Crazy Runners

Mike and I decided to take in the Minden Christmas 5K on Saturday, December 3.  There were light flurries as we traveled to Minden which turned into heavier snow when we pulled into town.

During the race we ran in 2 inches of snow.  On the ways out we were running into the wind and snow, but after the turn around the race was fairly enjoyable.

I even manage to finish 2nd in my age group.

Overall this race was a really great experience even if the road were a little treacherous on the way home.

Cruise 2011

As in past years, Team B (the Bergens and the Baldwins) took our annual winter vacation in the form of a cruise to the caribbean on the Oasis of the Seas.  

You may remember our last cruise on the Oasis of the Seas in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

 Waiting for the hotel shuttle at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale. This was the first time that we experienced a large crowd waiting for shuttles in Ft. Lauderdale, which may be to the fact that we landed before midnight.

 We decided to spring on this trip and upgrade our rooms to a Jr. Suite.  We didn't expect to get much out of the room beside our double cruise point. The room was amazing.

 More sitting room and more room between the bed and the vanity which doesn't seem like a big deal but it was so nice. 

 Extra drawers to store all of our stuff. 

 A larger bathroom ..

 with a shower/tub.  Way bigger then the corner showers in normal rooms. 

  

 Not to mention a walk in closet.. 

 with robes. 

 Last but not least, a balcony with a table, chairs and two lay out chairs.  

 A vacation must (may be daily) is ice cream cones on the pool deck. 

 Already relaxing and we haven't even left the port yet.  

 The solarium where we spend most of our day time hours. 

 Our annual set sail picture. 

 Formal night.

 How we spent some of our relaxing mornings. 

 Labadee Haiti.  I think this is my favorite port.  

 It was really hot, so it was nice to be in the shade. 

 A look at the beach we sat on from the boat.  

 Leaving Labadee. 

 A group that put on a little show while we set sail. 

 Dinner at Chops is a cruising must in our book. 

 After walking 3.5 miles to get to Margaritaville was a little longer than we expected... 

 but the volcano nachos were so worth it. 

 Sushi at sea and a mound of wasabi. 

Believe it or not, Mike and I actually kept up with a running schedule on the ship running 4 out of 7  days, which was good considering all the food we ate.  

After 5 years of cruising Mike and I still can't get enough.  We are already booked for January 2013 sailing out of Galveston TX on the Mariner of the Seas.  

It's that time of year again

I bet you thought this was going to be a Christmas post...

Well, even though I spent the weekend decorating for Christmas and baking Christmas cookies, I thought I would first post about ways I can tell it is time to get ready for Christmas.

 The "drift" of corn leaves is as high as a snow drift should be in front of our shed. 

 Mikes hunting trophy is on display on our radio tower. You can compare the rack to last years deer displayed below. (I'm sorry to any animal lovers out there that you had to see this, but it is a truth of the farm)

 My fall display has dried up and is ready to be thrown away.  

Ironically, my mums stopped growing while a gourd displayed in a glass jar on my dining room table decided to start growing.  

I guess it is time to move on to the next season because fall has decided to be done at my house.   

I did it

I completed my first race and boy can I pick them.  This morning Mike and I decided to participate in a 4 mile (according to GPS it was only 3.78 miles) trail run race at Quarry Oaks Golf Course near Ashland Nebraska.  While the overall experience was fun and I trained well for that distance, I did not train well for the hills this course contained.  Mike and I decided there was less than a 1/4 of a mile that was flat the rest of the race was either up or down.  Mike decided to run the race "for fun" and ran my pace, which was really nice because I would have ran much slower and probably would have walked if it wasn't for him.  I may have uttered the words "I can't" at one point, but we kept going and made it the entire way.  The craziest part was running through ankle deep water twice about one mile from the end and having to finish with wet socks and shoes.

The good news is we both had smiles at the end of the race and both felt it was a good experience. It would have been smarter to choose an easier race for my first time out, but all and all I'm happy with my time and am pretty sure I gave it everything I had.  If I run this race again next year I will definitely run more hills that are steeper for my preparation.  

Lately

As you can tell, lately I haven't been posting as much.  While some people have a break over the summer and are able to post more on their blogs, my summers are usually the opposite until Community Days is over.  So here is a run down of what we have been doing lately.

