Bunko!, Pastor's Conference, Furniture, Hobby Lobby, New Resturants and more

Life is busy!

From Monday of last week until today we have had 2 funerals. One was for a friend in the congregation's father. He was catholic so we attended the funeral mass. It took both Nate and I back to our Catholic High School days. The second funeral was for a member of the congregation. There have been 4 funerals for members of the congregation and 2 for staff/friends since we have arrived in July. Crazy.

Last Monday, Nate attended the Missouri Pastor's Conference. It was in St. Louis. He bought me back a very stylish(note the sarcasm) KFUO reusable shopping bag. I was kind of excited though because I do like those reusable bags. Way to go green KFUO! I subbed that day which was pretty good and I ended up getting two more days to sub that week which was great. It is nice that the kids are starting to say high to me in the hallways and I am starting to build relationships. :)

On Friday night Nate and I learned the game Bunko. Now, before I share with you this interesting dice game I must tell you about a funny conversation Nate and I had before the Bunko party. We had been asked to bring a snack to the party and because of the funeral and subbing on Friday I was trying to come up with a snack 2 hours before the party. Nate says to me, "I know. Why don't we buy sugar cubes and color black dots on them with sharpie." (He was kidding of course.) At least he was trying to help with ideas. haha. Bunko is a game that you play with dice, in which you have several rounds rolling for a certain number. It involves switching tables througout the game too. It is a very simple game that seems boring when first hearing the game rules but it is a great game to socialize with. We had fun at the Bunko party!

On Saturday we visited the Saxon Lutheran Memorial for the wedding reception of LeAnne (Lorenz) Gaydos. My dad met Nate and I there and we had a great night catching up with the Lorenz family which are old friends of the Cox family. It was very nice to see them and of course to see Walther.



I'm sure Nate and I will visit the Saxon Lutheran Memorial in the future and I will explain and post more pictures then.



Sunday Pastor Kobak and Lisa (his wife) left for a two week trip to Israel. This means that Nate will be on his own for two weeks. He will be preaching this coming Sunday.

While reading the paper this week Nate found this comic. I found this very interesting.


Since I shared some recipes in my last post, I am going to share one again. I love banana bread for two reasons. The first is that it is delicious and the second is that I can use up the bananas that I didn't eat fast enough. I got this recipe from marthastewart.com.



I have recently fallen in love with new stores because I am doing more shopping. One of my new favorite stores is Sam's. Their prices are incredible. The other store is Hobby Lobby. There are several reasons why I love Hobby Lobby. The first reason is that they are closed on Sundays and their reason for this is posted on their door.


They also play instrumental versions of hymns over the speakers in their stores.

The second reason I love this place is because they provide the tools and fabric I need to use my new sewing machine. I have finished another project but it is going to be a gift and I can't reveal gifts until after Christmas. The third reason I love this place is because of their decor. Nate and I have added to the walls with the great decor I have purchased at Hobby Lobby.







I am working on finishing up my sewing corner in the laundry room. Pictures to come!

Today Nate and I enjoyed lunch at Buckner Brewing Company which is a micro-brewery in Historic Downtown Cape Girardeau. It is a very nice little place and we are glad that we went for lunch. Nothing like lunch over looking the breathtaking Mississippi River. (Note the sarcasm) It really is a nice location.

That is all for now. God is good!

Youth Retreat, More Subbing, More Sewing, New Windows and New Recipes

More and more is happening here in Cape Girardeau. This past weekend our church had a youth retreat. We had 40ish youth attend which was great. We had great food, fellowship and most importantly praise to the Lord. On the drive there, Nate and I had three middle school girls riding with us and they informed us what music is cool these days and of all of the current Youtube "sensations". They cracked me up. Nate cracked them up with his dancing. At the retreat there were Bible studies, there was swimming, canoe tug of wars, crazy kickball, glow sticks, s'mores and a ridiculously hot fire.

A couple hours after we got back from the retreat Nate got a call that there was a great opportunity to go fishing. A member of the church's uncle was draining a pond on his land and in this process realized it was full of fish. Nate and the pastor and some other members of the church went over there and started catching fish, lots of fish. These fish were huge. To catch them, the guys waded in the water, mostly mud, that was up to their waste. They got filthy. Nate caught a fish that was around 50lbs! Then I joined them and they cleaned the fish. Nate and I had never seen fish cleaning before. It was definitely a new experience. After they finished, the fillets of the fish were about 150lbs total. That is a lot of fish!

Before we went on the retreat we went to a Barbecue cook of that a couple of the members in our congregation entered in. They cook mostly pork ribs and brisket. They cook in these huge wood burning smokers that they build themselves. It is really quite impressive. One of the members came in first place overall with his pork ribs. The ribs really were delicious.

The vicarage house got new windows! These windows are wonderful for a few reasons. We can actually keep our windows open because they have screens. They also have sealant around the windows which decreases the draft and creepy crawlers. We can now open and close the windows without breaking a sweat, they didn't slide very well. We are very grateful for these new windows.

I subbed again at Jackson Jr. High. This has been going very well. The students usually are good for me. I really enjoy it there. I have been doing a lot of reading there because I am mostly supervising while students work on an assignment. I have a couple more dates lined up there this month still. :)

I have been trying some new recipes because I don't know a lot of things to make as a newly married lady. I am also working on portion control as well. I tend to make too much. Last night I made Rosemary Chicken from Rachel Ray's recipes. It was really good. I overdid the rosemary a little bit because I didn't use as much meat as the recipe called for but it was still really good. The chicken was incredibly moist. I used low sodium chicken broth instead of wine to make it healthier too. Here is the link.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/garlic-roast-chicken-with-rosemary-and-lemon-recipe/index.html


If you click on this picture it blows up the recipe and you can read it. Same with the recipe below.

Tonight I tried a new pork chop recipe. It is a smothered pork chop recipe that turned out well. I have always found pork chops hard to cook because they tend to be a very dry meat but these turned out pretty good. Here is the recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/smothered-pork-chops-recipe/index.html



Not only did these two recipes work out but I have been on a mission to make vegetables bareable to eat. Tonight I succeeded with broccoli. Nate was sleptical at first but then he was like "This isn't bad!" He was right. It wasn't bad. I sauteed the broccoli in olive oil with garlic and then sprinkled it with salt and peper but only cooked it for about a mintue. I was very happy with the results and I will continue to try to find more ways to make veggies taste good.

Today I finished my second project on my sewing machine which was very exciting. I made quilted coasters. I found this idea on marthastewart.com. Here they are!



I have started my decoration collection for the fall with some kitchen towels from the dollar section at target. More to come I'm sure.



That's all for now! Good is good.