Planning Thanksiving

I took time out Friday to plan our Thanksgiving menu. In a way I like the planning and thought process that goes into doing the whole holiday thing but I sure miss the simplicity of going to my Grammy's. Let me tell you about the holiday's at my Grandparents house. I have been going to my grandparents house since I came to the USA back in 86. We took a three year break when we were stationed in Florida. My Grandparents have perfected the art of the holiday meal. Everything is special and we always know what to expect although we do have alterations and of course the regular surprise thrown in. I cannot fathom the holidays without all of that but I must work with what I got. And so it would seem that I can either sit around pouting(boy I sure have gotten good at that one the past few months) or I can try and make myself busy being productive. I know at the end of the day if I feel I have gotten alot accomplished I can sleep ever so much better. So even if it will be different I will be making familiar dishes. I have also thrown in a few new ones I want to try out. I mean if I am going to start our own family traditions I want to have some recipes of my own. So what am I making? Here is the menu

Turkey

Ham

A somewhat modified version of my Grampy's Giblet Gravy

Grammy's Ham Glaze

Savory stuffing

Garlic Red mashed potatoes

Grammy's Candied Yams

Green Bean Casserole

Black Eyed Peas

Salad

Crescents

Pecan Pie

Cranberry Sauce

Pumpkin Cake

Yuppers it's a dozy but my Grandparents make way more then that and it's all so yummy. Sunday we talked about that at Marsha's (cousin to Chris I think). It was mentioned that my grandparents success at holiday meals comes from years of practice. I know this must be true so I have adjusted my thinking to expect much less so that hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised. I will get another opportunity to practice at Christmas time. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here though so back to thanksgiving. I had the defrosted my turkey this past weekend and then let it marinate in brine for two days. This morning I put it in my oven and should be ready around 3-5 pm tonight. We made the stuffing as we stuffed the bird so it would come out nice and juicy. Colin put together the Candied yams and Conner and I will be making the pecan pie in a bit. I also want to get the Pumpkin Cake done today. The ham I got was an already done type so I will just carve it tomorrow and then heat it up.What does that leave? The mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, green bean casserole, both gravies which I need drippings for before making, the black eyed peas are already done and salad and cranberry sauce is the ready to serve type. Last is the rolls but the will go in 20-30 min. before Dinner time.

I had a great time learning about turkey brining and preparing and roasting yesterday. The Internet is a wonderful tool if you know how to use it. I even watched videos on prepping and carving. I also got the tablescape and I hope it will be wonderful. I will try to take pic's for you guys. Be sure to share your menu, I love trying recipes.

Low Country Tour

I know I have been promising those pic's of where we now live forever. Well here are a few shots around the house. Please remember that no one has live here since 89', which means no one has done anything around here other then nature reclaiming. That is 20 yrs that no one has weeded, raked leaves, mowed the yard, trimmed trees etc.... My FIL came here at least every other year if not every to do maintenance on the buildings. The house burned down several years ago, I will find a picture of it for you guys if you promise not to laugh, I'm all of 17 in those pictures LOL. Watch for it in a future post.

Here is our Barn. As you can see the stairs are gone and there are some temporary steps which we are going to fix sometime. The field on the left of this building is our possible Garden site.

This is where we house wood and all the animal feed. Not sure what the building was used for but it is in the best condition out of all of them.

Our driveway. It needs desprate leveling and some general cleanup. On the very far left is the grapevine growing by the "garage".

The kitchen clean. I had to take a picture so I would remember what that looks like, lol. Kidding. I could put some chairs around the island. I am considering this for more seating.

Here is a a view from an angle at the front of the house. See the bare landscape, not to mention the years of growth we need to clean up.

Here are some bricks I got from the piles in our backyard. These used to make up all three chimney's on the old house

Our fine chickens produced these, aren't they wonderful.

Our pig. We just put fencing around this pen. The pig is having a blast rooting the place out.

This is the backyard coming from the front yard. There are two huge piles where we had them put as much of the wood in one and as much of the brick in the other. All that was left of the old house that burned down several years ago.

