Smoked Turkey

We invested in a new grill this last summer.  When we first built our home, we couldn't afford a fancy grill, and we didn't have a deck to store one anyway.  We bought the second cheapest grill they sold at Shopko.  The years went by, and the deck arrived, but our old bargain grill would never die (much to my dismay--why is it that our least favorite appliances, furniture, and carpet seem to last FOREVER?)  Well, this summer, my hubby decided it was time to get me a new grill.  The kind I wanted was out of stock at the Home Depot, so we ordered one--which was supposed to arrive within the week.  Well, the date that we were supposed to pick up our grill came and went, and we found out that the Home Depot hadn't even placed the order.  To our surprise, they offered to give us a more expensive grill (in stock and assembled) for no additional cost. 

Nice... 

Well, with Thanksgiving at our house this year, of course the plan was to smoke the turkey in our new Charbroil Red grill.  But the temperature outside on Thanksgiving morning was about 10 degrees.  We rolled out of bed around 7:30 to fire up the grill.  Ten minutes later we checked on the grill and it was over 500 degrees already!  We were able to maintain 350 degrees of indirect heat with two burners on nearly the lowest setting!  Now that's a Minnesota grill!  Two hours later, we had 2 perfectly smoked Turkey breasts...

Mmmmm....



THANKSGIVING

 During the last several years, I have gained a new perspective on Thanksgiving.  I suppose in some ways, you have to lose something before you realize how grateful you are for what you have left.  I have found this to be especially true this year.  We celebrated this Thanksgiving in our home with heavy hearts, but abundantly grateful hearts.   Above all else, I am thankful for a faithful God who is good no matter what.  I am thankful for my dear husband who is a constant source of stability.  I am thankful for my sweet daughter whose heart is so sincere.  I am thankful for our home that is a refuge from the storms of life, and I'm thankful that this home of ours has been a haven, not just for us, but many others also. We had planned to have a simple Thanksgiving meal together--just the three of us.  But the Lord had something else in mind, and He brought a few people our way to share the day with.  I probably should have taken some pictures, but I think it's safe to say that Thanksgiving in our home was a blessing and an encouragement to all who came.  :-)

 

CAT testing . . .

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." 

(Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

  

Every year we are required by Minnesota State Law to do a standardized test.  This test has been scheduled many weeks in advance, so we were very thankful that the chicken pox came and went when they did!  It's always my goal to get testing done before Thanksgiving...and this year we don't have much time to spare!  As a homeschool Mom, I never know quite what to think about standardized testing; it sounds so ominous.  Most homeschool families shrug the tests off as a formality, but that's not my nature.  To me, this test is not an evaluation of Elizabeth--I know that she is bright and capable.  It's an evaluation of her teacher--that would be me.  Have I adequately covered the material that she needs for her grade level?  I can remind myself over and over again that parenting is about "life training", and that academics are only a small part of that.  I can consider the fact that I want my daughter to love learning for the rest of her life, and that burning her out now would be detrimental in the long run.  But when test time rolls around, I all too easily forget the big picture. 

Well, today was our first day of testing for this year, and to my delight, my daughter loves it!  It's like a big game to her.  As a rule, we don't tell her how she does on the test.  If we told her she was at 6th grade level, she would only be proud, and if we told her she did poorly she would be crushed.  Thankfully, her language and reading skills are amazing.  She loves reading stories and she remembers every little detail.  I'm confident that she'll do fine on the Math portions as well.  There's only one part that gives us trouble.  Spelling.  Arggh!  She's a phonetic speller...which means those irregular sight words come back to haunt us every time.  Oh well...we're going to have them down before next Thanksgiving!  :-)

Chicken Pockers!!

The chicken pox have been going through our extended family since the end of summer.  We do not vaccinate, so we knew it would be best for Beth to be exposed to the chicken pox as young as possible.  Yet, we didn't exactly want to expose her "on purpose".  So, when the first round went through, we kept our distance and let it run its course.  Then came round #2.  The chicken pox arrived at the Walters house (my sister's children and Beth's cousins), and since we knew it would never be possible to keep our families totally separate for the length of time that it took for the chicken pox make its way through their large family, we figured we were doomed.  So, we allowed Beth to be moderately exposed.  This is supposed to be a "highly contagious" virus, right?  Well, apparently not as contagious as we thought...  It took a full month of increasingly direct exposure to her cousins for her to finally get the chicken pox.   Poor babe.  Here she is in her special "Pooh" nighty that we bought just for the occasion.  (It had a large neck to avoid popping blisters when putting on and off.)  This was taken on day 4.  The first few days were more just body aches and fever.  The blisters emerged very slowly for Beth.  But by day 4, the blisters were coming like crazy, and she was overwhelmed.  The itching was getting miserable by this point, and she knew that she had plenty of days of itching ahead of her.  This was the day that I spent mostly laying in bed with her, tea tree oil dropper in hand.  We watched movies together, and she would point, and I would drip...for...hours...  Yeah, it wasn't fun.

If an area of skin would get too warm, the rash would spread like wildfire...  Her poor little face had it the worst. 

This was on Sunday, day 5.  She missed her friend's birthday party, and so Daddy came home from church with a bag of party favors.  These made a sick little girl's day!

This pock (pictured above and below) takes the prize for the biggest pock we've ever seen!  It was the very first blister she got, and it grew with every passing day.  It was HUGE.  Putting ointment on it several times a day made Mommy very queasy...



