Time Keeps On Ticking....

     If you said "Steve Miller Band" give yourself 1 point. If you saw a new bird today you may have some ice cream. More on that later. It has been a long time since I've blogged and if I may say so...Hello Dan...R U? (a little peer pressure to my brother). My last blog was in March and we went to Denver for John Paul's baptism. Since then we went to S.D. to the church camp we attend and spent the week with Ashley Alex and family.  Painted the addition in our house, hung new lights in the kitchen, cut down 1/4 of the big tree in our yard and have tried to go birding every weekend. Ashley and Alex and family came up to Lincoln for a week. Cindy and I had a great trip down to N.M to see Jim and do some birding (we had ice cream). And James Michael Rosser arrived to much answered prayer. So Orlando here we come in 2 weeks! We are so excited for that!

That is the high-lights for the summer that is quickly slipping by...so here are a few pictures.

At the Air and Space Museum. SR71 plane way cool which we had in Okinawa
Japan when I was there.



Fun in the sun.

Jumpers are a good thing.

Three beautiful boys.

Happy Grandparents.

Welcome James!

Another blessing from our Lord.

Birding in Thoreau N.M.

Flycatcher. Rule for the "Big Year" is if you see a new bird you get ice cream for that day.

Beautiful country.

I talked Cindy into climbing onto these rails to take this picture. A train came by
about 2 min after we stepped off.

Michael at the children's museum after hearing about our adventure on the railroad tracks.

I can see NE from here.

Mt Taylor.

This picture doesn't do it justice but our rental car struggled to climb this 11000 foot hill.

An ancient volcano.

Jim. A Bull Rider.. My inspiration.

Jims studio and sculptures.

Jim told us a story about each and every sculpture.

The Cranes. Thank you Lord.

Rocky Mountains.
 

One thing leads to another

While shopping for groceries today I noticed all kinds of cool grain choices near the flour.  Are they new (to the store at which we usually shop)?  Or, did I just notice them when assessing my choices of whole wheat flour?  Bob's Red Mill®.  There must have been 20 different cute 16 oz. packages from which to choose. 

I just got back from Denver.  (I had a wonderful week with Ashley, Alex, Michael, Liam and John Paul!)  Ashley makes the most amazing banana bread.  Doesn't taste a bit like it.  (movie line - guess before you look!)  Lots of cinnamon and cardamom.  And flax seed.  Bob sells flax seed!  But, thinking Mike might not like the seed-like seeds in his baked goods, I picked flaxseed meal. Bob is also good at marketing.  While checking the nutrition facts (4 g fiber in 2 Tbsp) I noticed the bran flax muffin recipe.  Which calls for oat bran.  Hey, Bob sells that, too.  While at the checkout line I remembered that I'd been wanting to find recipes that a friend of ours can eat, who comes to the UPT meetings we host at our house, as she is gluten intolerant.  As our checker was checking us out I quickly ran back and picked up rice flour to use in the muffins.  (I didn't seen any in Bob's assortment, so picked up Hodgson Mill brand.)

Bob's recipe for bran flax muffins:
1 1/2 c unbleached white flour
3/4 c Bob's Red Mill® flaxseed meal
3/4 c Oat Bran
1 c brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 c carrots, shredded
2 apples, peeled and shredded
1/2 c raisins (optional)
1 c nuts, chopped
3/4 c milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix together flour, Bob's Red Mill® flaxseed meal, oat bran, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Stir in carrots, apples, raisins (if desired) and nuts.  Combine milk, beaten eggs and vanilla.  Poor liquid ingredients into dry ingredients.  Stir until ingredients are moistened.  Do not over mix.  Fill muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake at 350°F for 15-20 minutes.  Yields 15 medium muffins.

Cindy and Mike's alterations:
Substituted rice flour for white flour.  Used 3/4 c brown sugar instead of 1 c.  Left out the salt.  Used cranraisins and left out the nuts (as they were not desired by one of us).  Added 1/2 tsp cardamom.  According to Ashley, anything that calls for cinnamon is better when you add cardamom.

