A glimpse of Autumn

I wanted to share a few of the pictures of the autumn leaves turning up here in Northern Maine. The air is crisp and quite cool at night. The sun reflects the brilliant colors of reds, oranges, yellows and greens.
This tree is right out front of our house and has lost all but a few of its leaves. The color was a brilliant burgandy red.

These are a few of the trees changing on our street. They are spectacular
This is looking out across the valley, in the foreground is the freshly plowed earth from the broccoli harvest, looking out beyond, the beautiful autumn colors mixed in with the evergreens
More autumn colors, the bluish green field, I think is a broccoli field that has not been plowed yet. Apparently the moose LOVE to wander through the broccoli fields and eat.
This one was taken last night by the Aroostook river. I need to post some more, but thought you might enjoy the beauties we are enjoying here in the New England Autumn!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAITLYN!! The big 14!!!

It's hard to believe that Caitlyn is now 14. Crazy, if you ask me!. I thought I would share some pics from her birthday.
First, it was sunday, so we had church first and then our ward does a "linger longer" where we all bring a pot luck to share after church. We went to that and then the ward sang happy birthday to Caitlyn. Then we had a fireside and finally got home after 3.
Caitlyn wanted Tilapia (fish) and cous cous for her dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert, which is what she has every year for her birthday dessert. She was excited by her presents as well.

Here she is showing off some of the jewelry her brothers got her. Notice the straw in her mouth? She likes to chew on straws so we call her "straw chuck"...so we got her a pack of straws as well! :)
Below...the only thing Cailtyn really wanted for her birthday was a laptop. She had been asking for a year. We weren't going to do that, but in the end, got a killer deal on the laptop and knew she would be ecstatic! Now she doesnt have to try to share the main computer with the boys!

I think the look on her face, says it all! She was surprised and so happy~
MMM...candles on the pumpkin pie~ 14 big ones...getting closer to enough to burn the house down! lol
Getting ready to make the all important birthday wish...and no, like a wise daughter, she did not share the wish with us!
All in all, it was a great birthday for Caitlyn and a busy weekend for us with a Super Saturday for all the kids for our Stake, plus kids sleeping over and then birthday sunday. I think I am glad its monday!

Nick Makes a PIE

Nick and Nate went to Young Men's and learned how to make Apple Pie
After doing so, Nick came home and made one for our family, completely from scratch. It was probably the best apple pie I have ever had! He is hired!! YUM
The secret ingredient was pouring some cream over the pie filling before it bakes. Oh, my, was it ever good! DELICIOUS!

Such a beautiful color. Nick made the crust, and he and Caitlyn cut and peeled the apples. I helped with weaving the top crust. He wants to have the missionaries over for dinner so he can make some more pie!

Caribou 150th anniversary parade

This year, Caribou is celebrating its 150th anniversary. There have been great festivities going on the whole year. Sept 5th was the BIG parade, town bbq and fireworks show. I thought I would post a few pics of how they do parades up here.
One of the antique firetrucks here in caribou, to start off the parade. They don't do any sirens at the beginning of the parade because the horses follow so closely behind.

Kris, Caitlyn and Nick, smiling for me. Notice the blanket wrapped around Caitlyn and the hoodie on Nick? When the sun was out, it was really warm, and when it went behind a cloud it was REALLY cold! I've never been in a parade where we had blankets wrapped around us and got a sunburn at the same time, but we did that here. Crazy
This ALMOST reminded me of a utah parade, with covered wagons...for a moment, I thought I had been transported back. But Alas, it is from the historical society here in town.
This is how they pull floats in Northern Maine...by tractor. Gotta get your farm on! :)
All in all it was a great parade that lasted about 2.5 hours. IT WAS long.....but good. After we went to the High School for a town BBQ and fireworks that night. We were bundled under blankets for the fireworks as it dipped into the 40's. brrrrr. Great day, Great town!

The mystery calling is.................