This is our "garage", it works even if that was not it's original intent. There is a grapevine next to the building that has been so overgrown I'm afraid of killing it if I try to cut it back.

My wonderful chickens in their pen. This pen needs work but the chickens are safe so it will do. I let the chickens free range as much as possible as this makes for happy birds. They thank me with almost enough eggs for all of us. I have never had a fresher egg.

That is our tour for the day. I am off to do some yard work and to work on my Thanksgiving menu and grocery list. I will try to write later. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

A switch and project

Well things have been a bit stressful around here and hubs is just about fed up. Actually let me take that back, hubs is fed up. He is in process of switching the boys to K-12. Yup you read right we are going back to K-12. We know the system and how it works. The teachers have always been so accomadating. Anyway it will be so much easier for him to work with and I still get my boys in hs. Dh wants to send Austin to ps in the second semester. Austin has been expressive about his dislike of hs the entire time. To be honest he has worn me out but that is no excuse to put him in that enviorment. I think that by giving in and giving him that type of influence that he will just get worse. I will pray, as a matter of fact I need to do that here in a few.

Chris and I came out of the ps system. We came out alright but we sure had that time that the influence of our peers made our pre-teen through teenage years quite rough on our parents not to speak of our values. I also don't like the skewed representation of History and Science due to taking God out of our schools. I do not suggest I want to keep them in a bubble but I want to equip them with the neccesary skills so that when they do come upon a time they should need such skills that they will be there.

I will keep you guys posted

Lowcountry Tour

Down here they have a term for the area, Lowcountry. It's sort of whimiscal. Anyway I have been coming back to the blogging world and found some good ideas for my blog. With that said I am attempting to come up with topic's so my family and all my wonderful friends can find things easier. I hope anyway. I also thought with trying to get some pic's of our new "home" that it would be great to give you all a tour of where we live. I will call it "Lowcountry Tour". I hope it will help my family back home see all we are up to. It will also give you a great view into our lives.

We will start the tour with the new house. This particular one will host the trail on the back fields. you can see how outgrwon things have gotten. It takes us about 20 min. to walk it. I have yet to get out there with a pedometer to figure out the milage for my workouts. We have been training the puppies to walk with us using this trail. They are in some of the pic's.

Deer tracks, I think this one is a Fawn and her mom. These are all over the trail behind the house.

This is looking towards the house somewhere in the middle of the field

A Deer stand put there by the Hunters club that used to rent the land for that purpose

This is towards the back field. Austin is ahead walking Kenai on a leash while the little puppies follow

This is towards the right field. Great shot of the pups with Kenai

Next time I will be showing the grounds and house. See ya'll later. (lol)

Connections Academy

OH what can I say that would be nice?? Well they sent us the curriculum in record time. They have been very friendly and their teachers are too. But the website is not user friendly. Sometimes the boys have a hard time getting videos or assignments to pop up. And it's not my pop up blocker I assure you. This leads to the discussion my husband and I had about just purchasing a curriculum. I know he doesn't feel comfortable to put it all together by himself so to rely on a ready made one would be the best way for homeschool to work in our home this year. I know it is very late in the year to be talking about getting a curriculum but I have tried to stick with Connections Academy only to find myself aggravated at their site every time I go there. In the meantime I will try and quickly find all the things the boys will need and the boys will have to endure Connections Academy for the time being. That being said I think we are in for a bumpy ride but we will make it through.

When I have the stuff together I will post the boy's curriculum and a schedule of sorts that will enable them to finish the year "on time".

Mist

I must share this wonderful thing that happens in the morning. Most mornings I have gotten up to a mist covering the field behind the house. It is very magical. It also makes morning walks with the puppies a bit hard because they get wet and then cold. Speaking of the puppies they are doing really well with our training them to follow us around. We are still working on potty training though.

