Christmas Kickoff

Joshua and I started our Christmas celebrating early so that we could open presents together before heading to California. He gave me a beautiful pizza stone that is glazed and can withstand high temperatures and has handles and is even dishwasher safe. I'm pretty excited about it. Of course, we had to try baking a pizza on it before we left, which turned out great.

Ice

We had a cold storm last week. It started on Wednesday with freezing rain that coated things in a layer of ice. This was followed by a cold snap when the clouds cleared, the worst of which was Saturday when the predicted high was only 28 and the low was around 20. With the continued cold, everything just stayed frozen.

 

The trees around town lost a ton of branches; driving around there were tree branches everywhere. This big branch came down right between our house and the neighbor's. As expected, there were also a lot of power outages. We were fortunate that we only lost power for a couple hours Thursday morning; parts of Eugene were without power for 3-4 days.

Saturday the sun came out and it was beautiful, but still cold. 

The branches on this tree were so heavy with ice that they leaned way over the street, mostly blocking the street behind our driveway. 

These trees that were completely white were my favorite; they looked so pretty.

Finally on Monday, the clouds came back and it started raining again, so things warmed up and by that afternoon the ice was mostly melted.

Wild Rice with Sausage and Squash

When we were in Visalia last month, Mom pulled out a recipe she had saved from the newspaper because it looked interesting. She wasn't planning to make it soon, so said we could borrow it for awhile. A few days ago we tried it out, with great success, along with some tasty pork chops. The recipe was for a wild rice dish with sausage and butternut squash. It had a great earthy flavor and the squash and sausage worked well with the rice. It was unique enough that I wouldn't want to have rice that way all the time, but really nice as an occasional dish.

Wild Rice Stovetop Dressing

1 t olive oil

1 link sweet Italian turkey sausage, casing removed

1/2 C chopped celery

1/2 C chopped yellow onion

3 cloves garlic, mashed

1 C butternut squash cubes

1/2 t dried thyme, or 1 t fresh thyme

1/2 t dried rubbed sage, or 1 t fresh sage

1 t dried rosemary, or 2 t fresh rosemary

1 1/4 C wild rice blend (usually wild rice and basmati mixed)

3/4 C chicken or turkey broth

3/4 C water

1/4 C dried cranberries

1/4 C chopped toasted pecans

salt and pepper

Cook the sausage in the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat, until meat is golden, about 4 minutes. Add in the celery and onion and cook until softened, about 3 more minutes. Add the garlic, squash, herbs, and rice and saute for 1 minute. Add the broth and water, and raise temperature to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, stir the rice once, and then cover and reduce the temperature to low and allow to simmer gently, covered tightly, for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, toss in the dried cranberries (quickly covering again) and let sit covered tightly for 5 minutes. Remove the lid, stir, taste for seasoning, add toasted pecans, and serve.

Pomegranate Jelly

On one of the walks we went on while at Mom and Dad's last week, we picked a bunch of pomegranates with permission from the neighbors. Back at home, some of those pomegranates became jelly.

Dinner in Our Pumpkin

The little pumpkin that we grew this year was beautiful as a decoration during the fall. After we took down the fall decor, it was also delicious to eat. We cooked up the pumpkin and enjoyed having it stuffed with rice, veggies, and homemade sausage. Since it was so small, I also stuffed our other fall squash decoration with the rest of the filling. Thanks to Rachel for the great recipe.

A Wedding, Friends, Family, and Thanksgiving

 A long time family friend got married the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I was able to fly down to Southern California and meet up with some of my family to go to the wedding. I didn't want to take my camera on the plane, so a lot of the pictures in this post (and all the ones before Thanksgiving day) are Heather's. Thanks for sharing, sis!

It was a beautiful day and ceremony. We had fun trying to squeeze into a picture together with some of the scenery in the background.

The reception was lovely with delicious food and a celebratory atmosphere.

 Finally we were able to congratulate Garrett and meet his beautiful bride, Hannah. I was so glad to be able to be there for the big day and celebrate with such a special couple.

After the wedding, we drove back to Visalia, making it a very long day since I had to be at the Portland airport at 5am that morning. The rest of the Ghent family drove up to spend Thanksgiving week with us on Sunday after finishing up with wedding things. It was so much fun to catch up with Vickie, Brenna, and Warren and spend time together. It did make for some crowded dinners though, including Tuesday evening when the kids had a picnic in the kitchen.