How did they turn out?  They are a little weird but delicious.  They didn't rise.  I've never baked with rice flour, so maybe that's the reason.  They seemed a little hard to get done (took the full 20 minutes plus maybe a few more in my oven that usually cooks things quicker than the recipe indicates).  But, they are very tasty.  Remind me both of carrot cake and zucchini muffins.

And, four grams of fiber per serving of two.

Too Much Time On My Hands

If you said Styx...then you do have too much time on your hands. If you are holding a grand child in your arms then you are blessed indeed.

Cindy and I went to Denver for John Paul's baptism and that was a blessed time.




The littlest Crane.



Entering the family of God.



Matt and Jamie God parents.



Michael

A rare picture of boys holding fairly still.



Proud grand parents.

Happy grandpa.

Cindy went back to Denver for the week to help Ashley as Alex went back to School. So What do I do with my time here?

Making bread.

 

 

Playing games.

Editor's note: File Photo...all cleaning really takes place the day Cindy arrives back home.

jW

Watching basketball.

Big painting project down stairs.  



Spring cooking is here.

Hope your spring has sprung and is going well.

I Want to Fly Like an Eagle

If you said "Steve Miller Band" give yourself 1 point. If you have a picture of an eagle in a nest give yourself 2 points. Oh that's me!

Dene' and Tyler came  to Lincoln for spring break. Yes you heard me right...they came to Lincoln Nebraska for spring break. They may have been the only two in the country here for spring break but we were happy and blessed that they did. We watched a lot of college basketball and even did some birding. Those two activities may not sound like they go together but we enjoyed them both.




Cranes in Kearney

Snow geese.

More cranes.

Bird apparel.

Saturday we took Dene' and Tyler to the airport and Cindy and I went birding at the Desoto Wildlife Refuge, north of Omaha, looking for eagles. Success. 

Here is what we saw at the Desoto Wildlife Refuge:
16 eagles (1 eating a fish on the ice, 12 flying, 2 in a tree across the Platte River, and 1 in a nest)
(3 eagle nests)
Canadian Geese
Snow Geese
1 Red-winged blackbird
1 Wild turkey
1 Downy Woodpecker
Common Merganser ducks
2 Franklin's Gulls
1 Double-crested Cormorant (is this a duck?)
We heard a Black-capped Chickadee (which caused us to pull over, it was so loud, which led to the Turkey and Downy Woodpecker sightings) and a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

On the way home we saw a Northern Harrier and a Red Tail Hawk.  We had to chase the hawk around a little in order to make the ID.  He wasn't too cooperative.

We also sighted 2 wineries: "Too Far North" in Ft. Calhoun (near the Northern Harrier sighting) and "Cellar 426" in Ashland (just south of the Red Tail Hawk sighting).  We didn't stop, but thought of Team Lead.

Eagle in a nest
 

A pair in a tree
 



Flying over head
 

Elusive Red Tail Hawk

 
Next week we are headed for Colorado to check out the Stork sighting at the Crane house.

Bob the Sled, and Other Life Lessons

We shamelessly stole our blog title from Ashley's recent blog, Bob the Cow, and Other Conversations.

Cindy and I have been enjoying the Winter Olympics...late into the evening I might add. Curling to bobsled, skiing to skating with a good amount of hockey and all other events. If it's on we've recorded it and I've watched it. Here are the top 10 life lessons we have learned:

10: Try and stay up-right. (Unless it's the luge or skeleton.)

9: Stay out of trouble and out of the crowds. (Watching the snowboard and ski cross...it's crowded with a lot of bumping.)

8: If you fall...get backup again. (We've seen a few crashes that still finish in the medals.)

7: Be a good sport. (Watching a 4th place finisher congratulate the 3rd place finisher is amazing.)

6: Smile...someone is watching.

5: Life is not always fair. Watching a short track speed skater-snowboarder-skier-get knocked down by another and there is no recourse. (Life is seldom fair.)

4: If you win the gold...great...you were the best/fastest at that moment...anyone can beat anyone at any given moment. (Have a little humility.)

3: Only one person  gets the gold. (A personal best is a good thing.)

2: When someone/something throws a stone in your path, if you can't knock it out of the way, find a way around it. (Who said curling isn't worth watching?!)

