Winter Wallop!

Here in Oklahoma we have had plenty of excitement over the past few days. Wednesday the local news channels began a constant barrage of warnings concerning a winter storm that was heading our way. Being the strong willed people we are in Oklahoma, most of us would normally take these warnings with a grain of salt. But after the amount of damage we saw during the Christmas Eve storm this year people were a little more willing to prepare for the worst.

On Wednesday afternoon Jed and I noticed that the store parking lots in town were packed with people stocking up on water and food. We also heard reports that any stores selling power generators were sold out. Of course we giggled a little to think that after all this panic the storm might not even affect our area.

There was no need for the giggles. The storm hit Oklahoma Friday with a vengeance. Areas to our north got lots of snow but the worst part of the storm was the freezing rain that knocked out area power grids. Our power in Frederick went down Friday at 4pm and we quickly realized that with no heat and no lights it's no fun when things get dark around 5. Jed and I have been staying with his grandparents for the past few weeks so we did have some company. Needless to say we didn't let it get us down. We wound up spending about 3 hours playing dominos by lantern and candle light. If you haven't tried it believe me its much more fun when you really can't see your hand.

Around 8pm our power came back on and there was great rejoicing heard throughout the land. Still we knew that it might not last so we turned the heat as high as it would go and headed for bed. Sometime during the night, probably around 1am, we lost power again, so the house was nice and chilly by the time we woke up. We made some phone calls and heard from a very reputable source that there were about 20 miles of power line down between us and the next town, it would probably be 3 or 4 days before we would regain power.... and it was getting cold. Luckily Jed's grandparents have a wood burning fireplace and plenty of food so we invited some friends over, and sat down to a game of cards as close as we could get to the fireplace.

To make a long story short we were without power all day Saturday but it came back on much earlier than predicted and everything was up and running by late Saturday night. We were very lucky to be where we are. Jed's family in Tipton has a generator now but their power is not expected to be back until later this coming week. Family in Elgin, OK have had to leave their house in the country because their power has now been off for 2 and half days and their house was down to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Right now we are counting our blessings and enjoying the electricity.

My Dad is in the Paper!

A few days ago my dad along with a few others left to aid in the relief effort in Haiti. The story ran in the local paper in Deleon, TX. You can read about it on their website the story is near the bottom of the page and is titled, "Area firefighter heads to Haiti".

Listening to Christmas Music

I love Christmas! All year long I look forward to when I can finally turn on Bing Crosby and spend all day making sugar cookies. I don't know what first sparked my intense love for this holiday. Maybe it's the fact that all the "crafty" ( crafty in the Hobby Lobby sense not the negative connotation) ideas I get all year long suddenly seem completely called for. There are cookies to bake for the next door neighbors, holiday cards to make, not to mention those hand made Christmas gifts that I'm sure no one can live without. Oh and a house, or in our case two houses and a car to decorate. This week my list includes making hot cocoa mix, two brand new quilted stockings, a knitted scarf, and cookies for a party at the elementary school.

Pumpkin Pie

Do you have a good description of pumpkin pie? I found out last weekend that trying to describe the taste of pumpkin pie to someone who has never tried it was quite difficult. Really what does pumpkin taste like?????

Because it is really hard to find canned pumpkin here in the UK (although I've been told not impossible) most American's just bring cans with them or beg someone from home to send one for Thanksgiving. Always ambitious, I set out to make a pie from a real pumpkin and with the help of the great Google was able to do it without going crazy. Basically you prepare the pumpkin the same way you would a squash and then just blend it for smoothness. After that the steps are about the same as using a can. It did take some time (would have been less if I had steamed the pumpkin instead of baked it) but it was really satisfying to free myself from another cooking limitation.

Now we will show our English friends what pumpkin pie really tastes like.

A few weeks ago we received news that we are going to have to return to the states and wait for our visa to be processed here in the UK. As you can probably imagine this has been a very tough time for us but we have been well supported both by the church here and everyone in the states. If you would like a little more explanation you can read our official letter on our website by clicking (or copying) this link:

http://web.me.com/lovejoysinmorley/Lovejoysinmorley/Furlough.html .

