With nine you get eggroll

Last night we had the family over and Dorothy made egg rolls. Lots of good food and laughter.

Gracen and Santa

Hunter's turn

It was Hunter's turn for a birthday dinner.

Here is Hunter's first appearance on the blog along with Tara, Marley and Sam.

Marley's Party

Last night we were at Marley's 12th birthday party.  Her mom did a great job organizing and putting this thing together.  It had a cake decorating theme and the girls enjoyed it.

Here's the cake Dorothy made.

Marley begins to design.

They all get busy with their cakes

Even Hunter tries his hand.

Jenna gets some assistance.

I took this picture before the girls posed.

Here's the first picture of Marley to ever appear on this blog. She was four years old.

quote of the day

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had  not lived.

--Henry David Thoreau

Recipes

Since my retirement I've been doing most of the cooking. I'm always searching for new recipes and every once in awhile I find an exceptional one.  I've decided to feature the good ones on the blog.
This recipe is very simple to make and is very tasty.

Boudin Stuffed Peppers

Simple ingredients make this an easy project. I used red bell peppers but any color will do. Pickled banana peppers, Boudin sausage, a tomato and two slices of cheese round out the main fixings.

Cut the tops off two bell peppers, remove the seeds  and boil in water for at least three minutes. Warm two links of Boudin sausage in the microwave for two minutes, then remove the casings and crumble into a bowl. Remove the peppers from the boiling water, shake black pepper into the interior of the peppers (you'll be glad you did).  Spoon the Boudin into the peppers pressing down with the spoon to compact. Fill only half way. Add a layer of the sliced banana peppers then continue to add the Boudin pressing it down to fill the peppers. Top off with another layer of banana pepper some of that tomato you see in the photo (chopped) and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, place a slice of cheese on the top of each pepper and return to oven for another five minutes. I served mine with leftover pinto beans and dinner rolls:

Marley's Birthday

It's hard to believe but our Marley Kate is going to be 12 years old. We had her dinner at our house yesterday.

The rest of the kids are singing "Happy Birthday" to her.

                          

I'm just a little horse

 A pony with a cold was giving a speech to all the animals in the barnyard. Before he began he explained, "Excuse me, but I'm just a little hoarse."

Saturday evening, when all the kids were over for Sami's birthday, my eight year old grandson asked me this question:
     "Grandpa, are you in puberty?" 
     "No", I replied.  "I left puberty behind more than fifty years ago."
     "But, when your voice changes, isn't that when you're in puberty?" he asked.
     I explained to him that I had a cold and was just a little hoarse and that my voice would be back to normal in a couple of days.

Tara and Sam, growing up

                                 It takes all the cousins to blow out the 23 candles on Samantha's
                                 cake.

                                           It's hard to believe that Sami is 23

                                             Gracen likes to pose for pictures too.

                                           We had a cake for Tara on Thanksgiving day.

                                              Tara 24 years old.

the telephone company

Yesterday I called the phone company and had my land line disconnected.  When we bought our first cell phones we continued the land line because that was our only source for the internet. Two years ago we had satelite internet installed so I called the phone company to have the land line disconnected. The customer service representative talked me into keeping it for a low monthly fee of around five dollars. After the taxes and fees were added the bill came to twelve dollars. In June of this year the bill jumped to 22.00 then this month it jumped to 27.00  That's increasing faster than the rate of inflation.  I called.  They explained that the price of local service went up, but had no explanation as to why it increased. I had them to disconnect the line.  The government tells us that inflation is quite low.  The truth is that inflation is quite high. We're being lied to.

gracen pics



Gracen and her dad at the keyboard

                                            Gracen helps herself to great grandma's dessert