 We mostly relaxed around Mom and Dad's house visiting and going on walks, but we also had time for a couple projects. One morning, Evan and I spent some time sewing together. Joshua drove down from Oregon Tuesday and I was so happy to see him again when he arrived around midnight.

 On Wednesday, Heather and I were privileged to go with Michelle to her ultrasound. I had never seen an ultrasound before and it was amazing.

Thanksgiving morning was the Race Against Hunger. It had been a couple years since I last participated in the race and it was a lot of fun. I enjoy starting the holiday that way. This is the runners before we started.

And here we are after we finished. Heather, Natalie, and I ran the 5K together and had a good time. We made it all the way, with a little walking, and Natalie did a great job.

Here's the whole group of walkers and runners after we were done.

We all met up again later that afternoon at Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving dinner. But before dinner, we enjoyed some fall colors and had a baby reveal.

When Michelle had her ultrasound on Wednesday, the nurse was pretty sure she was able to find out the gender, even though it was early in the pregnancy. We all had to look away from the screen while she looked and then she wrote it down so that Michelle and Jonah could find out together.

So, the next day they brought a piñata to Thanksgiving dinner that was filled with blue or pink candy. Starting with Emery, the kids got to take whacks at it.

Evan never got a turn though because Micah smashed it open.

Blue!

We are looking forward to meeting our new nephew next May.

 Then it was time to be thankful and feast.

After dinner, and between glasses of Isaac's homemade eggnog, we took a picture with Vickie and Brenna. The two of them and Warren had to leave early the next morning. We were so glad they were able to spend Thanksgiving and then some with us.

We spent our Friday morning looking for Christmas trees. It actually didn't take much of the morning though because we went to Home Depot and quickly chose trees.

All the kids had to hang out in the trailer with the trees for a little while. Then we went to the Nickell's house for yummy Thanksgiving leftovers, including pie and eggnog.

Friday afternoon we drove up to Modesto and met up with the family at Joy's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was quite the spread, with possibly the best turkey I've had. The cranberry relish was also particularly good this year.

We had quite the group there too, but managed to all get a picture together. It was a wonderful meal and evening. We had planned to leave Sunday morning, but there was a big storm heading our way and we were worried about the passes being closed. So we ended up leaving Saturday instead. But not until after lunch so that Joshua could be part of the sausage making day at Uncle Jimmy's. The men all gathered and made sausage together, then the rest of us joined them to eat sausage and potato salad for lunch. We got some snow on the drive home, but were able to mostly beat the storm and arrive home safely.

Goodbye Work Shoes

After two years and two months working at Creswell Bakery, it was time to move on. There were some great things about working at the bakery and I learned a lot and made some good friends. My last shift was yesterday and I threw away my shoes this morning. I was thrilled to see this pair of shoes go. We had to wear a specific kind of kitchen safe non-slip shoes and mine were uncomfortable. They also got covered in flour and other stuff to the point that I wouldn't even wear them in the car, even though I did wash them. It was nice to bring closure to this phase in my life and I'm looking forward to new opportunities.

A Week of Breakfast

Joshua and I just finished a week of breakfast for dinner. It was fun to do something different and themed for a week.

We kicked things off with chorizo, eggs, and potatoes.

Next, we had omelets. This was a special dinner because Dave was visiting that day. He had something in southern Oregon the following day, so he came to see us while he was in the area.

Dutch pancakes and sausage were on the menu Saturday evening. Then we had pancakes Sunday, but I forgot to take a picture of those.

Of course, we also had delicious breakfast burritos.

We finished off the week with bacon, eggs, and apples.

Two Bakers in a Pumpkin Patch

Brenda and I went to a pumpkin patch today after work. I had been interested in going back to Johnson Farm after we picked apples there, and then I found out their pumpkin patch was still open and that all the pumpkins were on sale for only a dollar each. The farm is pretty much on the way home for both of us, so we decided to go together.

The pumpkin patch was well past its season, but there were still a lot of pumpkins there and we both found some that we were happy with.

It was a beautiful afternoon and perfect weather for picking pumpkins and walking to and from the farm store. The pumpkin patch is about a mile away from the store and is 4 acres, so pretty large.

After picking out some perfect pumpkins, we walked back to the farm store and looked around there. We each found a couple more exciting things to get, as well as some exciting things that we didn't get, like these beets. They were huge. The beets that look small are actually normal to large size for what I've seen at the grocery store, so those big ones were really monster. They also had some enormous bell peppers that were easily two or three times the size of what I'm used to seeing.

Here are my pumpkins after they survived a bit of rolling around on the drive home.