My Wish To You

...and safe travels to all!

Great Recipe In Time For Tomorrow!

Turkey Dressing

2 C. bread crumbs
1/2 C. butter

2 eggs

2 C. popcorn

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Mix all ingredients and stuff bird.

Bake at 350 degrees until the popcorn

blows the ass off the turkey!

The Fest

In spite of the weather tonight we ventured out to The Festival of Trees as we have on the night before Thanksgiving many of the previous years. Jill thought this Scrabble themed one was her favorite.

But I caught her looking pretty hard at one with lots of teddybears on it. Imagine that!

The most unusual one was decked out to look like an angel. Other than being somewhat conical in shape it wasn't looking much like a tree to me!

They were raffling off Santa's Workshop put together by the Woodcarver's group. It was a pretty neat little building where you'd look through the front window and this is who you'd see.

Again, in spite of the weather...we stopped at Olive Garden for supper and had Limoncello Chicken Scalloppini, a limited time offer and it was de-LICIOUS! Since I keep talking about the weather I might mention that inspite of having thrown down Ice Melt before we left it took two tries to get up the drive.

Now THAT'S What I Call A Vacuum!

Captain Clean came today and cleaned five years of soot out of the chimney. It was dirty but not horrible. I think if I did my Christmas cleaning with this I might not have any knick knacks left to clean!

Saturday Night 'Sit Part II

Angela and Darrick had a date night this weekend so we got to spend extra time with the girls. The popular thing was getting a piggyback ride.Cate was a tired little trouper by 8:00 but Claire stuck it out 'til her folks got home a couple hours later.

'Not Terrible' Is Good Enough

Today (in the rain!) we put the final screws in the railing on our deck. I'll have to wait 'til Spring to post a picture since we still have a set of steps and the stair rails to do. But just to give you an idea how long it's taken us so far....this is back in July when the heat index was over 100 (that's sweat turning my shirt dark)...

...and just the other day we were dressed in layers to ward off the wind chill.

With all the issues we ran into and concessions we had to make with the skills we have we decided if it doesn't look terrible then it looks okay!

I Give Up

The 2010 football season sure is different than 2009. Last year in our local paper's pick'em contest I was right 71% of the time. This year it's happened just over half the time. In fact, last week I had 10 wrong out of 14! My fantasy teams in '09 were 1st and 2nd place. This year I can't put together the right lineup for nothin'. I swear, the guys that are playing like crap and have earned themselves a spot on the bench suddenly have a reawakening the minute I sit them down. There was one week I had almost 80 fantasy points languishing on my bench! And the Vikings? Last year's regular season was 12-4. This year we'll be lucky to win four games! Sheesh!

Saturday Night 'Sit

Jon and Mindy may have had Pi pizza on their date night but WE got to have mac 'n' cheese! Between the three of us...Natalie, Harvey and me...we polished off a whole box. It's easy to do when Harvey has four helpings!

After supper Natalie was showing me some tricks to do with her scarves from Music Class... ...and some of the moves she does to the Kids Yoga video she has.

Harvey had his own little game he was playing behind me on the couch.

But I did get the two of them corraled long enough to get a group shot from the evening.

A Little Claire And Cate

Just a box of cereal you say?

Ah, but look at the prizes behind it!Everyday before we're very far into the day Claire asks "Jill going to come today?" Jill loves to visit and I think the girls like it too. It was confirmed when Claire flat out said "I like you guys!"

We love you girls too!

Whoomp! There It Is!

What started out as thick rain turned into real snow. First of the season.

We really need one more day, though, for a little final (for now) deck work. The other outside chores that haven't gotten done either won't or can be done when it's cold.

We Have A Winner!

After almost a week of goofing off now we've been getting down to the business of catching up and cleaning up for Fall. So blogging has taken a backseat. However, I've still taken time to make my daily entry in a Pillsbury contest and yesterday I won a month's worth of Toaster Strudels...four boxes!

It's probably not the healthiest breakfast but it's free!

This Is November?!

It was only 16 degrees when we got up this morning but it heated up quickly...warm enough to read out on the deck.

The shipping continues. There have been a couple that were moving to ports just up the line so they stuck pretty close to shore.

Either outside... ...or inside gives us a good view of the activity.

This one was headed for Silver Bay about dusk. Today a 1000 footer is coming down from Taconite Harbor so we expect him to be just right there, too.

Here's what we do sometimes while waiting for our ship to come in...have happy hour. Jill makes a mean Bloody Mary!

Snow, Ships And Sunrise

There are still remnants of the 7" of snow they got up here last week so this was our first of the season.

Shipping has been active. We've tallied 14 so far. Jill claims to be able to read the names on the side as they pass by the cabin (we do have a spotting scope) but it helps to know from the Duluth Shipping News boat schedule which one it might be.
Some of them are so big they can carry the smaller ones on top.

(At least it looks that way!)

Here's 1000 feet of ship passing through the Canal.

One thing we've noticed is that the Canadian ships don't seem to toot their horn to the bridge operator as they go under the Aerial Lift Bridge.
This is the lakeside view we get in the morning as the moon sets and the sun rises.

Lake Superior truly is a great lake!

Flashback To Halloween

We got to have a Halloween supper with Jon and Mindy and the kids on Sunday. We could figure out that Natalie was a butterfly and Harvey was a bee but we had a little trouble determining their folks' costumes. Turns out they were disguising themselves as two tired parents!

Don't you think the kids must have their dad's eyes?

A Little Vacay

Good morning from the North Shore!!

It's our annual November getaway to nearly our favorite place on earth...a week where we relax, read, chase ships, craft, game and cook. This year we also get in on the First Friday's program celebrating 100 years of the Split Rock Lighthouse. There'll be a presentation of Great Minnesota November Storms and Tony and Tricia will be joining us.

We tied last night's supper in with the arrival of a "small" ship (730 feet) into the Duluth Harbor.

He snuck right up on Jill!

Today Cher is on the hotseat for tonight's mystery meal. The only clues either of the other of us has as to what it is are the aromas and a casually mentioned ingredient or two. Can't wait!

Halloween Party

We had a little party with Jill's work buddies and their kids on Tuesday. Originally billed as a hot dog roast over the campfire, the Minnesota hurricane blew us indoors!

(Imagine what the rest of my group pictures were like when this is the best of the nine I took!)

Basketball Anyone?

This is the brushy stuff from our oak that went down.

I decided that's just too much to drag up into the woods to our usual burn pile so we hope to burn just behind the basketball hoop. The ditch is all cleaned up where the top of the tree lay except for two thick branches driven I don't know how far into the ground. I can't get them out! If my neighbor can't help me I'll probably just saw them off at the ground.

Mother Nature Has Her Way

What a difference two days makes! Remember the last post with our pretty maple in the front yard? Two days of gale force wind has thinned it out pretty good.

On the upside...I think it also blew most of the leaves somewhere else! There's less on the ground than I've ever seen this late in the Fall.

And back to the downside, I went out to get the mail today and saw brush in the ditch that wasn't supposed to be there.

One side of a large oak that had a big split in it went down and took quite a bit of split rail fence with it along with an evergreen. No huge damage, mostly just bothersome. But now we need to get the rest of it and the dead elm that's holding it up dropped to the tune of about $550.(So why in the world is she smiling?!)

Colors In The 'Hood

The neighborhood is quickly becoming drab and leafless but a couple of us still have maples about at their peak. These are just down the street from us.

And these are ours.

The ground is getting pretty well covered and there're still most of the leaves to come down yet. Maybe with the winds we're expecting the next couple of days it'll just blow 'em all to high heaven!