So we will be returning to the states on November 2nd which seems to be almost flying towards us. Please keep us in your prayers as we wait for this to get sorted out.

Look Mom! No measuring cups!

It's been quite a while since I've been able to post because during the flurry that was our youth weekend I managed to get sick. Then like any good girl with out insurance I tried avoiding the doctor for a few days and finally had to break down and go (found out it costs me nothing to go to the walk in center here and I could make an appointment so all I paid for was my prescription which only cost 7.20 pounds if you wondered. Try doing that for under 10 dollars in the states... that's for another blog) .

I have thoroughly explored and been won over by the metric system in my kitchen! "GASP!" I have for the past 3 months been trying to navigate both my American cookbook measurements, and the measurements I get all of my food and any new recipes in. Now, don't get me wrong I have nothing against my cups but I have found some very nifty uses for the grams and kilos I get here. Luckily I was blessed enough to find a digital scale in the house when we got here so my first attempts at "British" cooking weren't too painful. But since then I've improved a bit and learned to use the scale to it's full advantage.

For a girl who loves to bake, as you may well know if you've read my previous posts, I have spent an awful lot of time washing up the multitude of cups and half cups and measuring spoons that my baking leaves behind. The wonderful thing about my scale is that now I can simply lay down a sheet of grease proof paper (or baking parchment, or cling wrap) set the scale to zero and spoon on my first ingredient to where I need it then dump it in the bowl I'm using. The great part is that I can use that same paper to measure all of my ingredients because I won't be dipping it into anything so when I'm finished all I do is ball up the paper, put it in the bin, and go on about my merry way with no cups to clean. Or... Or... and I really love this one... I can set the bowl on the scale and set it to zero measure in my first ingredient, then set to zero again and measure in my second ingredient and so on! Hooray!!!! That is, as long as you carefully monitor as you put things in the bowl other wise you wind up trying to scoop sugar out and all you get is flour and ... well I'm sure we've all had that moment.

As wonderful as my new scale is I really don't see anyone in the states really wanting to figure out how many grams are in a cup of flour. Believe me I've tried and even with the internet it's not fun realizing that every ingredient has a different weight and most of the conversion websites disagree. So until Betty Crocker goes metric I suspect the joys of no measuring cups will escape most of us. On second thought I don't think I would trade my picture cookbook for any newfangled one no matter what the benefit. Supplement, maybe but not trade, it's a matter of tradition :)

The Best Laid Plans

A very small shot of one of our lessons during the youth weekend

Well, the Morley youth weekend has come and gone. I'm sure everyone has experienced at least one event in their life that could not be planned for enough and youth weekend is one of those. Every year Morley hosts a weekend where youth from all over the UK come and enjoy some uplifting speakers and fellowship with other Christians their age. It is, as we would say here, "absolutely Brilliant!". There are quite a few churches of Christ in the UK but they are much more spread out than in the states, so youth weekends are a great spiritual shot in the arm for some of the kids who come from smaller churches and might not have a large group of Christians their age to interact with on a consistent basis.

Morley typically has one of the largest youth weekends of the year for a few reasons. First, we are the first congregation to host a youth weekend after the summer break so the kids are anxious to see their friends from camp again, and second, we are one of the most centrally located congregations when you consider all of Scotland and England. Because of these and other reasons our relatively small congregation has to put in a lot of work to make things happen. Still, despite our building bursting at the seams and our fears that it might not all come together the youth weekend is always a huge hit with the kids. This year we had about 90 kids who arrived anywhere from 8pm to 1:30am Friday night and stayed with us through Sunday afternoon. Figuring out housing is always one of the most exiting parts of the weekend. The boys all bed down in the church building with their sleeping bags and just forego showers for the weekend, while church members open their homes to the girls. I think we shared about 40-50 girls and maybe 6 drivers between 7 houses. The ladies of the church also managed to provide two dinners and two lunches for about 120 people with all the drivers and members from Morley included. I was so amazed to see how God used the congregation here to provide such a positive weekend for the youth. An event this size could really be a pain to host but because of hard work, willing hearts, and a lot of prayer and help from our Father the weekend went really well. It was a great testament to what God can do when his people trust him to provide.