Moved, sort of
29 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
For the last several months I’ve used my own domain for the URL to my blog, but had it set up as a forward to here. My blog on my own domain is more or less ready for viewing and so I will no longer be posting here. All posts will go up on Duklings.Net. Thanks for updating your links and feed readers 
Tennessee Vacation, Part 1
29 Nov 2010 3 Comments
in Adrian, Ani, Cameron, Fritz, Jamie
We spent a week in Gatlinburg TN. It was a wonderful vacation. We had a lot of fun and definitely want to go back down there.
Our vacation started with taking the big kids to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. We got to the movie theater about 10:30 pm. We sat with some friends. They had made glasses out of pipe cleaners. We drew lightning bolt scars on each other.
At midnight we led the people in the theater in singing happy birthday to Jamie (35) and our friend Sophia (19). And then, at 12:01 am, the movie began. It was totally awesome and we all enjoyed it a lot. We were headed back home at 2:39 am.
We got home, finished loading up the van, and the six of us were on our way about 3:15 am. We arrived at the resort at 12:30. Check-in isn’t until 4, so the kids played on the playground for a while. At 3 they told us our room was ready.
On Saturday my friend Jamie from No Place Like Home and her family came over. We had a great time with them (so much so we spent Thursday at their house).
Ani totally fell in love with Jamie’s littlest, Daisy.
Four of our littles! Jamie’s Peach and Luigi and my Adrian and Fritz.
My Cameron and Jamie’s Mario got along fabulously. I have no idea what they were talking about here, but surely it was important stuff!
Jamie and I are usually the ones behind the cameras, but sometimes we end up in front.
The view from our suite was gorgeous. We love mountains (when you are from near sea level the Appalachian foothills are definitely mountains!).
Visiting Teaching
28 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
I didn’t have a visiting teaching route for a few months. A mistake was made while moving around people and my route printed out completely empty. I had a partner, but no one to visit. And so I was able to jokingly say I was doing my visiting teaching at 100% for those months.
Now I have a route again. Two sisters who couldn’t be at more different points in their lives from me and each other. Both I have actually known for years. One is the younger sister of a guy I grew up with. She is single, no kids. The other has two teenage daughters.
It’s interesting to think about deciding what to emphasize from the message when I visit each one. One message, but I need two different points from it (and those points are likely to be different from the points my own visiting teacher will emphasize when she visits me). It’s actually pretty cool how easily you can customize the message no matter the needs of the sisters you visit.
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My friend Kimberlee and I take turns hosting Sharing Time Sunday. This week it is her turn. If you’d like to join us, please write something about The Church on your blog and link to your post in the comments here!
Vacation Lunches
27 Nov 2010 1 Comment
in Lunches
I pack our lunches, 5-7 per week, 6-8 per day, in Easy Lunchboxes. We were on vacation last week. I took our lunchboxes with us and packed lunch most of the days. That was so incredibly useful to not have to worry about digging up lunch each day. They were all ready for us when it was time to eat! No Weight Watchers points values. I don’t count points on vacation.
grilled chicken salad, bread cut into leaf and pumpkin shapes
mandarin oranges
goldfish
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into hearts, blue cheese dressing in the dip container
sunflower seeds
carrot sticks
hot chicken wrap kits (lettuce and cheese wrapped in the tortilla, spicy chicken in the cupcake cup, homemade blue cheese dressing in the dip container)
dried fruit
mini rice cakes
cheesy chicken and rice (grilled chicken slices on seasoned rice topped with cheese)
ghost marshmallows
applesauce
Our past lunches:
Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12, Week 13, Week 14, Week 15, Week 16
Stories From Grandpop’s Book #39
26 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in Family Friday, Grandpop's Book Tags: Family History
(Another story about my great-grandmother.)
One of the few things that I can remember clearly about Wisconsin was the snows we had every winter. It began snowing early and didn’t ever seem to want to quit. Before long, the snow would stand as deep as a house. Grandmother and Grandfather Feuerstein lived on a farm where the outbuildings were scattered, and the wind would send the snow up in swirls and drop it back into huge snowbanks between those buildings. To get from building to building, tunnels would be dug beneath the snow. In places where the snow was less deep, steps would be formed to make it easier to go over things that might still be sticking up. That snow would get just as hard as rocks until the meltdown in the spring.
Happy Thanksgiving!
25 Nov 2010 3 Comments
Happy Thanksgiving! I figured this year I’d write just a few things I am thankful. Twenty-six to be exact. One for each letter of the alphabet.
A – Aldi’s (Where else can you get good tasting super-cheap food?)
B – Books (I love to read. Enough said.)
C – Calvert School (We have seriously been blessed by going back to using Calvert this year.)
D – Daddy (My father has taught me so much and is just plain fun to be around.)
E – E-Mail (It is such a useful tool for keeping in touch with friends and family.)
F – Fabric (I love just touching fabric.)
G – Glue (Particularly in stick form, glue is just very useful.)
H – Hand-Me-Downs (We have saved so incredibly much money over the years because people have passed down clothes, books, and toys to our kids.)
I – Inchworms (It’s really fun to watch inchworms moving along.)
J – Jamie (I’m not including my kids on this list, mainly because two of them start with the same letter, but for obvious reasons I am including my husband.)
K – Kimberlee (She’s my best friend even though she lives 2,000 miles away.)
L – Legos (Mostly because I just love hearing Fritz talking about them. He says “Yegos.”)
M – Mommie (My mother is one of my very favorite people.)
N – Nose (I am glad that my nose allows me to smell things, particularly when it is smelling nice things.)
O – Old Navy (Their clothes fit Ani so nicely and are pretty much always on sale and I can often get coupons on top of those sales.)
P – Pasta (I love to eat pasta, especially in summer tomato pasta or spaghetti and meatballs.)
Q – Quilting (I enjoy making quilts, particularly paper pieced quilts.)
R – Rain (I particularly like light, warm, Spring rain.)
S – Salad (My very favorite food is salad, especially if it comes from a salad bar.)
T – There’s No Place Like Home (I just love the group of ladies on that message board.)
U – Ubiquitous (It’s just plain a cool word.)
V – Vacations (I love going on vacation with my family and having lots of fun relaxing together.)
W – Words (Without them I could neither speak nor write this list.)
X – X-Rays (They really are quite useful when you need one.)
Y – Yolk (It’s my favorite part of the egg, especially when it’s a fresh egg from a farm.)
Z – Zigzag (Yet another word that is just plain fun to say.)
