Birthday Round 1

My family came up on Sunday to celebrate my birthday; it was so fun to see everyone. First, we had a picnic at Jonah and Michelle's house.

 Then I got to open presents. Evan's birthday is shortly after mine and since I won't be able to celebrate with him, he got to open his present from Josh and me.

 Then we played in the snow.

After everyone was cold, we went back to Jonah and Michelle's for hot drinks. To finish off the day, we all had dinner in Oakhurst together and got sushi.

Three Months (and Counting)

Three months to go until the big day! Wedding planning, although overwhelming at times, has been less stressful and more fun than I expected it to be. It helps that I get to plan with Joshua, who is wonderful to work with. Things are coming together and we are almost "on track" according to our schedule from theknot.com, which recommended we start planning before we were dating, oops.

One of the exciting things about the three month mark is that we got to send out invitations! And we already have gotten two RSVP cards back from fellow staffers who didn't have to wait for them to go through the mail. We had a fun time at the Gist's on Wednesday having an invitation stuffing party. I thought we might have to cancel it because the day didn't go well, but we made it and had fun. Josh and I had been in Visalia and got back Tuesday night. It was a good trip, but busy and we were tired. Then I didn't sleep well that night and was dragging my whole shift, during which we had to make the shoveling rounds three times because it was snowing. Finally Jonah and I finished the shift and I went back to the Ranch House where Josh had dinner ready. We ate quickly, gathered our supplies, and were almost ready to leave for the party when I got a call on the radio that the drains in the kitchen were backing up and they needed help cleaning up. I couldn't believe it. We went over and helped clean up the kitchen and mop the bathroom where water had come up through the urinals. By that time the maintenance supervisor had tried to snake the drain outside the kitchen and determined that it was a problem with the septic tank, so we had to dug up the septic tank covers. Finally, just after 9:30pm (the party was supposed to start at 8:00pm) we made it back, changed again, and headed over to the Gist's. Then, of course, I forgot the stamps and had to run back over to grab those. Once we finally got started, stuffing the envelopes went quickly and it was fun. Joel put the finishing touch on the night by making Italian sodas for everyone, yum.

My room is slowly being taken over by various wedding supplies and my brain power has long been devoted
to little else, but I'm loving it. Yesterday Janice and I were walking down to shovel in Mt View and I made some comment about how I can't keep track of what day of the week it is. She said, "yeah, but how many days until the wedding?" I replied, "Ninety-three" without hesitation. Unfortunately, I have caught some nasty bug and feel awful, so celebrating the three month mark will be rather low key.

Bottling

 Our apple cider project began in October when we picked and pressed the apples. Then we let the cider ferment for a few months. On Thursday we racked our cider to get rid of the sediment and the apple peels we threw in there for extra yeast. First, we sterilized the new container with bleach water. Then we used the spout on the bucket our cider was in to pour it into the fresh bucket. When we took the lid off, we were surprised by the strong alcohol smell. We didn't add any yeast to the cider, we just used the natural yeast from the apples and apple peels, so we weren't sure what to expect. But it fermented, that's for sure.

We racked our cider back into the spout bucket Friday night, then Saturday we bottled. We started by giving all of our bottles and caps a bleach water bath and rinse.

Then we started bottling. We filled each bottle at the spout, then capped them.

 

About the halfway mark, we filled a half gallon jug with cider to make applejack. Then we dissolved sugar into water, let it cool, and added it to the remaining cider. Our goal is to have sparkling cider as the yeast that is left ferments the new sugar, producing carbon dioxide and carbonating the beverage.

We ended up with 45 bottles, plus the half gallon jug. Now they need to set again for about a month before we try them.

The next morning, we labeled the bottles with labels Josh's dad gave him for Christmas.

The Little Bobsled that Could

This weekend, Janice resolved to have a cardboard bobsled race with the high school kids who were up for SnoGo. Jonah, Sarah, and I were happy to be assigned the task of constructing a test sled.

After digging through the cardboard pile and discussing ideas, construction began. Duck tape was responsible for holding everything together.

The sled needed some special accommodations flourishes. Don't worry; Jonah washed his hands thoroughly after mounting the plungers.

Sarah was the driver, I was the gunner, and Jonah was the flagman.

The primary obstacle to the event was the lack of snow at camp, but Janice found a shaded area where there was enough left to construct a run. Sarah and Jonah worked on that project later in the day, and when the run was complete they tested it out.

(That is Jonah's racing face, for extra intimidation.)

The next morning, we had a christening ceremony in which our sled received it's name: "Poocasa." There was some debate over whether that meant "house for pooing," "house made of poo," or "house for storing poo," but our official linguist (Jonah) declared that all were equally evocative of our work on Accommodations.

There she is. What a beauty.

Oh! What adventure! What thrill! What triumph! What glory! 

After the race, our bobsled enjoyed a brief rest in the victory circle...

...before heading to her eternal rest in the garbage dumpster.

In the final analysis, a panel of judges awarded two hundred points to Poocasa's legendary run. In a fatal lapse of judgment, however, they awarded two hundred and ten points to the high school girls who raced right after us.

Much fun was had by all. Calvin Crest Accommodations Team, Winter Olympics 2014!

A Continuing Tale

Joshua and I started making blackberry, elderberry, and pomegranate wines in November. We had picked blackberries during the fall and frozen them, and we were given elderberry juice from Elin and pomegranate juice from Gayle.

We had to strain the blackberries to get the juice, which was a messy process. After we had juice, we cooked the three batches to kill the natural yeast and anything else in there, let them cool, and added wine making yeast.  

We had three gallons of blackberry wine, two of elderberry wine, and one gallon of pomegranate wine. Then it was time to let them ferment. That took much longer than we expected; they just kept bubbling and bubbling! Here's a short video of them bubbling:

They finally stopped fermenting and it was time to start the racking process. We siphoned the blackberry wine first, and then decided to just pour the other wines.     

Of course, we had to test each wine as we went; although at this point most of it is not very good. The elderberry wine in particular is very bitter, but that should improve. The purpose of racking is to let the wine set for awhile so the sediment settles out, then you pour the wine off and leave the sediment behind. The process is repeated until you have a clear wine. We also racked our gooseberry wine for a second time and had a surprise. I started loosening the cork and it popped out like a gunshot. Apparently, the wine was not quite done fermenting when we started racking it the first time and had built up a bit of pressure as a result of the increase in carbon dioxide. Needless to say, we were both startled. 

Here are our wines all racked and ready to settle again.

Modesto Teapot Hunt

Josh and I made a trip to Modesto to visit his family on Monday and Tuesday this week. We had a family dinner with everyone Monday night, then Tuesday we went on a teapot hunt with his mom. We are collecting teapots to use at our reception and had a successful, although tiring, search. We now have more than half the teapots we need.

And the Winner Is...

We had a tea and scone tasting last night to pick a recipe to serve at our reception. We made two scone recipes, with four flavors of each: plain, lemon, craisin, and lemon-craisin. That gave us eight scones to sample and choose from.

Our tasting started small with April, Rachel, Josh, and I. We enjoyed sampling and all agreed on our favorite.

Other people showed up too and starting the tasting process. 

We ended up with a number of people there, but plenty of tea and scones for everyone to taste! 

Everyone took notes and wrote their results down. Almost everyone agreed that the lemon-craisin simple scone was their favorite.