A sweet invitation

Okay so I got invited to the "elderly" community birthday party on Tuesday. It was the lady on the right below that was turning 89. I know a few of them from our ward but the rest I have never seen before. The lady on the left I visit teach and have for almost 8 years now. She is 94. My friend Cami said she was coming because often she comes along to help her grandma and it was her grandma's birthday.

So, as I go and pick up Anita, 94, we head to the restaurant. I pull in only to see all the other women being taxi'd in by who knows and then they walk in. Thier taxi drivers didn't stick around. One of the ladies had two other ladies in with her so she is still able to drive her and miss daisy around herself! So I am thinking what have I gotten myself into? We get into the restaurant and the fun begins!! They immediately start head counting and asking where so and so is and where so and so is and that goes on and on. Then they start their conversations. I am almost certain they were the same conversations from the last party they had. How old are you now Betty? When is your birthday Fay? It was hilarious. I had to break up a few arguments that I thought were going to turn hostile. So we get seated and then came the confusing part..... the menus. Who was going to read the menu for them all? Cha Ching - Wah Lah = ME! Try to explain cheese enchildas, a lunch special, and inflation to 11 women over 80... and not more than once..... good luck! I was the only one there under 75 besides the 45 year old handicapped friend of ours and her care taker. Let me say that I think it was a set up. Cami never showed. So as comical as it was we made it through. I ended up sitting between the birthday girl and the lady who makes the cake each time. I got in a little trouble. The birthday girl kept wanting a piece of the cake really bad so I started slipping her some icing off the side with her fork. She loved it! And just kept wanting more. So I was feeding the 94 year old and the birthday girl the icing and I got caught by the cake maker. Let's just say it was not a nice look I received from her. It may have changed the mood of the party but hey the hot sauce was too hot for them and they were getting hungry. And yes I got a shot from underneath the table just to show the canes lined up and put in a safe place for dinner.!! So then there came the ordering. Wow... should have never told them there was a special but this is how it went. Well after explaining the special for a couple of times, a red and a green enchilada with beans and rice, the two I felt responsible for decided to "share". Oh no! They weren't sure what they were sharing but they felt like they couldn't eat all of the other stuff. Oh and by the way the 94 year old I brought said she was paying for mine or else she wasn't coming... to pay for the gas. So I felt obligated to order a bean and one piece of rice to save her money. Then there was the complaints for waiting for so long for the food and a few other arguments I kind of jumped into to try to quiet down. Then the arrival of the food.... oh no, again!! So they got one order wrong... that was not a good thing and I will leave that to your imagination. But my two... who decided to share, were my next task!! So I cut the enchiladas evenly in half and split the beans and rice and we are on our way but I see the 94 year old giving the 89 year old a big piece of hers and listen to the 89 year old say well it just looks like nothing is there!! It was so funny. When they took bites of things they would ask "What is this I am about to eat?" It was pretty funny. So after cutting cake for all of them and then taking a few of their tickets to the register to pay for them and trying to keep the change straight.... we made it through. It was enjoyable and I met a lot of people in the community and was glad I could help out.

By the way... the enrichment night went well. I left a lot out that I wish I would have covered but time ran out and brain cells. There were a lot of women there. More than usual so that was good. If anything I learned more so hopefully some of them did. Thanks to all the coupon helpers I am sure you will hear from me in the future!

Dehydrating potatoes

So yesterday we decided we needed to do something with the 100 pounds of potatoes we bought from my Aunt Paula that she picked up in Farmington. So I text Jeanne, our most wonderful neighbor and say "You are cordially invited to a potato party at 5 pm" So immediately my phone rings.... a what? So the sucker that she is she shows up!!!

