Apple Pie

A few weeks ago our Relief Society activities person called and asked if I would teach a class on how to make apple pie filling. "Just send me the ingredients list," she said. ...Umm, a can of apple pie filling and a can opener? O.K. I guess if I am teaching a class I should come up with something a little better than average. So I searched and searched and I found this delicious recipe. The home test was wonderful and I had a room full of very happy people after they had gone home to bake their pies. Here's the recipe.

5 med. Granny Smith apples
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons butter

1. Peel and slice apples. Soak them in water with the lemon juice.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and vinegar.
3. Drain water off of apples and mix apples with spices.
4. Dump the apples and spice mixture into bottome pie crust and dot filling with butter.
5. Cover with top pie crust, seal edges and cut small slits into the top.
6. Cover edge of pie with aluminum foil.
7. Bake at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Remove foil for the last 10 minutes of baking.


Make sure to make this where you can put it in the oven to bake it right away. When I did it for the class I packed it up and took it home to bake. Unfortunately, I put it in the box that had my library book in it and the pie leaked all over everything. I spent over and hour with Christiaan carefully washing each of the 460 pages, trying desparately to save it. The we blow-dried until the pages were just barely damp and then put it under heavy furniture to try to keep the pages flat. I was very surprised that it turned out much better than I had expected, but I'm sure that it had more to do with the prayers than any book repair skills on our part. The pages are only a little discolored and only slightly wavy. However, I get this strong craving for apple pie whenever I sit down to read it. Must be the smell of apples and cinnamon.

My Favorite Things....

Yes, Sarah is truly a self absorbed child. Her favorite things are Her! Her favorite word is "Sarah". Her favorite thing to look at is her reflection. She even prefers to play by herself. (A big change from the three boys who wanted my constant attention.) However, I can't blame her. She is the cutest thing in this family. We all prefer to look at her and try to get her attention. I'm just not sure this bodes well for her future.

I Got Hair On My Face

I was trying to get everyone out the door for school the other day when Sam calls down the stairs, "Mom! I can't find the shaver."
"What?" I replied. Surely I had heard wrong. (It actually happens a lot with Sam.)
"The sha-ay-ver. I got hair on my face."
I must say, my children leave me speechless more often than I would care to admit. However, since Sam is my third child I have had much practice in quick recoveries. "Sam," I said, "You are supposed to have hair on your face. It's whiskers that you have to take off. Besides, if you used the razor you would cut your face and it would hurt a lot."
"Oh," says my now wiser seven year old, "I'm ready for school then."

Happy Birthday to Me!

OK, so yesterday was my birthday. I can't remember feeling more miserable for a birthday in a long time. I hadn't been feeling well for days and when I got up in the morning I had a headache that quickly progressed to a migraine. I still had to get the kids to school and Jacob had a doctor appointment right off. Of course, I forgot the copies of the lab reports until we had already gotten all the way into town. Then, the doctor we saw (not our regular) went way out into left field with his diagnosis (I already knew what the real problem was) and prescribed several drastic prescriptions for a condition that he doesn't even have a problem with. The doctor is one of those who really likes to hear himself think and not even Jacob could get a word in edgewise. (Now that's an impressive feat.) Then after school I had to drag kids through homework, still with a migraine, and I threw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. I managed to eat half a slice before I had to run out the door for Cub Scouts. Hmm, Cub Scouts with a migraine... fun. Christiaan still hadn't even gotten home from work because he had to stay late. Next came the Cub Scout Committee meeting. I think I enjoyed the rowdy boys more. I finally got home at 9:00pm to children watching TV, on a school night, after bedtime. Jacob wasn't even done with his homework. And since Mom shouldn't have to do dishes on her birthday everyone kindly left them where they were for me to do in the morning instead. I took a shower, took some meds and went to bed.

