Fall Festivities

The past few weeks of life in Cape have been busy but fun. Nate's supervisor was in Israel for two weeks and so he was holding down the fort for the past couple of weeks. He did a great job.

I have been subbing 2-3 days a week at Jackson Jr. High still. Great school. Tomorrow I have been called to sub for the first time at Trinity Lutheran in Cape. I am very excited. I am going to have a few kids from the congregation in class tomorrow too.

We always have plenty of social events to go to down here. The night before Halloween we went to a Halloween party at the Frank's. I had been stressing because I didn't know what kind of snack to take. I'm good at main courses and desserts but appetizers aren't my specialty yet. Luckily I remembered something that my good friend Ashley (Wilterdink) Holzer made for a Christmas party in college. Beer bread! The people at the Halloween party loved it. It was not only awesome because the people loved it but also because it was so easy and inexpensive to make. I did a little bit of olive oil dipping sauce with it as well. Here is the recipe for the bread.



I took two different dipping oils one of them was a more itailian dipping oil that I got from the food network website.



The other dipping oil recipe I got from Ashley and that was:
1/4 Cup Olive Oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1/8 tsp Onion Powder
1/8 tsp Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Basil
1/8 tsp Pepper
1/8 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
Mix and serve

Of course the next day was Reformation Day or Halloween. Whatever you prefer to call it. Since it was a fifth Sunday we had a potluck that day. I made dessert and wanted to make it festive. So I made a Reformation cake pictured below. My parents came down that day to hear Nate preach and for my dad to watch football with Nate. They spent the rest of the day and the night down here with us. I made dinner for everyone which was great the men had ham steaks and the ladies had ribs. I also made some bacon wrapped asparagus which was great and I don't even like asparagus. We had a great evening.



Yesterday I got the pleasure of going to a bridal shower for my dear friend Wesly. I went to Evansville, IN for this. While I was there I got to see a few camp friends, Sarah Schultz and John and Karen Dobrinski. It was amazing. I did have a scary adventure through southern Illinois on my way home when my GPS went kinda crazy but I made it home.

So last but certainly not least is today was the Sausage supper at the church. Now when I was growing up in Arnold, MO (Suburb of St. Louis) we had these suppers every year as well. Hanover served 800-1000 people with their Sausage supper and growing up St. John's served 1500-1600 people. These dinners were some of the greatest church memories I have. The adults have fun and the kids got to hang out and have fun too. Well, Hanover like my home church does these dinners like I mentioned. They are very proud of these meals which have twice a year once in November and once in March. They should be proud of them because they are great. They are a great way to share the love of Christ with others and to have great fellowship among the members working the event.

In preparation for this supper the church buys the whole hogs. They skin the hogs, cut up the meat, grind it up and pack it into links which is a very involved process. The men of the church do this job on Friday and Saturday. This was a very new experience for Nate who had never really done a big church dinner and had definitely not skinned or cut up a hog before. He was a little nervous about it before going into it but ended up having a great time.







Today we had the supper. We peeled and cut up the potatoes and then got to serving. Nate greeted people as they came in. I got the so called "cushy" job in the kitchen making sure the buffet with the food was full, buttering the potatoes, and tending to the cooks needs. It was a great job. I had a great time hanging out with the people in there. Here are some pictures from the day. If you want to see me go to this link.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039540&id=146300032&l=0aaa171ae6


Peeling and Cutting Potatoes


Sausage before it was fried (Sorry if this picture grosses anyone out)


This is apple butter. When I was growing up they had apple butter at my church too. The ladies of the church get together and slow cook this. It is like a richer darker apple sauce that you spread on biscuits.


Full House in the Activity Center which serves as the dining room.

Like I said, there are far more pictures at the link above.

Well, that's all for now. God is good! :)