The boys have caught two raccoons within days of each other. The last one was in a trap in the back fields. It looked so scared and innocent I felt so awful when my boys were talking about killing it. I know people around here like hunting and all but I don't think I will ever like it. I like my meat in packages thank you very much. Apparently these creature , like the armadillo's, are a nuisance to the farm. I have heard bad stories about raccoons and chickens. Oh speaking of chickens our chickens are starting to lay eggs. We got our first egg yesterday morning. I was so overjoyed as we have had them over a month and were wondering if we were doing something wrong. I am still looking for a good movable pen for the chickens so I can get them to clean up some of the yard.

Chris went back home(Colorado springs) to get his truck. I miss him terribly and am very worried as the weather there has been in the 30's and was supposed to be getting much worse today. This prompted him to leave early, so he wants to get out of there sometime this morning. Yeah. I had him bring the camera because as crazy as it sounds I wanted some pic's of home. For some reason I never took pictures of the town we lived in for so long and the town I think of as home. I can't wait to see what he got. With him gone today will be especially crazy. Conner has a game at 10:30. Them Austin and Colin have pictures at 12:30 and their game at 1:30. I still need to make a couple of dishes for Sunday dinner with the extended family. I am trying to decide between goulash and schnitzel. Colin wants a green bean casserole. I also want to make a desert.



Our work with connections academy is keeping me on my toes. It is just not a user friendly site. They need major work in that area. Unfortunately our Internet connection is also part of that problem. Hughes Net is not what it says it is . It is very slow and truly not much faster then dial up. We keep getting timed out and alot of things don't show up that the boys need to read in order to do the assignments and it is causing alot of frustration. I have some ideas about how to fix this problem. I will share them at a later date if it comes to fruition. On this note if you have a great christian curriculum that you love tell me about it please.

I can't believe it has been almost a month since I the last post. I'm so sorry for keeping you all out of the loop but things have been just cuh-razy. We had to wait a week and a half for our movers along with a home phone. We are discovering people around here don't seem to move quite as quickly as I am used to. LOL. It has been frustrating but we finally have everything. I am still unpacking but I got most of the things where they need to be now its down to organizing. We have had a steady crop of people stopping by and that has been nice although it has ruined some nice plans we have had on occasion.

I have been lost in trying to get the house the way I want it and it has been just about the only thing on my mind. The boys are getting situated as well. We got a four wheeler that they have been having a blast with but it will definitely be very helpful around here. We also got a riding lawnmower as our yard is now much bigger then before. There were several bigger branches in the yard we had to cut up but are going to come in handy for firewood. Also the old house was put into two piles out behind the house. One is as much of the wood and the other as much of the bricks as possible. That has been interesting. I was surprised to see how easily the mortar (sp?) came off of most of the bricks from the old fireplace's of the old house that had burned down. I don't know if it was because the house had been about a hundred years old or if the fire that burned it down just has that affect on mortar but it sure has made my job easier to get the bricks sorted. I want to use them for something since they are going to be the only thing remaining of the old house. There are vines all over the ground that I hope will start going away as we cut and live here. The boys also saw and shot their first armadillo. I had no idea how fast those things can move. I know everyone here says they are a pest but I would love to find out more about them, mostly we were told they would dig holes around the yard and in our outbuildings essentially creating a lovely way to brake your ankle. Needless to say we don't need that.

I haven't managed to get out all that much because of all that has been going on. Also Dh's condition has him tired and in alot of pain which has also had us miss out on some things. But it is the way our life has been for some time so we are used to it. Other then obviously being concerned for dh I find myself apologizing alot for things we have missed. I also found that unless you have dealt with chronic illness people either don't understand and look at us as if we are making it up or they make Dh feel like he is completely incompetent. Other than that I have officially signed the kids up for Connections Academy (public virtual school) since dh will be taking over most of the schooling. Austin is still requesting ps and dh and I are considering it for high school. I hope the boys get their stuff soon so we can start. Once that is done I am sure things will be getting into the swing of things.

I am also trying to take some pic's for you guys so you can see our new digs. I can't wait to share. Please update me on what's been up with you guys. I can't wait to check your blogs and see what you all have been up to. Hopefully I will start to have more time for my blogging soon. Have a great week everyone.