Here is our arsenal of products that we used to manage the symptoms.  If you ever get the chicken pox in your house, I now know what works and what doesn't.  Tea tree oil and ASAP silver gel were our best weapons against the itch (and both have antiseptic properties as well).  The expression on Beth's face the night I brought home "BUTT PASTE" was pretty priceless.  Yes, Butt Paste.  The zinc oxide relieves itching without crusting like calamine lotion--which is good on the face where you don't want scarring.

By this point, we're about a week into the chicken pox.  Beth is feeling much better, and some of her sores are starting to scab. 

 All scabbed-over.  She was no longer contagious at this point, and she was very excited that she could finally put on a cute hat and get out of the house.  We're so glad to have the chicken pox behind us!



BOOrito!

So, we have a family tradition of going to Chipotle on Halloween.  In past years, if you dressed like a Burrito (which basically meant if you had tinfoil anywhere on your body), you would get a free Burrito.  This year, they made it a bit more challenging.  You had to dress like a "horrifying" processed food product in order to get a $2 burrito.  More work for less value, but we were up to the challenge.  They also had a contest and the best costumes had a chance to win various prizes.

Well, I can't help myself.  I'm practical.  If I'm going to dress up in candy to get a discount on a burrito, you can bet that I'm not going to spend more than I'll save in the process!  We had a package of Oreos in the pantry with 2 cookies left, so if you look close you'll see them suspended over our heads.  Beth bought a package of Mentos and a package of Skittles at Wal-Mart, and we went together as the "candy queen and princess".  :-) 

Funny story, and maybe you had to be there...  But part of our costumes were recycled from last year when Mike created a hat and Elizabeth and I had headbands with wire "ding-a-lings" on which we suspended burritos made of foam and covered with tinfoil.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, a couple weeks before Halloween, Mike and I were driving down the highway, and I was quietly brainstorming what I would do for my processed food costume.  Thinking about how we could reuse our hat/headbands from last year, I randomly blurted out:  "Hey, I think we could just go to Chipotle with Twinkies on our ding-a-lings; that should work!"  You should have seen the strange expression on Mike's face...I guess he's just not very imaginative.  ;-)

So here is Mike in his corn-syrup laden Twizzlers "dude-man" costume complete with Twizzler mullet and chipotle medallion.  Very original, that's for sure!  And all of his work with the hot glue gun paid off because he was one of the WINNERS of a $250 burrito party for 20 people!!  Duuuuude....

Beth Marie's 9th Birthday

On October 15th, our baby turned 9 years old!  Hard to believe it's been 9 years since we first laid eyes on our darling daughter.  She's growing up to be such a beautiful little person.   

Beth Marie, at 9 years old, you are turning into such a wonderful little lady.  You are a delightful companion for your Mommy--I love having a little girl to share my days with.  Your birthday was such a fun day for our family to celebrate 9 amazing years with you!  You are such a treasure...

 Mmm...  Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting and caramel drizzle. 

We usually party with the cousins on Beth's birthday, but this year they all had the chicken pox.  Beth was very exposed before her birthday, so we were thankful to have a healthy girl to celebrate with!  We decided to take the whole day to go up to the Cities as a family.  Here's our pretty birthday girl in front of the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.  We would highly recommend this place!  This is the sort of thing we love to do on our vacation time--explore a fun place while learning a little history.

Here, Beth Marie is overlooking the burned-out Mill.

Beth and Mom at the Mill City Museum.

Daddy and his girl at the Mill Museum (overlooking St. Anthony falls)

Mill Ruins Park (Stage 1).  This was such a cool place to walk around.  It makes your imagination go wild to think about what all of this was like 100 years ago.

Ruins...

The ruins has sidewalks where you could stroll--and for anyone who's interested in photography, this area would have no end of potential!

The burned-out remains of what was once the world's largest flour mill.

The Stone Arch Bridge and Mississippi riverfront.

Mike snapped this picture quick on our walk back to the car.  Cool, huh?  :-)

After our time on the historic riverfront, where else would we go but the Mall of America?  And where would a little girl want to go at Mall of America?  The American Girl store, of course.  Here is Beth proudly displaying her purchase--a set of doll crutches and a cast.  Well, you can't see the contents of the package in this picture.  But, we all know that it makes no difference what's in the bag...  However small of a trinket it may be, the greatest thrill is getting a bag that says, "American Girl" and walking around the mall with it.  :-)

To complete the day Mike and Elizabeth rode this contraption.  I'm not sure what it's called, but I think we all recognize it.  It's the one that blasts you 30 feet or so into the air and then plummets you back to the ground...repeatedly.  I'm not sure why you would want to pay money to give your guts a beating, but they found it enjoyable from what I could tell.  Thankfully, they did this before supper at Ruby Tuesday's.  A great day was had by all.  We love you, Beth Marie!!

 

 

New Blog!

I'm new to the world of blogging.  I, probably like most new bloggers, never thought I would be here.  I suppose I never imagined that anyone could be interested in the mundane details of everyday life in the Amundson houshold.  However, after a couple years of following various blogs of friends and strangers in my spare time, I decided to experiment with creating my own blog.  At worst, it will be a way for our immediate family to keep up with Elizabeth's activities and at best, maybe my life experiences will offer some encouragement to someone out there.  So, with that, I am launching my new blog: Beauty for Ashes  This title isn't necessarily original, but it's been the theme of my life.  More on that in the coming days and months, Lord willing.  So, here we go--let's post!  :-)