Translation:

I have four wonderful children and I have a husband who loves me more than anyone else. I am so grateful to have at least a rudimentary medical knowledge so that I know when a doctor is really off base. I am grateful for medical insurance coverage so that I can afford to take my son to another doctor who will fix the problem. I am grateful that my children have a school that they can go to where they are challenged both academically and where the administration sets high character standards and expects them to live up to it. I am grateful for convenience items such as frozen pizza so that on nights when I am not feeling well or am rushed I have a quick fix for dinner. I am grateful for Cub Scouts and Scouts and the strength it gives to our rising generation and I am honored to have been chosen to take my turn in leading for a while. I am grateful to know that, while Christiaan may not get the kids into bed on time, I NEVER have to wonder if my children are safe when I leave them alone with their dad. I am grateful that Christiaan has a job to go to that pays well and provides good benefits. I am grateful for indoor plumbing with hot water, for a dishwasher to throw those dirty dishes into, for modern medical advances that provide relief from pain and illness. My Mom called to wish me happy birthday. It has been years since that happened. Then, later in the evening, my Dad called too. I can't remember a better birthday. I am so blessed!

Water Fight!

This last Saturday our ward had a big water fight at the park. It was so much fun. After a couple of rainy days the weather was awesome. It was in the low 80s for most of the morning. Nearly unheard of for August in Arizona. They started out with breakfast to fuel the fun. They served pancakes and scrambled eggs with sausage.






















Christiaan suppervised and Jacob flipped pancakes.























Sam really liked those pancakes. (Yep, those are Sarah's ramen noodles.)



Then came the water fun! Two of the guys had brought 500 gallon water tanks and there were 65 gallon buckets that the kids could refill from. Of course you had to fight your way past the water hoses to use them. I know at least one of my kids ended up in one of the buckets. The kids were trading guns and squirters all over the place.

Getting warmed up.

Caleb holding the play set against invaders.


















Jacob got hold of the big water hose!

Back for a refill.

Sam found another squirter.

Even Sarah found a way to get wet with a squirt gun.



Finally, we finished off the morning with ice cream. (Hmmm, breakfast and ice cream. I wonder who came up with that idea?) Even though they had to go home and shower off all the grass and mud, the kids all agreed that this was the best way to start the school year.

**Obviously, I need more practice at this. No matter how many times I try to edit it, something is always screwy.**

New House

Oh, yeah, we're moving...or at this point have moved.

I have decided that there are distinct advantages to moving long distance. For example, you don't make the mistake of thinking that you will just do it a bit at a time, you'll just use the trailer and van, or that you will spend the time to sort through things before the move. It took us four weeks to move. We spent more in fuel driving back and forth than we would have spent renting a big truck. Near the end, I eventually gave up on the sorting and just threw everything into boxes anyway. Now, I still have to unpack...

We are enjoying our new house (we are renting for now). It has considerably more space than the previous house, though there are no storage areas. We have had to build several sets of storage shelves and get creative in where we will put everything. There are 5 bedrooms so now everyone gets a room of their own, except Mom and Dad, they still have to share. Even Mom and Dad get a space to call their own, though. There is a front room that Mom has claimed. This room gets to stay clean for guests to visit in. The only way the children get to use the room is if they are practicing the piano or quietly reading a book. There is a 2-car garage and a separate 3rd garage. Dad gets to have the 3rd one for himself, well mostly. The driveway is awesome. I love it more and more. It is so long that we could park 5 cars in it without sticking out into the street. We're near the end of a quiet cul-de-sac and there is a nice grassy area with ramada at the end. Rumor is that when it starts cooling off, the neighborhood regularly gets together for pot-lucks there. Oh, and did I mention that we are in the middle of nowhere... We are literally one street away from the desert with nothing other than our community around for miles. The next closest thing going south is Casa Grande's little airport. The "kid's" are so excited. They can't wait for it to cool off a bit so they can get the quads out and take off. Someone has already built a little track to run around on and there is regularly off-road activity. The boys have made several very nice friends and we are just having fun getting settled in. Well, more boxes to unpack...Ta, for now.

When does Woo-Hoo turn to Boo-Hoo?...

...When you win, then lose half a million dollars in less than 24 hours. Well, $495,000.00 to be exact. Yep, we were the target of a VERY elaborate scam. Nope, we didn't fall for long and they didn't get our money or personal information. And, yes, the FBI probably found that they had vacated the premises shortly after I got off the phone with the scammers, but it was worth a try anyway.