• Irrigating (or as Mike likes to call it, irritating)
• Henderson Farmers Market
• Adult swim over the noon hours
• Sunday afternoon naps
• Mod Reunion in  Oklahoma
• House warming party
• Stockham 4th of July celebration
• Hosts at a wedding
• Church meetings
• Visiting friends 
• Wednesday night wings 
• Trips to Sweet Treat
• Gardening
• Pulling weeds (yes there were so many it deserves its own bullet point)
• Hosting friends 
• Grilling
• Sitting by a fire pit 

Our summer has included alot of other activities as well, but these are some of the bigger and more consistent events. 

With that said, our summer meals consist of BLT Sandwiches, watermelon, cucumbers, and corn on the cob, so my cooking especially from the church cookbooks has been rather lacking.  However, I do intend to start cooking more again, so Mennonite Monday will return even though it has been a little sporadic this summer.  

It is a bird, its a plane, its actually a plane

 This time of year, there are a lot of planes flying around the country side spraying fields.  One evening I was in the garden pulling weeds (the only thing I have "harvested" from my garden) and noticed that a plane was starting to spray the field around our house.

For those of you who have never experienced this, I will let you know that this is very loud.  I thought about going inside to wait for them to be done, but decided it would be fun to catch some pictures instead.

 One thing that makes the spraying so interesting is how low to the ground the plane gets.

 It makes sense that they stay so low because they want the spray to go into the corn and not up in the air, but it is amazing how they barely rise up to go over the yard.  The picture above isn't very good, but you can see the plane is well below the top of the shed as it goes over the corn.

 It almost skimmed the top of the shop door as it flew over our yard.

 And it just missed the wire running from our barn to the light pole.

 It is really pretty amazing to watch these planes fly, if you can get past the sound they make.

Mennonite Monday - Cinnamon Rolls-Big and Soft

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

~

I finally have my cookbook back, so I have the long overdue recipe for Cinnamon Rolls-Big and Soft (pg 23W) for Mennonite Monday.  

Cinnamon Rolls Big and Soft

1 1/2 cups scalded milk

1 stick margarine

2/3 cups sugar

1 cup cold water

3 pkg yeast

3 eggs, well beaten

2 tsp salt

7 cups flour

Scald milk and melt margarine in milk.  Add sugar and cold water.  Mixture should be lukewarm, Add yeast, stir well and let stand 15 minutes or until it bubbles.  Add beaten eggs, salt and flour.  Dough should be firm, you do not knead this.  Stir well.  Let rise one hour.

Filling: 

1 stick margarine

2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup sugar

raisins - optionals

Roll out dough and spread with softened margarine, then sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and raisins.  Roll up.  Divide into fourths.  Make 6 rolls from each fourth.  Put onto greases pan.  Dip hand in flour and smash down.  Let rise one hour. Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool. 

Frosting: 

1/2 cup water

1/4 stick margarine

1 tsp vanilla

powdered sugar

Simmer water and margarine.  Add sifted powdered sugar to make firm frosting.  

 Scalded milk 

 Adding margarine. 

Adding the Yeast

Beating the eggs

Adding salt to the flour to mix before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.

Adding the bubbly yeast mixture to my bowl.

Mixing in the flour.

The dough almost completely mixed together.

Before the dough had time to rise.

I still put the dough infront of the heater when it isn't very hot in the house

After rising for an hour

Rolling out the dough. It was nice to use my pampered chef mat, but I forgot to flour it, which made it harder to roll. 

Adding sugar for the filling.

Ready to roll with butter, sugar and cinnamon.  I skipped the raisins.

I had to deal with the dough sticking alot since I didn't flour the mat, but after some work I got it rolled.

The dough does expand when you start rolling, so you will need a large space for this part.

I cut my cinnamon rolls with a knife, but I have heard that people use unscented floss, but I didn't have any on hand, so I didn't try that route.

Before the rolls have time to rise they look a little rough.

Pushing them down with flour before letting them rise for an hour.

After baking. 

Water and margarine for the frosting.

Adding vanilla

Adding powdered sugar.  You will need a good amount of powdered sugar.

Once the frosting was thickened.

Fresh cinnamon rolls with a lot of frosting.

In my experience, making cinnamon rolls was not very hard, however it is a long process with letting the dough rise twice. If I were going to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, I would start the process the night before.