Christmas Tree

On Saturday, we got a Christmas tree. This first photo is Joseph holding the tree up on our deck. You would think it was cold the way he is holding it.

Once in the house, we put lights (400) and ornaments on it. Not all of the ornaments are on yet so it looks like we do not have enough on the lower portion of the tree.
This is what it looks like with the lights on in the room and using the flash on the camera.

This is what it looks like with the lights off and without the flash. The only light is from the 400 little lights on the tree.

I also took some close up shots without the flash of two of my favorite ornaments.

Mom got a new ornament this year of Captain Kirk and the Tribbles. This is photo of it.

When the button is pushed, tribbles fall from the overhead hatch and Captain Kirk speaks three different excerpts from the TV show. I recorded all three quotes, but the macro focusing ability of the camera does not seem to work in video mode.

Old Photos

I was going through computer files to delete old things that are no longer needed and found some old photos that were fun to look at. There were lots of them, but I thought I might share just a few that brought back some fun memories. The first photo is the family cruise that all of us went on in May 2000.

This is young Joseph outside in the rain.

Katie and Sheri with Nina at the house we rented while our home was being built. This is the same place where John had an altercation with a door while trying to startle Nina. Julie saved the day.

This is young Julie. If you look at the front part of the seat of the chair, you can see John's teeth marks.

Neil and Bret went fishing with Grandpa during the floods of 1993 and caught quite a few fish. Of course the "big" one got away. Joseph was not too sure about the fish.

Joseph wanted to be "cool" like his brothers. He also wanted to be tall like them. I don't know about the "cool" part, but he passed up his brothers in the tall catagory.

Our trip to Bryce Canyon. Julie wanted to climb every rock, but some of the tourists got pretty nervous. Katie, Sheri, Sarah, Joseph, Mom and I hiked on the well traveled part of the trails. The hike up from the bottom of the maze was invigorating.

There were lots of other old photos and I was tempted to put lots more but decided that I had better stop.

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

When Mom and I went on our 30th anniversary cruise, were on the Carnival Valor. There were some aspects of our experience on Carnival that was not as enjoyable as our experiences on Royal Caribbean cruises. One of the areas that Carnival did a really good job on was the food, especially deserts. One of their best deserts was “Warm Chocolate Melting Cake”. It is an individually baked cake that has a hot center of chocolate fudge like sauce. I was able to find a website that had the recipe that Carnival uses. There were two different versions, so we needed to try them both. I think I am getting close to getting it exactly like we had it on the cruise. This photo shows what it looks like after my first two bites when I made it last week.

I tried it with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. It was good that way too, except the ice cream cooled the hot chocolate center down.

Last week, Mom bought some Ghirardelli gormet baking chocolate. Last night I used the 60% Cacao dark bittersweet version and it came our really good. I did not get a photo of this version, but it was a darker brown and tasted even better than the version shown above. Mom also bought some 72% Cacao Ghirardelli gormet baking chocolate that I have not tried yet. I think I am getting close to getting the recipe perfected.

We are planning on making this one night while everyone is here for Christmas.

The Guitarist

Joseph has been playing the guitar he made. He practices several hours a day and is developing some pretty good skills, but he thinks it will still be a while before he is ready to do a concert or produce a CD. Here is Joseph playing.

I guess they call it “Fall” because of what falls from trees this time of year.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a couple of days of below freezing temperatures, which caused many of the trees to start changing colors. Then we had a lot of wind that blew down quite a few leaves, although there are still a lot in the trees and some of the trees have not even really changed colors yet. The oak trees by the road to our house lost a lot of leaves and they are covering parts of the road:
A branch also broke and fell down that had a huge wasp’s nest attached to it. It is hard to tell the size of the wasp nest in these two views, but it is about a foot in diameter. It is a very good thing that the nest seems to be currently un-occupied. It was in the road, but I moved it off to the side of the road. I was prepared to run faster than the wind if I heard any buzzing noise, but I did not hear anything.

A rian storm came a few days after I took these photos and the entire nest fell apart into clumps of wet paper. It is amazing that the nest survived so well until one storm destroyed it.

Varsity Rendezvous at Daniel Boon Home

For the last several years, we have had a Varsity Scout Rendezvous at the Daniel Boon home property. It was on the third weekend in October. There are lots of mountain man activities and competitions in events such as black powder rifle shooting, tomahawk throw, flint and steel fire starting and other events. This first picture is our camp with the beginnings of fall colors and a little misty fog as it was getting light Saturday morning.

This next series of photos are of Joseph participating in the tomahawk throw.

I did not take many other pictures this year as I was working on the Dutch oven feast. The adult leaders all fix food in Dutch ovens and have a huge potluck feast. There were 30-40 Dutch ovens with a huge variety of stews, chilies, deserts. One guy made chicken enchiladas that were really good. I made a thick version of chicken noodle soup that was more like chicken noodle stew in my old Dutch oven. I also used the ginormous Dutch oven that Julie got for me and made a triple batch of cornbread. The cornbread came out perfectly. Since it was the only cornbread there, it was the first Dutch oven to be emptied. This is a photo of the crumbs in the bottom.

Joker Joe or "Joe-ker"

Saturday night was the Tri-stake Halloween dance. Joseph wanted to go as the Joker from the Dark Knight. Since it was inappropriate to dress as a nurse the way the Joker did in the movie, Joseph decided to dress in scrubs that were gender appropriate. This is what he looked like before he left for the dance. I hope he did not scare away the girls.