

There are lots of beautiful color illustrations in the book.  Ruth's illustrator is a woman in her early 20's from the Ukraine.  Ruth had all of these large, original illustrations with her for us to see. 

I'll post Ruth's bio in my next post.  In the meantime, you can order her book on Amazon!  Or, let me know if you want a book signed especially for someone, and I can get it for you.  It would make a great Christmas gift!

    

Happy Easter!

It's been a nice weather weekend for Easter in Iowa this year.  Fri. night I got to keep Camry overnight.  Took her to the Lions Club Easter Egg Hunt here in our town Sat. morning.  She found one egg with a dollar bill and 4 quarters in it so was very happy with that and thought it was fun.  I hid some eggs at our house and she looked for them, and then we hid them again for Lacey to find them later.

Camry is the one shielding her eyes

 I took Camry home and picked up Lacey.  She and I made colored deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole and a French Silk Pie to take to Peggy's for Easter dinner today.  Lacey is a very good helper, and I'm so happy that she likes to cook and bake!  

She likes to pretend that we have food orders to make or that we're on a TV cooking show which is good because I can really explain what we're doing and why (and she's listening and learning).  Things like keeping your work area cleaned up as you go. 

These pretty eggs are so easy and fun to make.  Just put 1 tsp. vinegar and about 3 drops of food coloring in a glass of cold water and put your whites in until they're the color you want them.

Today after church, we were at Peggy's for Easter dinner with Bill's sister Karen and her family and Dave's dad came along.  We had ham, sweet potato casserole, grape salad, macaroni salad, jello, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, spaghetti corn casserole, rolls, pumpkin pie and French silk pie.  Everything was delish. 

Karen brings a dozen plus boiled eggs for each of the kids to dye - it's tradition.   I'm glad to get to watch them since we don't have kids to do it with.

Ryanne LOVES pumpkin pie!

 It was a very nice weekend.
 

Christmas Day

We had a car full of gifts as we headed north to Bill's sister's on Christmas morning.  We had gotten snow a couple of days before so had a White Christmas here, but it was brown in Blue Earth.  Nice to have good weather to drive in this year.

There is always a spread when we arrive of cookies that Karen and the kids get at their church's cookie walk and shrimp that we snack on until brunch is ready.

Karen likes to make baked caramel French toast and breakfast casseroles that can be made the day before and then baked the day of.  Always good.  She also had ham.

After lunch the kids opened their gifts.  We wrap everything we get them separately and this year made them take turns and open one thing at a time so everyone could see what everybody got.  Made it last longer too.


 

Then we did the adult gift exchange.  We just buy something worth $25 that can be for a man or woman.  We draw cards for the order that we get to pick a gift, then can steal, then open, then can steal again.  I put these elf shorts in with mine. They were a hit.

Here are some more pictures from the fun day and a family picture.

Jim

niece, Ryanne

niece, Taylor in the hat Memaw gave her

Our church service before Christmas and the Christmas Eve service were both especially nice this year.  We hope all of you had a nice Christmas season this year!

Brown Christmas??

I guess there is a saying here that if you have a white Thanksgiving you'll have a brown Christmas.  So far we're having a brown December, but I'm still hoping it turns white!  

The Fire Dept. Christmas Party/Dinner is over, the girls and I have been on the sleigh ride, went to the German meal, the cookie walk, Christmas lunch with friends, our overnight trip to Des Moines for Christmas shopping and a Stampin' Up! Catalog Premier Party, Christmas P.E.O. social, to Des Moines again with a friend to her dr. appointment and shopping, made Spritz cookies with the girls and went to see Santa with them, and the wrapping is done.  Kind of winding down now for a few days till the big day!  The only thing I haven't even started and may not do this year is cards.  Since it's almost too late to mail, maybe I should make them this week to be ready for next year!  It would be fun to do them leisurely this week and a good feeling to have them ready for next year.  (and maybe even get to send them out Early!)  