We started the kids on sorting, washing, and cutting a hundred pounds of potatoes! So I am on the internet researching exactly what we are going to try to accomplish. So out on the porch and I totally forgot to take pictures, so mad, but are the kids with pans and bowls all over filled with water, bad potatoes, good potatoes, chicken food potatoes, french fry for dinner potatoes ,and then dehydrating potatoes. I try to stay away from them because I am still radioactive for a few days. So we start the process and Troy is in charge of the knife and me the boiling water and what not. So this was our process.... wash them, cut out bad parts (which meant 3/4 of potato) and then slice into like 1/4 inch pieces but for Taya that turned out to be like 3/4 inch potatoes on some and then you blanch them by putting them into boiling water for 5 minutes or 20 if you lose track of time, and then take them out and into ice water and lemon juice immediately and then let them sit for 15 to 45 minutes whichever you get around to and then you blot them dry and stick in the dehydrator, which by the way holds about 6-8 cups of potatoes and not 100 pounds worth! Then have husband stay up all night checking on potatoes to harden. I woke up this morning to an unplugged dehydrator and one still going. He got tired of getting up so unplugged the powerful one and left the other one going.

That was the process.... and yes Jeanne and her kids showed up for the party. It was a lot of fun and once we got the system down it went smoothly. I dealt with the water and the dishes to avoid touching the potatoes. Jeanne and Troy in charge of the transferring of potatoes from cold pans to boiling pans to ice water pans and then on to blot, dry and put in dehydrator. We are waiting for husband to get home from California to be in charge of the food saver operations! It was a lot of fun even the kids enjoyed it. We had potatoes cooking in the oven for fries for everybody and pizza from Marie and applie pie from Marie and we just had a good time. Now we know we made way too many to fit in the dehydrator but are soaking them in fridge in lemon juice and water to hopefully start a new batch today. We didn't even get to the "good" potatoes. We only sifted through the bad ones to get them used up. I'll take pictures next weekend of htis weekend all over again!

So anyone try this before because it takes some time and I am hoping it actually works. You are supposed to be able to store them and then just boil them for 25 minutes and serve! At least we didn't have to peel them.

Next week we will be having potato soup, potato appetizer, and potato pie while doing the rest! Then we will all hate potatoes and not eat these for our year supply!

New Hobby For ME

Okay I am starting a new hobby now that I have gotten into this enrichment night of balancing budget and year supply stuff. Thanks to all of you for your ideas. I wish you could come on Thursday night but maybe I can send you the packet if you would like.
So here is what happened while trying to do my homework and with the use of Trachel's blog site! I started coupon shopping! Crazy stuff. Makes me feel like I have been getting ripped off my whole life and I am obviously have been but hopefully it won't take too much time out of my life to start this.
So I went to Walgreens, just because I had all the kids and not a lot of time and wanted to experiment. I came prepared with my coupons... manufacturers and in store coupons and Trachel at home, on line, to answer questions!!
This is what I bought in one purchase..... 4 boxes of Kellogg cereal( $3), 2 full size bottles of lotion ($4.50), 2 full size bottles of honey ($8), 1 peanut butter ($3), 2 big bottles jelly ($2.50?) parenthesis are approximate actual costs. So it should have been somewhere around $45. I paid $18. Can you say CRAZY?
Here is what I did... had a manufacturer coupon for $1 off the cereal so I had 4 coupons. The store had a coupon for 4/$10 and if you bought all 4 you got a $2 coupon to be used on anything at Walgreens at next visit (this is important for later transaction). So I ended up paying $6 for all the cereal but really $4 because I got the $2 coupon but I used that for a different transaction. So then the store had coupons for lotion buy one get one free and it was good lotion, honey coupon was $3 coupon so I bought what they had left, jelly and peanut butter was 3/$5. There was probably a manufacturer coupon out there for these but I didn't have time to look. So anyways then I had the coupon from Walgreens to spend $20 and get $5 off! So I needed to get to the $20 and did so. So add this all up it came to nearly $45 and I saved like $26.
THen..... they had Progresso soup, normally $3.19 a can. I used a manufacturer coupon of $2 off 4 cans, the store coupon buy 4/$5. So with my coupons I paid $5 - $2 = $3. So now I am down to paying $3 for the 4 cans so 4 for the price of one. But.... hold on..... I have this $2 in store Walgreens money from previous purchase so I use it and Wa-Lah!! I hand the lady a dollar and am on my way with 4 cans of rich delicious upper class Progresso soup all for the whopping price of twenty five cents a can!! Addicted to coupons!! $5-$2-$2 = $1!! So I saved $11.80 on that. So I bought like close to $60 of groceries for $19. Now just to find what activities i can cut out to start being a coupon shopper. It is going to be fun at enrichment sharing my shopping trip homework with them. Oh ya, I did all this while still being radioative... I will have to blog that later with the pictures of my room all taped up and the whole experience.
And by the way.... I miss our little Kai. She is at my moms until I am less radioactive. It is in her best interest and I am sure she had a great time but we are starting to really miss her.

