Missionary Month and Thanksgiving!

November was an exciting month for our family and my brother's family. Garrett gave his mission farewell talk on the 23rd (his first ever talk in a Sacrament meeting). His topic was on service since he is a service missionary and he did a great job. They also asked his service mission advisors, the Mortensen's, to speak with him as well. (We got to know the advisors that month as they came to make visits on Sunday afternoons.) Curtis's parents, his brother Nic, and our nephew Andrew drove over Friday night and stayed at a hotel. After we finished with leaf raking Saturday morning for the ward service project, they came over and hung out at our house. We watched BSU's football game and I made more of those "pumpkin pie" cheese cracker appetizers and we had smoked chili. My brother Stillman and two of his boys drove over Sunday morning for Sacrament meeting but then had to leave right after, to get their house ready for guests during Thanksgiving week. I am so glad we had some family there. I guess I'm starting to get used to the fact that not many family members will be able to come for things like this for our family. It stinks, but at least we have a wonderful ward family over here also. And it was good that some of our family could watch Garrett's talk on Zoom, even though they had no sound the first half of his talk. The pros and cons of technology!

Curtis got this shot of Garrett before the meeting started. He's so handsome with that big smile.

The crew that came. I'm thankful to Dona Cameron who offered to take pictures for us after the meeting.

This is the pic he chose for his missionary plaque.

As I said before, it was an exciting month for my brother's family as well, since their son Alex, was coming home from his mission the day before Thanksgiving! They live in Lewiston, so it's only 2 1/2 hrs from us. We drove to the Pullman airport to help receive him home with many other family and friends. Then we drove our dog Milo over to Stillman's house and set him up in their new shop. The rest of our family went and stayed at a hotel, where we met up with Nikki as well. We originally only had one room reserved that was a suite, not knowing that Nikki was going to be able to come. She had just started working at Home Depot in September and wasn't sure she'd be able to get over there. She did work Wednesday morning and then drove straight to Lewiston, which was a 6 hr drive for her. Then her coworker took her Black Friday shift for her so that she could visit until Saturday. Fortunately, the hotel was able to give us another room and so all of the kids had their own beds while Curtis and I shared one. 

Waiting for Elder Alex Norton to arrive.

He looked so happy.

The whole crew at the airport.

The girls made this sign for Alex.

Our view from the hotel we stayed in, which was Inn America. It wasn't the biggest and best hotel, but at least they had a good view and this time we got a hotel that included breakfast. Although the seating was limited. 

We spent Thanksgiving Day with Stillman and everyone that was at the airport (which is why we were at a hotel). I didn't sleep well either because poor Nikki was coughing a lot and I got hot, plus Alice kept getting up because she was excited. I had to take a nap later on, as did Nikki.

Curtis had texted me one day saying that we were bringing a turkey to Stillman's house. I couldn't believe he was offering that since we weren't going to have a lot of space with bringing Milo and our luggage in the van. We thought we might drive the truck, but then it showed rain in the forecast and I decided that we should try to make the van work. Thankfully it did! He wanted to brine the turkey and then smoke it at Stillman's house. So we packed it in a food bucket that we have reserved just for brining turkeys and put the bucket inside a kitchen trash bag and filled it in with ice. Milo's bed got a little wet from that but other than that, it worked fine.

Dog cousins got to play! Milo and Brinkley had so much fun.

We were getting away from the crowd of the people in the main house and had some fun playing a few rounds of Foosball. It was probably my favorite part of that day. 

Watching the dogs play.

The kids in the basement playing all kinds of video games and computer games.

The birds were downstairs also and Nikki got them out for a little bit, but there was too much excitement for them.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner at the church. Michelle did a great job with the decorations and table set ups.

After stuffing ourselves with delicious food, cleaning up the church, and bringing it all back to Stillman's house, we hung out a little longer but then hit the road for home. Nikki left earlier than we did because her anxiety couldn't take the big crowd any longer. So she got to chill out with the cats while waiting for us to arrive at our house.

The next day we cooked up some food and watch the BSU game. At the end of the night Nikki had us open her Christmas gift to us since she wasn't sure she would make it back home for Christmas. She made our family a nice blanket made with chunky yard. She did a great job on it, and it now sits on our couch. I would like to get a basket or ottoman that can hold blankets in it for our living room but for now, it will just rest on the back of the couch. It slides down easily but we try to make it work still.

Prepping chicken to be smoked.

Saturday morning Nikki was going to head back to her apartment in Tacoma early so that she could get some stuff done before working the next day, so we had fun taking some family pictures.

Curtis wanted to take a serious no smile photo for fun. 

And a smile one. Milo was looking at a treat on the floor.

Pay attention to Jack's face in this one. Silly boy!

Now everyone's silly!