Today I'm going to try a recipe for making chex party mix in the crock pot and a new recipe for some Red Velvet Cookies that will go to church tomorrow for a special party after church for the kids.   I made some toffee and blizzard party mix to give to friends and had a full recipe of caramels flop.    Will be making caramels again this weekend as it's a Kemna favorite.  I think? I may have posted pictures and the recipe another year.  Yesterday I got a recipe of buckeyes dipped in chocolate and mailed to Indiana for Mom, Glenn, Rob, Ross & Reed along with their gifts.  They'll arrive Mon. - perfect.

LOVED getting to do this!!  Hope Santa brings Camry her "locker book" (diary)!

the yummy Black Forest Cake at the German meal in Humboldt

the Blizzard Party Mix pkgd. for friends

hand stamped tag, of course!

the girls at the light display in Dakota City after the sleigh ride

thanks to Uncle Tim's suggestion, we put lights on Rob's tree this year - love it!  We moved this tree here that Rob planted at their house several years ago.

 

Making Christmas Memories

Long time, no blog posts.  Keeping busy!  This weekend we had our great nieces for a Fri. overnight and Sat. while their mom worked.  I tried to cram in lots of Christmas memory making while they were here.  Probably won't have them again before Christmas

First on the agenda was the traditional sleigh ride in Dakota City to see Christmas lights.  Lacey and I have gone 2 or 3 times and decided that this year Camry was old enough to go too.  Merlin, the guy that does the BIG light display, is 85 this year, so glad we got to do this again.  Never know when it will be his last year.  He says it took 58 days to get all the lights and things out.  We had a MUCH warmer ride this year!  Camry liked the clop, clop of the horses and their jingle bells. 

bundled up ready to go!

view from the sleigh ride on the trail below the hill on the back of the house

what a view from the top deck of Merlin's house!

gift card holders

Lacey and I made some gift card holders for her mom to use and I needed a few.  Camry was working on a birthday card.  She had a birthday party to go to.

making gift card holders

                             making spritz cookies - tried all the shapes 

We ended the day with a tea party - actually with hot chocolate and our cookies.

We're having foggy, misty weather this month instead of our usual sun, cold and snow.  Today it's in the mid 50's so I'm going to walk outside with a friend this afternoon.

Jim Nabors Sings "Back Home Again in Indiana"

Lots of people, including me, will be crying today as Jim Nabors sings this for the last time at the Indianapolis 500 as the balloons float up.   It's one of the most special traditions during the pre-race ceremonies.  He's been singing it since 1972, and he's 83 this year.   HERE is a link to a nice article about him and this tradition.  Be sure to click on the video at the bottom to hear "Back Home Again in Indiana".

The only hope is that my cousin Paul will take over!  I think he's been practicing for years!    

Happy Memorial weekend!

Reed, Ross, Rob, Glenn heading out to the race

Fun Deviled Eggs

I thought I'd share this now so you'd have time to make them for your Easter dinner!  Aren't they pretty?!?!?!!!!  I saw this idea on Facebook.

One of our P.E.O. members moved Monday to Colorado so Sat. we took them lunch and this is what Diane's girls and I made for it.  Beth had gotten lots of things done in our town.  She was one of the leaders when RAGBRAI (thousands of bike riders) came through town, she had a park built, and was the manager of our Farmers' Market to name a few things.  Her husband liked to play golf with others guys in town and help Beth with her projects.  They will be missed.

All you do is hard boil your eggs like usual, cut them in half and take out the yolks to make the filling like usual.

Decide how many colors you want.  In a cup, put about 1 cup of cold water, 1 tsp. vinegar and 3 drops of food coloring for each color.  Stir. Then drop in a couple of the egg whites at a time and leave them in there until they're the color you like (it doesn't take very long).  You might use a spoon and move them around a little.  Otherwise, if they're touching each other, a white spot may be left.  

I took them out and let them drain on paper towels.  Then place them on an egg plate or container like this - something that keeps them separated.  I had put some blue ones in a container with white ones.  They were touching so my white ones ended up having some blue spots so that's why they need to be separated and not touching.  Make your filling and fill like usual.