1: As you go careening down life's narrow, curvy path, all jobs are important, whether you are steering, braking, or just dead weight.  And, when things crash (and they will at some point), don't make a rash move (e.g., stay in the bobsled until it stops) and be thankful when you are able to walk away.

Christmas by the Numbers

15: Days we were able to spend with our kids!

4: Grand kids. Michael and Liam and Ashley due in March and Dene' due in August!

31: Football bowl games we watched. Dene' BIG winner of bowl picks!

1:  Gingerbread house.

1/2: Cords of wood we burned in 2 weeks.

4: Puzzles put together...2 by Alex with a little help by the rest of us and 2 by Michael all by himself.

2: Batches each of sour dough bread and banana bread.

10: Gallons of milk.

36: Loads through the dish washer.

12: Loads of laundry.

1: String of lights eaten by the squirrels.

Countless: Cookies and snacks.



Lots of story times with grandma.



Michael helping Tyler clear the snow.

Two guys relaxing.

Bundles of joy.

Beautiful.



Merry Christmas.

Great tie.

Happy Grandma and Grandpa.

Liam practicing his walking.

Great gingerbread house.



Christmas movie or football game.

Merry Christmas

and Happy New Year.

It's Not Complicated

It has been awhile since I've blogged. I can't think of any excuses that are clever or true. I wish I had been making fudge 3 times but that excuse has been taken. Speaking of fudge...isn't a "fudge recipe" an oxymoron? Fudge, by the very definition, isn't it suppose to be bent and changed...you know ...fudged. (See the fudge maker here.)While I loved your blog Dan you would have gotten extra bonus points for sending samples and not just a delicious picture.

But I digress. From what topic I haven't decided yet.

Since video chatting with family last Saturday, something Nancy said has stuck with me..."don't kill yourself trying to slow down," at least that is what I heard. Our lives are busy and can be stressful but enjoy the moment. I tell my daughters not to wish their lives away by looking too far into the future. Whoa...we're getting a little cheesy.

Speaking of cheesy...Cindy and I had the privilege of fixing lunch at the Matt Talbot soup Kitchen today. We work with a team a few times a year there and December is always our turn to cook. Cindy makes the best "monster" cookies each year and we made Sloppy Joes and macaroni and cheese from scratch. We practiced making the  mac and cheese using 3 types of cheese here at home a number of times before today - to get the proportions right. A little tip...mac and cheese serving 5 is a little different than mac and cheese serving 150. Try melting 30lbs of cheese on the stove top in some milk and cream. The sloppy joes and 40lbs of hamburger went well though. The kitchen has this giant skillet that makes cooking fun...another oxymoron for some, I know. Cindy did the conversions...how much is 30 tbsp. of minced onion anyway? (Side note to Dan...no trying it 3 times today to get it right....)

We got a Christmas tree the week before Thanksgiving. Kind of early, I know, but 1) the trees were out there, and better in our house being watered than sitting at Home Depot in their parking lot and not being watered.  2) We went to S.D. for a wonderful Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad and family and wanted to get a tree before we left. The tree was drinking almost 12 cups of water over-nite before we left for S.D.  I had these thoughts of rigging some mechanism to water the tree while we were gone...I didn't follow through. Tree dry when we got home...tree not drinking now...needles falling off if you look at them too closely. We don't normally decorate our tree until Christmas Eve...but I did an emergency decoration of the tree when we got home to keep from touching it later. Good idea.

Our new favorite saying is "It's not complicated". Have you seen the AT&T commercial with the guy around the table with a bunch of kids? The commercials are cute but the tag line "It's not complicated" is pretty true, from a common sense point of view. Say something true...then add..."It's not complicated."

Love one another.  It's not complicated.

Make fudge until you get it right.  It's not complicated.

Listen to your wife.  It's not complicated.

Get a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving...but don't stop watering it. It's not complicated.

Mac and Cheese from scratch for 150...wait...that is complicated!

Enjoy...just don't touch.

Cindy and I are keeping you all in our prayers. Have a wonderful Advent and a Blessed Christmas.