Gemutlichkeit Luncheon

This was the 25th Gemutkichkeit Luncheon in Humboldt at the Zion Lutheran Church.  It's a new tradition for us to go to this every year with friend, Terri, and her mom - this was our 3rd. 

They serve a huge German meal for just $10.

definitely not hungry for a long time after eating all of this!

Let's see, looking at the picture helps.  There was a brat and sauerkraut, slice of very tender & moist pork loin, potato soup, German potato salad, homemade relishes including pickled beets and pickles, about 3 kinds of bread to choose from, deviled eggs, fruit soup, springerle cookies, peppernuts and black forest cake.  There is another cookie there - the brown rectangle - that I don't know what it's called.

the relishes

 

We were happy the weather cooperated so we could go, and we look forward to going again next year.
 

A Fun First

Saturday, I went to my first ever Cookie Walk.  It's not something new here, but I had never heard of them and lots of other people haven't either.  This one was in Algona at a Methodist Church.  Bill's sister, Karen, and our nieces usually go to one every year that their church does.  When we're at her house for Christmas, she always has all of these pretty cookies for us.  It's fun to try all the different ones. 

Churches or other groups have cookie walks as a fundraiser.  They just have members of their groups bake cookies to donate (this church asked families to bring 4 doz.), usually at Christmas time.  The day of the "walk", they line them up on covered tables, give you a plastic bucket with a lid and you just walk along the tables and pick up the ones you want!  Fun! It was $8 per bucket.  It's an easy fundraiser.

They say that usually they are out of cookies 30 minutes after the doors open. I was done in about 10 min.  It was fun - I will definitely go again.  Next week there is one in Humboldt.  It looked liked a fun thing to take kids to. 

When I got home, we headed to Humboldt for the annual German meal for lunch.  Will post pictures of that next.

Bill is working in his shed doing some painting, and tonight he and Tim are going to a chemicals class in Humboldt.  I should be making Christmas cards, but I'm going to make caramels first. 

Back from Paradise

I'm just back from a trip to Paradise with my mom, Aunt Dana, Uncle Dale, their travel agent and her husband and others from the Carmel/Indy area - 15 in our group. We left on Nov. 17th.  I flew from Des Moines and met up with the rest of the group in Dallas.  We flew from there to Los Angeles.  Then it was an 8 hour flight to Papeete, Tahiti.  We were greeted with leis and Tahitian music at the airport!

Uncle Dale & Mom

We spent that night and the next at the InterContinental Hotel there to get over the jet lag.  This hotel was beautiful.  Most of us said we would've been happy if we stayed there the whole trip.

This was our view from our balcony! 

Breakfast the next morning was more beautiful than good.  I don't really remember what I had to eat, just that the buffet and the view from our table was amazing!!

cereals

yogurt & toppings

all open to the amazing pool & lagoon area

pastries

mural

Happy Thanksgiving !

I hope you all are having a nice day with that traditional Thanksgiving food that you look forward to and being with family.  

My family always has turkey, baked dressing (not stuffed in the turkey), sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry salad, homemade butterhorn rolls and pecan and pumpkin pie.  Every year we say "yikes, this is all carbs!" and try to think of something green to have with it at least or usually just say "oh well, it's only one day a year". 

This year I got a couple of new things to decorate our table and really like how it looks.  I love table runners and have had this on the table all fall.  Some bittersweet around the candles would be nice too.  I spotted some bittersweet along the trail but it's mostly up high in the trees.

an unusual pumpkin

I really like this Jack-O-Lantern I have up in Oct.

Camry asked me why this "clown" was in her little chair!  She didn't know about scarecrows yet.

Cemetery Work

Bill is on the Board of the cemetery so he gets to do some unusual jobs related to that.

On this day this summer, he took the skid loader and backhoe out and removed a row of really big round bushes.  They had gotten so big that they were actually covering some headstones and made the driveway too narrow for the hearse and other cars to get through. I got to learn to drive the skid loader and help a little too.  It was fun.  I should've taken a picture of the big pile after they were all pulled out!

The groundskeeper has spread grass seed and you can hardly tell where these bushes were already.

 

He really made quick work of it.

this isn't me doing this!

More Spencer Fair

The first fun thing you see at the fair when you arrive is people on horseback directing you into your parking spot.

I did spend too much time in the building where the adult entries are - watching cherry pie judging.  It was very disappointing though.  I thought I would get some pie making tips by listening to their comments, but they didn't comment at all about why they gave good ribbons or not - not even at the end.  It was fun to meet the judge, Louise Piper, though since she is a former Rolfe resident, and I've talked to her on the phone before.  Her daughter helped her and she is the owner of Our Daily Bread Bakery in Algona and Bill went to school with her.  Louise's son traps on our property in the winter.

While I was waiting to see the winning pie, I wandered around and looked at the MANY jars of canned food, afghans and other creative things entered.  Of everything I saw that day, I was most impressed with this sewing machine cake!!

amazing detail

such pretty decorations above too