That Sunday the 30th, we drove over to Lewiston again to be there for Alex's return mission talk. I loved hearing about some of his experiences. It was worth driving over. We had some lunch at their house but then came back because Garrett was getting set apart to be a missionary that same evening. We didn't have any family there for that occasion, but Garrett invited his closest friend, Connor. He forgot to invite our bishop but wished he had.

Garrett is now officially Elder Butterfield for the next two years!

November Projects

I'm going to try and catch up on at least the main events from the past couple of months before the end of the year, which is tomorrow! 

In November I had finally decided to try and do something with the grapes on our vines. It started out with me just wanting to cut them off the vines and throw them in the garbage, but as I was doing it I kept thinking that I should try to do something with the grapes to use them. By the time I got around to it though, many of them weren't good anymore and I threw many grapes away. Then because I didn't have time right away, I bagged and froze what I had until I could get to juicing them. We bought a 5 qt juicer to try it out, but I decided that was too small just by looking at it. So, I sent it back and got a 9 qt juicer. Because these grapes are table grapes, not the concord ones that you normally would juice (I think), it didn't taste that great to me, but I canned 5 quarts anyway. This was my first time ever juicing grapes. Curtis has tried adding sugar and club soda to help make it taste better. I liked it best with the soda. Will I do it again next year? I'm not sure yet, but at least I have the juicer now, so I'm prepared.

As you can see, we have a mix of colors of grapes. I'm not sure if they were planted this way on purpose.

Another project we started in November was creating our own archway to help separate the living room from the dining room in a pleasing way. Curtis's job was to build, with Garrett's help. My job was to paint. The weather was actually perfect for painting. Even though it was a little cool, it wasn't too cold, and being in the garage helped. It was nice not to have a ton of bugs flying everywhere and getting in the paint also. We also added some wall panels to the dining room. We love it so much! Unfortunately, life got busy as it usually does around the holidays and we haven't quite finished yet, but we're close.

The ugly plain beam that will get covered. At this point Curtis already built the side posts and nailed on the panels to the dinning room wall. 

The cutting station.

Panel for the dining room wall.

The painting station.

The view from the dining room into the living room with just the side posts.

The building of the arch.

Curtis is holding up a decorative piece that will eventually get hung there.

We decided to add panel on this little wall as well, and I'm so glad we did. We love how it turned out!

We used trim boards wrapped around some 2x4's. Then we decided that we wanted to try filling in the gap that those arrows are pointing to, so that it feels smooth. It's not as easy as you think!

Filling holes and gaps on the top as well.

I did a lot of putty filling and sanding. This is pretty much how it looks right now still. I did not make it to my goal to have it done by Christmas, but I've learned it's not important to stress about it. It's going to be great when it is finished!

My niece, Ellie, has been creating some of her own recipes and posting them to her Instagram. I had actually just deleted Instagram since I never use it, but the only way to see her whole videos was to get back on Instagram. I was at the point that I wanted to find some new healthy recipes to try and here she was providing them! We have tried a handful of her recipes now and they have each been good! I even found a new favorite way to cook vegetables thanks to her! Baking them on a cookie sheet mixed with olive oil and garlic salt (plus I added some more of a mixture of garlic and parsley seasoning). We also like the mini potatoes that are seasoned the same way and baked at the same time. They are so good!

 

Crockpot BBQ ribs. Yum!

Sausage and Tortellini Soup

Veggie, Ham & Feta Quiche

Creamy Sausage and Ravioli Soup

Our new favorite way to cook veggies in a healthy way and love them! The veggies are a blend of cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini. Then the mini potatoes came in a bag that has yellow and red potatoes in it. I cut them in half and laid them all flat. It gave them a nice crisp layer. Even Alice, our almost 9 yr old, ate the veggies! 

I also had fun making this fun little snack for activity days that the other leader had found online. They were super easy and fun to make, and tasty too!

"Pumpkin pie" cheese crackers. Made with cheddar cheese, whipped cream cheese, Pita crackers and Chicken in a Biskit crackers. I never knew that you could buy whipped cream cheese until now. And I'm so glad I had this little piping kit for frosting that I used for the cream cheese.

Our youth in our ward needed help with their leaf raking service project since many kids would not be able to come, so they asked any ward members to come help. The project was to help elderly people in our ward who needed yard clean up. Charlotte was super excited. She begged to go help the youth before it became a ward thing. She wanted to help rake leaves! We had a great turn out and our entire family was there to help. Even Milo tagged along but had to sit in the back of the truck. We had three different groups. Jack ended up in a different group than ours because he wanted to be with his friends.

Using tarps to dump the leaves into a trailer. The leaves were then taken to a composting pile at the cemetery.

The last project I'm going to post about is baking pumpkin seeds! We bought our pumpkins the night before Halloween. Since there wasn't time to carve them, I said we would use them as Thanksgiving/Fall decorations on the front porch. Then the Saturday after Thanksgiving we cut them up and dug out the seeds. We love baking them up and eating them! I was able to get about 8 cups!