Titles are Hard

I'm taking a little break from cooking to post before Thanksgiving--it's been a busy week and there is plenty to fill a post! Just to change things up a little, I'm going to work backwards.

Last week I mentioned our friends Ann & Lincoln Brunner and the articles Lincoln has been writing for ReachGlobal since returning from India. Toward the end of that week, Ann contacted me to say that they were going to spend Thanksgiving with Lincoln's family (who live in Las Vegas) and that Lincoln and his dad were planning to drive out to Bakersfield on Tuesday to meet with the pastor of our church and one of the deacons, and hopefully see us before heading back! So we decided to have a few people over for dinner so he could meet more folks while he was in town. It was so great to see them and I love that some of our friends here now know an old friend from back home! The only fly in the ointment? I have been kicking myself ever since I realized late last night that I had not taken ONE SINGLE STINKING PICTURE!!! What. The. Heck. I blame dinner for 20, but even so I had set the camera out so I wouldn't forget! Hmpf.

On Sunday we finally finished packing our OWN boxes for Operation Christmas Child as well as rounding up the last few from people at church.This is such a neat program--I just can't say enough about it!! We were both excited and privileged to coordinate at our church for the first time and collected a total of 74 boxes, more than we were expecting/hoping for!If there are more next year, we will need to recruit some help to haul them!
Backing up in the week a little more, Saturday night was the closing show of Chicago with the biggest crowd yet! Fun. And earlier in the day was the First Official "Let's Get Loopy" get together (ladies from church with their knitting & crocheting). I took these two talented ladies along with me and we had tons of fun!
On Friday night some friends invited us to a band concert at CSUB. We sat with Steve while Christy played the french horn--it was a great concert! They also had a couple of guest composers whose pieces they were playing, which was neat. We had a wonderful time, but couldn't join them for pizza afterward as Erik was trying to get to work and beat the snowstorm predicted for part of his route in the mountains. It's that time of year again . . . last night he had to take a long route around to avoid some roads where they were requiring chains; he got home LATE this morning.

On Wednesday, Theresa and Anthony were here! :-D On a side note, this is my new favorite pizza! Homemade crust with a little BBQ sauce on it, then some chicken (cooked with a daub of honey), sun-dried tomatoes, feta, fresh Parmesan and some sliced peppercinis . . . Holy Yum! Theresa needed to complete a science experiment in the kitchen before heading south, so I got to help. What do you think we did with these Common Household Ingredients? If you said, "Extract DNA" you're right--and I'm way impressed!

Yep, smashed around in the food processor with some salt and lowry's . . . combined with some dishsoap and finally some alcohol . . . the DNA begins to separate! See the little floaty things rising up from the veggie layer? These are the beans. As you could see above, we also tried tomatoes . . . and bacon . . . but the most impressive and dramatic results were from the peas!
That is a wad of DNA strands wrapped around the end of a toothpick! Kind of cool, huh? :-D
I hear Erik's alarm going off, so I think my break is officially over--back to the kitchen! I love you all and am so thankful for you!! Happy, happy Thanksgiving.

‎"Enter his gates with Thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."

Psalm 100:4-5