I totally forgot to post what my new calling is. Perhaps you want to sit down for this because I am sure for some of you, you may faint, fall over, or hit the ground hard from laughing!
I was called to be the 2nd Councilor in the RS presidency. Didnt see that one coming. The thing was, the week prior, I was called to be a SS teacher for the 17yr olds, which would have been great because that is Nates group. They didnt end up sustaining me 2 sundays ago and I thought that was weird, but ok. The next 2 days I just kept getting that nagging feeling that I wasnt supposed to be the 17 yr old teacher and by Thursday night I was called in the to RS presidency. I love how Heavenly Father knows us so well and knows of our needs and desires and I love the tender mercies we receive from him daily!
I am excited to serve and can't wait to see how things unfold before us. There were some very specific things said to me in the blessing as I was set apart and I kindof have a sense of the direction I will take and play in the presidency. Love it!
So, if you can pick yourself up off the floor.....well, don't laugh to hard! :)

Friday's Fabulous Five

Well, I can't believe how fast Friday's come.....and go..... oops
I had great intentions on getting my fabulous 5 posted yesterday, but just ran out of time, so you get friday's 5 on saturday the 5th!

1. Thursday was Zoe's 7th birthday. Our big, barky, "bull in a china shop" dog turned 7. It is hard to believe we have had her that long. She is so full of personality and has her own opinion on what she should and should not do. She was the mischief maker when she was a puppy, she would hold the fencing down while her brother climbed over and then they would escape and get into places they shouldn't. She loves to have her time on the bed,which is at night. She gets to lay on the bed anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour while we are winding down and then she grunts and begrudgingly hops off the bed when it is time to go to sleep. She doesn't want to play fetch, she wants to play "chase me", which is not always a fun game. She is the silliest in the mornings right after she goes out. She comes in, grabs a sock or a pot holder or a towel and runs and prances around the house trying to get you to play with her. It is really quite funny. She tolerates Zeus. That is about it....tolerates. And usually tries to find a way to just bother him. It is pretty funny. We are glad we have her, even though she is spoiled and barks incredibly loud!

2. I am grateful that the Lord saw fit to teach me so much as I prepared my lesson for enrichment night. I was literally flooded with so many things and I had to work really hard to find those gems that needed to be taught. In the end, I was prepared and my mouth was filled with the things I should say. I love that feeling!

3. I am grateful for a new calling, which I will post about later as I have not yet been sustained. And I will blog more about why I am grateful for it.....oh, the mystery! :)

4. I am proud of my daughter. She auditioned for a solo in her choir class, and thought she botched it because her voice cracked due to a cold she has. She found out this week that she got the solo. I am proud of that accomplishment but more proud that she did it and that she did not freak out (too much) about messing up and she handled her self with a great maturity.

5. I am grateful for sun and warm weather. We went through this very cold spell for about 2 weeks. Only around 60 in the day and down to about 35 at night. brrrrr. The last few days it has warmed back up to 80 and we have had sunshine ! Ahhhh!! My nose even got a bit sunburned today as we watched the parade celebrating the 150th birthday of Caribou. Speaking of that, we are off to the bbq dinner the city is putting on, followed by activites and fireworks! Ah, finally, something that resembles home!!
Have a great weekend!

Broccoli

Kris had a lady at work bring in some fresh broccoli the other day, to share. We love broccoli, some more than others, but each of us finds it good in one way or another. So I said to Kris, why don't you see if she can get MORE broccoli and I will freeze it for winter time (sometimes I feel like an ant gathering storage for the cold months ahead) Apparently, after the broccoli is harvested here, you can go into the fields and pick what is left. So this is what came to my home yesterday.Inside the 2 BIG BLACK BAGS were tons of broccoli....plants, crowns...just tons of broccoli. It was a crazy amount, but I was up for the task. I had pans of water ready to go, bags of ice to shock the broccoli and lots of baggies sitting up ready to be filled.
Cailtyn became chief cooker and shocker of the broccoli ( I figure this is good for her to learn for her future family) She did an excellent job.
Step one: take chopped broccoli and place in boiling water for 3 minutes
Step two: Place blanched broccoli in ice water to stop the cooking process: 3 more minutes
Step one: blanch MORE broccoli...for 3 minutes and so on and so forth until it was all done
Here are the fruits...or the vegetables of our labors.. baggies and baggies of broccoli. I ended up with 26 bags of frozen broccoli (gallon and quart, chopped and spears) yum
During the process we found out that zeus is a BIG HUGE fan of broccoli. He would beg for it, cry for it and the moment, the instant and fell on the floor he would pounce on it and chomp it until it was gone. he was SO happy.
The last of the last before it went into the freezer.
So if you find your self with black market broccoli, now you will know what to do with it!