Just a regular week of cooking, music, little boys, and snow

This is a snow day in these parts.  Not a huge amount, but enough to close schools for the day.  It looks so beautiful out there.  I wish I had some grandchildren here to make homemade doughnuts with.

My exercise class has plans to do a fondue meal this evening.  I guess we'll see what the roads are like by then.  I hope we can do it.  We have so much fun together - eight of us.  Poor Peg, our instructor.  We chatter and laugh so much during class that she can hardly call out her instructions for us to hear.

When I went over to Anthony and Lori's the day after I got back from my trip last week I noticed something wonderful.  All the rainy days we have had have begun to fill the spring-fed pond back up.  Here's a picture I took in November - such a SAD sight!

And here's what it looked like last Thursday.  Not quite filled yet, but getting there.  I  bet it looks gorgeous this morning in the snow.

I made fried rice and sweet and sour chicken for Anthony and Lori that day.  Since I no longer babysit Hunter I always do their food prep here and then take it to their place.  That evening we had choir practice.  Right now we're working on a combination of new (to us) songs as well as ones we've done before.  You'll be hearing about some of them in the weeks to come I'm sure.

On Friday I made two big pots of chicken noodle soup - Paula Deen's recipe.  Lori sent me the recipe a few weeks ago and I really, really like it.  This time I was not only making it for them and for us but also for a soup and bread sale.  Fillmore (where I am pianist/choir director) is one of three locations of the Greater Buffalo Run Valley UMC (for whom I used to be church secretary until I quit in October.)  They have recently purchased land nearby on which they will build a new church building to replace the three old buildings.  The soup and bread sale was a fund raiser for the building fund.

That evening we went to the laundromat.  My washer does not have digital controls, and last week I discovered I could not turn the knob to set the washer to start.  Dick looked up the problem and found that the "teeth" inside the knob can wear down.  All we needed to do was order the knob on Amazon for twenty-some bucks!  But meanwhile I had a lot of dirty laundry after my trip, so to the laundromat we went.  Good grief.  All we did was wash three loads and it took ten dollars.  I feel sorry for people who have no other choice.  We brought the wet stuff home to dry in our dryer.  Yesterday the knob arrived, Dick popped in on, and we're good to go again.

On Saturday I had a glorious stay-at-home day.  That's when I did my long post about my trip.  In the evening we ran some errands.

Sunday morning we went to our 8:15 am service at Fillmore.  The choir did Dennis Jernigan's "Thank You, Lord."  I just love that song.  We did it at our Thanksgiving Eve service, but our guitar player had not been able to be there.  He says it has a Mo-town feel that he loves, so we had to do it again when he could play with us.

Then we went to Calvary.  They often use songs that are new to me, and that's ok.  But it's nice too when they do some old familiar ones.  At the end of the service they did the song "Hungry" from an album I had and loved in the late 90's.

Then the fun began.  We kept the boys in the afternoon.  It was TIME!  I had not seen that precious baby since my baby-less trip!!

Grandpa and Austin played some UNO.  Apparently Austin is hard to beat, but Grandpa did beat him in one round.

Austin could hardly wait for Hunter to wake up from his nap.  He just loves playing with him.

Poor Grandpa, haha!

On Monday we had the craziest weather.  Many, many times throughout the day it went back and forth between fast, blowing snow and bright sunshine!    Just bizarre!

I was here making stuffed peppers and salad for Anthony and Lori.  When it was snowing I would think, "I wonder if I'll be able to make it up their hill."  But then the sun would come out full blast and melt everything off the street.  Thankfully I had no trouble making it up their hill even though the sun had not melted it all off.

I want to share a few more pictures.  Recently Lisa was hired as middle school and high school track coach at Sophie's school.  It's a dream come true for her and something she has worked very hard toward.   I'm very, very proud of her.  Here's a picture with some of her track kids on her birthday last Wednesday.   Can you even figure out which one is the 43-year-old coach??

Jeremy was hired by Moso Graphics in Portland, OR two years ago.  He has been going out there from DC monthly and has grown the company and risen up through the ranks to the top.  The name has been changed to Moso Retail Environments.  At some point this year we will lose our boy to the west coast and that makes me both sad and happy.  We're so proud of his talent and work ethic.  Here's a picture from Furniture Market in Las Vegas last week.  

Today he and Mike are on their way to Tampa for a few days, and I feel jealous.  One of their friends is getting married this weekend.  They will (hopefully) arrive in time to watch Sophie participate in the first middle school track meet this afternoon.  How I would love to be there too!

Have a good rest of the week!