Here's how the story goes:

We received a phone call on Thursday. Someone claiming to be from Publishers Clearing House. They were looking for Christiaan. Apparently, we hadn't responded to the letters they sent. He said that Christiaan had won the second prize for their September sweepstakes. When I told him that Christiaan wouldn't be available until after 6pm. He said that he might still be in the office then and would try to call back. I offered to take his phone number and have Christiaan call him. About 3 hours later, Christiaan called me back. The conversation went something like this...

"Well, it seems to be legitimate." (Christiaan)
"Well, that's good." (Me)
"Don't you want to know how much?"
"Well, I know that they personally deliver anything over $10,000, so it has to be less than that."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, that was one of the options, but I wasn't sure that you were interested in that so I chose to remain anonymous. They are going to deliver the check by certified courier tomorrow."
"Really? OK, how much."
"$495,000.00."
(Silence, unless you could hear my eyes go "blink, blink, blink".)
"Are you OK?"

This was followed by expressions of shock, tears and awe. I spent a couple of hours that afternoon figuring out what our tax liability would be and discovered that the IRS would take right about 50%. So, after taxes and tithing, we would have just enough to buy a house (to replace the one we won't have soon) and a van a few years newer than the one that has been quickly falling apart on us. Yep, it was good.

Then Friday came. The day the courier was to deliver the check. I received another phone call. This time from another guy claiming to be from border patrol. He asked if I was expecting a package. Then he went over what was in the package. Yep, that was what we were expecting. (Why would border patrol have it?) Then he started going over the reasons that it was suspect. It was coming out of Costa Rica, the declarations just indicated that it was an undisclosed amount over $10,000, there were 5 similar packages with it, etc. Then he went on to tell me that they had to open the package and since it looked like it was part of a scam, they had to verify the legitimacy. He said they ran the check and found that it was legitimate, he called the attorney listed and they confirmed that it was on the level, he called PCH and verified with them and it appeared that everything was fine, they even did a full background search on us to make sure we were not suspected of money laundering or gambling or such. (Boy, glad to hear we were not wanted by the FBI, CIA or NBC.) There was just the matter of clearing customs since it was coming from out of the country. He would just transfer me to the customs officer in charge. Another guy got on the phone and starts quoting US customs laws and how this is this and that is that... Then we get down to the part where we have to pay the customs tax to have it released. I can do that in person in Miami FL, or from the comfort of staying local. All I needed to do was wire them $4950.00, but I had to do it quickly, because the information was only good for 2 hours ("You know how quickly things change."). Oh, and by the way, we just need to verify your information for the IRS...

Yea, as soon as I told him that I wasn't going to give that information over the phone (didn't they just do a full background check on us?) he got mad, told me I could call him when I changed my mind and hung up on me.

And that is the story of how we were almost half a millionaires.

The Adventures of Conversion Man...

Here we are in a new semester, with a new class project for Jacob. This time he had to write and perform a play. The guidelines were that it was about a family of fractions who wanted to change to decimals so that their children would fit in better. I love that Jacob asked Caleb to be in his play. Caleb has discovered a new talent (and love) in acting and has become quite the ham when it comes to being in the spotlight. (I think that we will try to teach him subtlety for his next performance.) We were scrambling to get this in on time (he had 1 week and there was a holiday, ever try to coordinate 3 families over a holiday?) so this was with no rehearsals, Mom and Dad characters only had the script for one day, and 12 year olds, they don't really listen. I have to admit, though, this take was only the second time through, pretty good.

A new STAR is born.

Having Jacob in middle school has its trials. (Can we say homework past 10:00 each night and weekends, too.) But, there have been some really fun things as well. For his Math semester project, one of the things Jacob chose to do was to film a cooking show. The guidelines were that he could only use a 1/4 cup and a 1/2 tsp measure. It took me a couple of weeks to come up with the right software to edit and publish (then a long while for me to actually post) but, here it is. (I hope this works.)

As part of the "crew", I got to sample the finished product and all I can say is, "Yum! When do we do the next show?"