Trying New Things: Sausage Making

What do two empty nesters do after all their children head back home from Christmas?  We make sausage.  Kyle bought me a meat grinder for my kitchen aid for Christmas.  He likes to play with toys.

 When we got our hog butchered they sent us home with 15 packages of pork steaks, that we would have had made into sausage.  Bummer, so Kyle said we would just make it ourselves.

 Growing up on a farm, we processed our own meat a lot.  When Kyle and I were young married we did this with my dad and grandpa one weekend.  My family did a salt and pepper sausage.  Grandpa told dad that he should put enough salt in the bowl to track a rabbit.  Interesting way to measure.

So every time I dumped salt into a batch of sausage, I would say, enough to track a rabbit, but I measured with my teaspoon first.  We did use the method dad and grandpa did by making a small patty and sampling until we enjoyed the taste.  We only had to remove one ingredient to make it to our liking.  It was kind of fun.  We have 1/2 the steaks left to do this a second time in the future.

New Beginnings: Happy 2020

With the New Year here and new decade to start, I find myself reflecting.  What types of goals are realistic?  What might I stick to?  Do I want a word or phrase to work on?

Kyle and I decided that we will join in on the children and youth goals, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are rolling out this year.  Although are children and youth are grown adults we can still learn from this program and apply it to our adult lives.

Here is a link, if you are interested.

So my goals for myself are going to be within these topics.

Spiritual

1. To study the Come Follow Me Program this year.

2. attend the temple 12+ times

Social

1. minister with my partner at least 6 times in person

2. To improve relationships at work and with family

Physical

1. to make better food choices and lose some weight

2. to increase the amount of exercise that I do weekly from little to none to a more regular habit, to go hiking more, and maybe even swim at the Y

Intellectual

1. to develop new skills to be helpful at work and gain new experiences in leading a building

2. to gain new knowledge for genealogy research and clean up my family search account

The best part of New Year's Day is hope.  Hope in a new you, new challenges, new living, but most of all, the ability to see a better you.  I like learning to become better, I like goals, I like trying to become more like my Savior.  I have learned that I can do that, one new year, one goal, one trial at a time; and with each baby step, comes more learning, more wisdom and quiet reflection on the blessings we have earned.

I love fresh starts, repentance for old habits, faith for better things to come.

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade, let's try and be better!

2019 In Review

So, it has been a long while since I have blogged.  My job got real busy and I just never made time for the blog anymore, but my daughter wanted to start her own blog; so I decided to pick it back up.

A lot has happened since my last post the summer of 2017.  I have moved places in my administrative role.  I was working for Mid Ohio Educational Service Center as a Special Education Preschool Coordinator.  I moved to Ontario Local Schools to do the same position and to act a their Assistant Principal as well.  It is a long story for the work journey, that I will post about later.

The family has made a lot of changes over these past couple of years...

October 2018 Kayla and Sterling got engaged.

So from that time until the wedding most of 2018 and 2019 were spent wedding planning.

On Friday, April 19, 2019 our baby girl got sealed in the Columbus, Ohio Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am so proud of her.

 Our son Dakota flew in from MN to be at her sealing.  Kayla married Sterling Carter, whom she met on the LDS Mutual dating app.  He is from North Carolina.  So, we had two receptions and ring ceremonies, so all family members could participate.  That was a lot of work.  But, I think they all enjoyed it.

It's nice having a Southern gentleman in our family.  

At Kayla's wedding she told her older brother that he needed to have a girlfriend to bring home at Christmas.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the North Carolina reception.  It was truly fitting.  I left my daughter 8 hours away, not to be in her childhood home again, except to visit on occasion.  Needless, to say, we have put over 20,000 miles on our car this year visiting the children who are spread out from Minnesota to North Carolina.  It's an adjustment having an empty nest (at least in the beginning.)

So, Dakota took Kayla up on her challenge to bring a girlfriend home for Christmas.  We met Erica Johnson for the first time this past week.  However, we talked to her a lot on the phone with Dakota for the last several months.  Dakota decided girlfriend, wasn't a good enough title for Erica.

So Erica went home a fiancé.  So just like that we gained a son-in-law in 2019, and are expecting a daughter-in-law in 2020.

The family is growing.  We couldn't be happier.

MN Trip 2017 - 3rd Leg The North Shore

 Kyle's brother Kasey (#6 child), rented a cabin in Duluth.  5 of the 8 kids brought their families along.  We pulled up our camper and Kota and Blair camped in a tent.  We got to explore the North Shore of Minnesota.  This was a first for me.  The North Shore goes along with the point of Minnesota.  We traveled from Duluth to Grand Marais.

 I miss Blair.  She was my favorite dog.  She has such a good disposition and is very affectionate.

It's fun being around the nieces and nephews.

 I miss this guy too.  I'm glad he is getting established, but wish it was not 1,000 miles away in a place where the cell and internet reception sink.  In a day where we could skype, but can't because of location...

 Our cabin, was around the corner from Lake Superior.  I don't know what it is, but I absolutely love that Lake.  I love it from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, all the way to the North Shore of Minnesota.  Something about it draws me in every time.

 We hiked into Gooseberry Falls, with the family.

 Then we stopped at the Palacade.  This was a super tall cliff over looking Superior.  It was a little scary to be honest.  The rocks were split and I felt that the rocks would slide of the cliff at any moment.

 But it was beautiful!  My favorite was Grand Marais.  I wish we could of stayed here a few more hours, but it was about 3 hours north of the cabin.

 Saturday, we spent some time in Two Harbors.

 Kyle, still likes to skip rocks.  There are no shortage of rocks along Superior's shores.  There are tributaries flowing into the Lake, all over the area.  I think this was the French River.

 There also is no shortage of water fowl in the area.

 Iron ore, is a big resource of the area and is mined in this area and sent out through the Great Lakes.

 Superior is too cold to swim in here, but the Knife River.  This was a natural swimming pool.  It was about 4 feet deep and had a ledge to sit on.  It was fun for the family.

We might had to look for land in this area, instead of where all the family is.  I think I like this a little bit better!

MN Trip 2017 - 2nd Leg

 Robin is watching one of the littlest of the grands while their parents are working.  His mom didn't bring him a hat so Robin made one out of a handkerchief so we could take him on a walk.  The deer flies, black flies and mosquitos are relentless up there.

 We to the short walk down to Kory and Jessica's house to visit.

 These hollow logs greeted us the whole way up the drive.  :)

My nieces River and Ashley followed us back up to Robin's house and I let them us my camera to keep them busy for a little while.  Here is what they found interesting.

So most of our vacation was spent putzing around this place and visiting with the "old" people.  Life is much slower in Minnesota than it is down here in Ohio.  I'm sure if I lived up there it would be busy too.

I wish I had more pics of the lakes, but when you are kayaking on giant lakes I didn't want to risk my camera getting dunked.  We did several lake excursions, that I don't have photo evidence of, but that was my favorite part of the trip - besides seeing that son of mine.

Kota is in a tough transitional phase.  I hope he finds what he is looking for soon.