P.E.O. Meeting

Bill got called out for a house fire at about 11:15 tonight so thought I'd do a blog post before heading to bed.  Even though it's very dark, I can see white smoke in town.  The page said that the residents were out of the house so that's good.  It's different living here - whenever you hear of an ambulance or fire call, you wonder who it involves since most likely you know them.

Last night we went to the Fire Dept. Christmas party.  it was at Vinny's BBQ in Dakota City.  After eating and exchange of gifts we got a tour of the new Humboldt Fire Station.  It's very nice.  The kitchen has 2 of everything:  2 dishwashers, 2 stoves, 2 French door refrigerators, 2 sinks and they have a fairly new "fancy" fire truck along with about five others and a rescue boat.     

Tues. night our P.E.O. meeting was here at our house.  I served my Aunt Linda's Red Velvet Cake, Mom's Mexican Wedding Cakes, my Aunt Vera's Glazed Pecans and a truffle with coffee, black holiday tea or hot spice tea.  The red cake was pretty for Christmas I thought.  We had 13 here for the meeting.  

 

Pretty truffles from Fresh Market in Ind.

  

Electrical Work

This past week the electrician was here running wire for service to the new building.  Now Bill's waiting on the company that will put up the doors.

 

Christmas Preparations

 I've been getting things ready around here for the P.E.O. meeting tomorrow night.  Today I've been doing the fun part - baking!   I'll take more pictures and tell you what this is after tomorrow.  A couple of people that will be here sometimes read the blog!

 On Friday, I picked up Diane's girls at daycare and they helped me decorate the Christmas tree.

My little elves.helpers.

They seemed more excited about having an after school snack than decorating until I actually opened the boxes of ornaments.  When they saw them, they jumped up, grabbed the Santa hat and reindeer antlers, put them on and got busy!   I had thought about not using my same misc. ornaments I've been collecting for years and putting on all red and gold balls.  But Lacey already remembers and looks for her favorite ornaments every year.  I don't think putting all balls on would be the same!  Plus I really like our initial K's and First Christmas Together '07, the Christmas mouse, the little Night Before Christmas book that you can really read,  the 3 shiney hearts, etc.

Bill is feeling better today and is at an insurance meeting tonight.  It was very sunny here today but very cold (8 this morning).  Still no rain.  The experts are saying that even if we start getting some rain or snow, it's going to take a year to recover from this drought.     

 

Still Alive

We've been sickly around our house for a couple of weeks and had enough of it!  As you know, we thought Bill may have had food poisoning after attending a convention in Des Moines as several others were sick after too.  But it turns out he had a bad case of the flu.  Then last week I had what started out as a tickly cough and turned into a case of the flu with just body ache, fever and cough.  I'm feeling much better but now as of last night, Bill seems to have that!

I'm getting ready to have a P.E.O. meeting here Tues. night so I'm trying to get the house all Christmasy, and I'm behind after our not so good past couple of weeks!  

We had a few snowflakes flying around last night, woke up this morning and it was darker than usual so I expected it to still be snowing, but there was no snow.

Also last night we had some excitement.  Dave and the twins were down for the day to deer hunt and as they were just getting ready to give up leave, they got a 4 pt. buck!  After a long day of waiting and being trying to be quiet, Matthew was so excited! 

 

Gemutlichkeit Luncheon

On Sat., Bill and I went with a friend and her mother to Zion Lutheran Church in Humboldt's annual Gemutlichkeit Luncheon.  Gemutlichkeit means "a happy good time".  We had gone for the first time last year and really enjoyed it.  I don't know how many years they've been doing it but it's many.

The sanctuary is very pretty.  The smaller cross is made of poinsettias.

They started serving at 11:00.  We got there a little before noon and were given numbers 19-22.  We waited for a few minutes in their pretty sanctuary before they called our numbers.  

Everything is very organized.  You go through the line to get your sausage, smoked pork loin, sauerkraut, potato soup, German potato salad, fruit soup, and desserts.  As soon as you're seated, someone comes and reads the prayer in German which is printed and on the table.  Then they bring a bread basket with several kinds of bread and a relish tray with 2 kinds of pickles and pickled beets.  Deviled eggs are on the table.  There is definitely plenty of food!  They have polka music playing softly and all of the workers are in costume.  Really nice holiday meal we plan to go to every year. 

The dessert table.

This Black Forest Cherry Cake is soooo good!

Springerle

Bread

Melt in your mouth!

 

 

Some of the servers.

  

Nice Weekend

When I got home from church today, Bill was almost done watering trees.  We still haven't had any rain so they're saying to keep watering plants until it rains or freezes.  We're hoping this is the last time.  Today is a warm, breezy day. 

The chicken wire is working for the evergreen trees but the back two rows of austrees have more damage.  Bill may end up putting an electric fence around them.

Bill is working on leveling out his rock.

He helped me put some fresh greenery on our front porch railing.  There are little white lights with it.  We didn't let it drape down since we'll probably have wind before Christmas.  The Dec. P.E.O. meeting is here on the 11th so I'm doing a little extra decorating this year (and better get going on it!).

We had a nice Gemutlichkeit Luncheon yesterday in Humboldt with my friend Terri and her mom.  I took lots of pictures for a blog post.  The bride at the wedding later in the day looked like a blond Barbie doll, and the old Rolfe gym was decorated like a Winter Wonderland with lots of white trees and sparkly snowflakes, silver and blues.  It was amazing.  

Today in Rolfe is Hometown Christmas.  Bill will be driving the fire truck that takes Santa to it!   I'm going to help sell the Sesquicentennial cookbooks there.