Our First Snow

I am so not ready for the cold but here you have it for Monday morning with the kids waiting for bus! Notice the metal pole they are leaning against and read story below.

Kai didn't understand the full meaning of snow and "Ice". Needless to say she wasn't all too happy with her first venture out. It was so fun watching the kids from the window that she had to get out in it. She was crying and mad but I wanted a picture so I told her to keep crying, "no problem Mom".

Just the scenery from our driveway. Okay for all of you out there who think they have the smartest best kid in the world, stop thinking this because apparantly I do! I guess here is where I will post what "brilliant" decided to do and truly she is usually a straight A student. So I go into the house with Kai and the kids are waiting for the bus. They all come running in laughing saying "mom, dad, Taya tried it." "Tried what?" "She tried sticking her tongue to the pole outside. " Genious! So they were all so excited because she got it stuck to the pole. I wish I had had the camera and for some reason I couldn't get her to do it again to take a good picture. Way too much Christmas Story movie watching in these kids. Payce always goes around laughing like the little kid on it and now Taya with this high IQ does the worst of all. And then they go on to say... well at least I didn't have to call the fire department to get it off. The end of her tongue was a little red. When it all came out in the end I guess Sydnee decided to try it to but she was bragging and they were too on how hers came right off and didn't get stuck. Hope one of them doesn't ask for a leg lamp for a Christmas gift.

It started coming down on Sunday afternoon. We had a church meeting in Flagstaff that night. It took us over an hour to get to it. But most melted by morning and this is what we were left with. I usually like the snow but have never been more excited for it "not" too come yet. I just can't tolerate the cold yet. I usually can stagger out in this stuff with shorts and a sweatshirt and be just fine but now I am thinking a real "Poofy" snow suit may not even cut it. Maybe I will resort to some Carhart insulated overalls.

So it is 3:30 am in the morning. I guess I am anxious to get to the hospital today and get this whole process over and done. I cannot take anything in there that I wish to keep because it all has to be thrown away in special trash. But let me remind you everything is still "Safe", ha! So there went my Christmas shopping venture on the internet, my three days of intense blog surfing, and anything else I was considering to do for 3 days. Oh well I am writing down my credit card number because apparently I have access to QVC. I am going to resort to doing something I hate, read a book. I finally am giving into reading "The blessed vampire" books. One anyways, the one that cost $6 and I can throw away. Hope I finish it there and am not left hanging. I am also going to try to read a paperback Doctrine and Covenants straight through. Not only will I be glowing with radioactive iodine but the spirit of God! I think I will do lots of exercising and moving around in there in my hospital gown to pass the time and sweat out the pill I don't need, ya right. Thank you to everyone who has helped us through this long process. It has been very much appreciated. Marie, Troy's mom, is staying with the kids today while there is no school, thank you Veterans, and then they will fly solo until Thursday. I am then scheduled to head to Farmington, New Mexico to begin my first classes on Footzonology but the schedule is looking pretty tight and Payce may end up playing his last game in the NAU dome on Friday night so may not make it to Farmington. Thank you to his coach for fighting for a game change from Sunday to either Friday night or Saturday. He knew Payce wasn't playing nor Troy coaching if it was this way so he is working with the Flagstaff board to get the change. I hope to be knowing soon on the outcome of the decision. So there is our story... see you fellow bloggers in a few days and hopefully no more 3:30 am blogging after this.

By The Way, the two kids did not have to sleep in bed rolls in pig pen thanks to the snow and some bargaining which we knew was coming. We got about 6 good hours of drawer cleaning out of it anyways, without fighting. I heard Payce tell Taya, it's kinda fun cleaning it out huh Taya? To find all this stuff.