Good luck and have fun!  Almost more fun than coloring Easter eggs and maybe prettier!

Happy Valentine's Day !

We've had an interesting week.  I went to Bible Study Tues. morning and happened to sit by a woman looking for matchbooks she could decorate and put M & M's in for little Valentine gifts.  I told her I had a machine (the Big Shot) that cuts things like that out that you then just fold up.  I told her I could cut some out for her and get them to her.  She was thrilled.  After Bible Study, we talked more and I found out she LOVES to make cards - and other interesting things about her!  I think I've found a new friend!  She came over Wed. and we got her matchbooks made.

Yesterday and today Bill has had our tax appointment and his mom's in Algona - not fun.  We had snow this morning - 2-3" - then a sunny day at about 12 degrees. 

We usually don't go out for a Valentine's Day dinner due to the lack of nice restaurants around here (and sometimes the weather) so I picked up a couple of nice frozen lobster tails for tonight.   Having only boiled lobster tails maybe four times ever, I have to Google how long to cook them every time.  This time I found a great site and picked up some tips that really helped!

It said to salt the water (1 1/2 t. salt).  I don't think I had done that before.  The best tip was to put a wooden skewer through the tail before cooking to keep them from curling up.  That worked great!  It said to let them drain a minute in a colander.  Then I used kitchen scissors to cut the under side the whole length of the tail, took a fork and grabbed the meat at the tail end and pulled up.  The whole chunk then came out in one piece through the slit! Very nice!

Bill had a baked sweet potato with all the brown sugar, butter, cinnamon & melted marshmallows, and I had a baked potato.  Then I had looked up a copycat recipe for the cheddar cheese garlic biscuits like Red Lobster makes.  They were easy and not too bad.  

I had some red chargers for holiday meals so I got a couple of those out and used them with our white plates, lit the candles, turned on some nice music and we opened some Door County wine.  Very nice, relaxing dinner at home!  Hope yours, whether in or out, was too.   We realized this was our 10th Valentine's Day together already.  I said time flies!   (when you're having fun) 

Vanilla Extract Project

he's holding beans which are on a vine that they hang on a tree for the shade

When we were in Tahiti, we visited a couple of vanilla "farms".  To us, they weren't like any farms we know - they were very small!  More about how vanilla grows in the next post.

Vanilla beans are very expensive and now we know why!  The process takes a few years of the right weather and is labor intensive.  We were able to buy them at a much better price there and they were so fresh!  What a difference compared to ones we can buy in stores here!  

The man (above) giving us our tour at one of the farms told us to stick a bunch of beans in a bottle of vodka and you could have great vanilla extract and keep it going for years!  So I came home and Googled "making vanilla extract".  Very interesting.  I found a site, Beanilla, to buy some cute 8 oz. bottles and a few more beans because I had decided this would make great Christmas gifts!  

I bought a bunch of vodka - some people say to use the good stuff, some say to use cheap.  The bottles came and I washed and sterilized them.

The Tahitian vanilla beans are much bigger and wider with lots more "caviar" than other beans.  You can see the difference here!  The one on the right is a Madagascar Bourbon vanilla bean.

Beanilla says that the Tahitian beans are their favorite and that they have tones of ripe fruit.  I did a mix of mostly the Tahitian beans I bought there and Madagascar Bourbon beans.  Beanilla says the Madagascar beans are superior with a rich, dark and creamy flavor well suited for baking and drinks.

I split the beans, put them in the bottles and covered them with vodka.  You're supposed to keep them in a cool, dark place and shake it once a week.  I found some labels online that I could personalize a little, and made some tags with my stamping supplies. 

 I was excited about these gifts.  Hope it turns out good and everybody likes it.  There are lots of comments on the Internet from people who have made it, love it and don't buy it any more.  Lots of people put beans in a whole bottle of vodka which is what  I'm going to get started for us soon!