November 29, 2008

Landon watches Trenton "sew" animals.	It was cold Sunday morning.  We went to church where Wendell Heatwole had the sermon on "Envy & Jealousy".  I'm afraid it hit a little too close to me.  We came home to a lunch that I would have envied if I wasn't eating it. :)  We fried up some of Carl's catfish from his pond, hushpuppies, green beans, fresh cole slaw from the garden, and cheesecake for dessert.  Then we waddled off to bed for a quick nap.  We had to leave around 4:45 to drive over to New Holland for church.  They had a young man there who gave a report on a recent mission trip he had gone on to East Asia.  Interesting and good to visit with the folks there again.  Since their church service started at 6:00 we were able to be home by 9:00.
A couple games of Dutch Blitz after supper.	I was right on my weight goal when I stepped on the scales Monday morning.  Hooray, I didn't have to fast. :)  You can't imagine how much that brightened the day.  We had sausage gravy over tater tots for breakfast then I headed off to work.  Ina Sue spent the day with the laundry.  Supper of BBQ pork, rice and field peas.  After supper I worked on the dishes and cleaning up the house while Ina Sue finished up the clothes folding and putting away.
For Thanksgiving, the ladies sewed...	We had invited Craig & Kari Myers over for dinner on Tuesday so I went on an early service call with plans to come home and help Ina Sue get dinner ready.  She called me though and said that Craigs had had to back out because their girls were sick.  Ina Sue had already prepared some of the food so we decided to ask Nelson Hochstetlers to come over for supper instead.  I came home around 4:00 and helped straighten the house and fried up the corn tortillas for supper.  We had grenachies for supper along with baked corn and apple crisp with ice cream for dessert.  After supper the adults and older children played a couple games of Dutch Blitz while the younger children played together.  A very enjoyable evening for us.
while Sheldon handled the metal brake.	Ina Sue made us waffles and sausages for breakfast on Wednesday per Landon's request.  That is his favorite breakfast.  If you ask him what he want for breakfast it is always "Washells".  Ina Sue wrote up her Christmas letter, did some scrapbooking and other writing.  We had leftover grenachies for supper then a relaxing evening at home.
Kent and Duane worked on this gable.	Thursday was Thanksgiving Day.  We got up in good time and left for GA around 7:45.  Picked up a quick breakfast at McDonalds then drove on over to Dads for the day.  After we got there the men in the family worked on replacing more of Dad's rotting wood cornice with metal/vinyl.  Kent & Duane worked on the one big gable while Nevin & I worked on the one end of the house.  Sheldon did a lot of the cutting and metal bending.  Dad helped around then worked on deep fat frying the turkey for dinner.  Meanwhile, the ladies all visited and sewed inside while Mother got dinner ready.
While Nevin & I did this side.	We ate a delicious Thanksgiving spread outside in the back yard.  On top of the turkey & gravy, Mother served us a wonderful corn bread dressing, collard greens, apple/cranberry salad, zipper peas, winter radishes and pumpkin pie for dessert.  After dinner and fellowship we all got back to work and worked until we knocked off around 4:00.  Mother gave us  snacks of homemade potato chips and eggnog.  We left around 4:30 and got back to Govan around 6:00.  The children were pretty tired and soon went to bed.  I stayed up and made a breakfast casserole to take in to work tomorrow.
A wonderful outdoor Thanksgiving dinner.	I got up around 5:45 Friday morning and put my breakfast casserole in to bake.  After it finished baking I took it in with me to work.  Our store opened at 6:00 this morning for Radioshack's big advertised Black Friday sale.  I wasn't there when we opened but thought I could help support the effort with breakfast.  Sales were pretty brisk during the day but when you figure that we almost give stuff away during this sale, it usually loses us money for the day. :(    It was somewhat overcast today so I came home around 12:00 so that we could take our family pictures.  We got ourselves and the children all dressed up then Marcia Heatwole came over and operated the camera for us.  We think we got a couple that I can put together that will be suitable.  As a family gets bigger it gets harder and harder to get good pictures.  I went back in to work for several hours but was feeling pretty rough with a cold/headache.  I came home around 3:00 and went to bed for several hours.  Ina Sue was not feeling very well either.
I made up my favorite breakfast to take in to work for Black Friday morning.  For recipe and instructions click here.	We woke up to the wonderful sound of rain Saturday morning.  It rained pretty solid through all the day until the late afternoon.  We started off the day with waffles and sausage then Ina Sue worked on sewing some girls dresses while I worked on getting wires pulled and lights installed in two of our closets.  A nasty messy job but I got it done.  Ina Sue made us up a big pot of 15 bean boullibaise with ham & misc. other goodies.  I'm not a big fan of bean soups but I'll have to admit I thought this one was pretty good.  Ina Sue met up with Hendrick when she was checking the water meter so she invited him to share the supper of soup and cornbread with us.  He stayed for a little after supper and helped Carolina Sue put together puzzles..