Thankful for dads

This is Taya's new steer. We bought a different one that was tamed and ready for her but while the owner was in the hospital for an emergency the steers missed a few meals and then when fed hers apparently ate too much, bloated, and passed away. So we went to look at more and Taya decided to go with this one. He, on the other hand, was not tamed.

After a good one hour or so rodeo with "Flash" and Troy and lots of lost blood, we managed to get him back into the trailer and home. It's a good thing my dad showed up when he did with his saddled horse to help drag him back from escaping Troy the almighty who wasn't going to let go of the thing at all costs. I had all the kids secured from it and Taya standing there with the most sickening look on her face ever.

So he got tied to a post for a few days. Apparently that is all it took because after two days she was leading it herself and doing very well. She put him in the shoot yesterday and brushed him and led him around. His name is Flash for a few reasons, Flashy looking, Flash Gordon the super hero - because he looks good, and Flash just in case any more of those rodeo's occur. I'm thankful for Troy to be helping with her because if it were up to me I would have loaded him and drove him straight back to where he came from and get a refund, if the thing wasn't dead before that!

I am so thankful for dads for this reason. I absolutely hate this type of play. And it's okay to say hate because it's true. I even don't watch usually because it wears me out and the end result is always Troy winning and most of the kids crying. It usually leads to an argument with me because the kid in Troy or the competitiveness in him won't even let the kids pretend to have beat him. It is always a crying ending but it must be real fun for them all while it's going on.

But you have to give them all credit. I remember when I was a kid and how much fun it was to run around our house in circles while my dad tried to pop us with his belt. Now that was fun times??? And we played it often. THank goodness for those double wides that you could run in a complete circle around that center wall that supported the TV on one side and the stove and kitchen on the other. You could make it in seconds thru the dining room to the kitchen thru the family room and land in the living room only to start the track all over again. Roller skates were the best.

This is a picture of Riley, Kai, and Syd on Riley's pony in Holbrook. Her dad takes so good care of her and she loves him you can tell. He loves her too. I'm sure it's because she thinks the world of him and his love for chickens and animals. They named their chickens as they hatched on the back porch. At church last week she couldn't quit talking about Ol' Trapper, her new puppy. She kept asking my girls if they wanted to come and see Ol' Trapper at her house. "He even can come in the house."

On the thankful side of things....

This to me is so amazing it almost made me cry. So I have been thinking of what I am thankful for and it just came to me this morning on the phone. I don't mean I don't have much to be thankful for but some really significant things to go along with friends and family and the whole spill. I will be going in on Tuesday to stay in the hospital for possibly three days. The doctor called me to see when the hospital scheduled it for. I told him Tuesday and he then asked if it would be okay if him and his wife made my family dinner (pot roast) that night while I was away. I was speechless. He is such a good person and really care. They seem like we have known them forever but we just met in August and hardly know them. He really wants us to try the steer meat out that he bought from Taya. He offered us some while I was in for surgery but ackward timing. Now maybe you guys have doctors like this but I don't know of too many that even would make the time to do something like this. As much as I wish I wasn't going through all of this I am thankful for him and his care. I am glad we have gotten to know each other and will be seeing him a lot in the future to regulate the thyroid medicine but I thought that was just really neat and wanted to share it with you. If you ever have something wrong with your ear, nose, or throat..... give him a call!

Tiger Football

This is Payce's final year for Tiger football then he moves up a league. They are playing this Saturday and if they win they will go on to play for 1st place out of all the teams from Holbrook, Winslow, Prescott, Tuba City, and Flagstaff. Payce played his best game of the season on Saturday. He believes it is all due to his new hair doo from Halloween. He is sporting the grandpa look. Yes actually shaved the top and sprayed the long hair gray. He looked great. So with that said he does not want to shave it because it is good luck. He also believes that he will just grow out the top and leave the bottom. New philosophy to me but in the Mortensen family hair doesn't grow that fast on the tops of their heads?? He is starting to play really well. He either plays quarterback, receiver, or blocker. He has 130 rushing yards this weekend. The weight limit for 8 year old players is 65. Most of the 8 years olds are on diets. Payce is pushing Oreos down to get to 45. He says he weighs 50 now but that's with full pads and a full head of hair. He probably set himself back a few pounds with the new "doo".