Events | Collect Create Circulate

Well hello there!

I hope you have all had lovely holidays, if you are in the United States we’re talking Thanksgiving, and if you are anywhere in the world celebrating Hanukkah! This year my husband and I spent our first Thanksgiving on our own without either side of the family, here in Ames, Iowa. We really didn’t make any plans, considering he would be away at work until around 5 p.m. that evening, we just didn’t know what would work for us. But then on Wednesday, Nov. 27 (our anniversary, no less) I was starting to become very bummed about being away from family and not making any plans of our own. So, I jumped in my truck and headed to the grocery store. I picked up all of the fixings for a full-scale Thanksgiving meal for 4-6, including enough to make 5 different types of pies! I was a little over excited maybe. I planned a menu of Cornish game hens, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, glazed carrots and pie! I also picked up a few Turkey breast chops to cook with the stuffing for leftovers.

On Thanksgiving, I fixed the apple pie in the morning and started the crock-pot with the turkey chops and stuffing. I managed to talk myself down from baking all five pies that day, instead, we will have a pie a week through Christmas! Then I spent the day relaxing until around 4 p.m. when I began working on the rest of the meal.

This was my first attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner and overall the outcome was great, granted there was no full turkey involved. As we move away from our family, I have found it’s important to begin creating our own traditions so that we have special memories, rather than another night of an average meal and television. So, following the meal, we built the tree, a silver tinsel tree inherited when my Grandma passed away last spring. But decided to wait and purchase new decorations to transform it into our tree the following day.

Again, I really hope you are enjoying peaceful and joyful times with your family during this special time of year. The winter brings us together in close proximity, like no other season. Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, appreciate those around you and share joyful experiences and hopeful wishes as we move into the new year.

xo,

On Saturday, my husband and I were lucky enough to both have the day off of work. It also happened to be the first Saturday of the 2013 Iowa State Fair. Originally, we had hoped to drive back to Kansas to visit a few good friends and see family this weekend, but life got in the way and we couldn’t make that trip this weekend. So instead we drove a little over 30 minutes to enjoy the fair.

By the time we arrived a little after 10 a.m. the parking was full and the midway was buzzing! We went straight for the typical fair fare, hand dipped corn dogs! I had the standard corn dog while Eli went for a veggie corn dog, I was shocked and pleased that there are a few more healthy options at the fair these days (though I did enjoy my pork corn dog!)

After our corn dogs we headed out in search of ongoing fair events and caught part of the dairy cattle show.

We then moved on to check out some of the other large animals. Including some sheep that had amazing curly wool.

We also saw this amazing elk, they are so incredibly huge! But not as “huge” as the fairs biggest boar which weighed in at 1,103 lbs!!!

And there was this beautiful bantam hen…

And an amazing balloon sculpture being built while we watched!

We finished our day with a healthy blooming onion and funnel cake… Guilt free day of the week!

After we headed home, we went to the public library for some free entertainment. I found some excellent quilting books and a calligraphy book and can’t wait to share some of the results! Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!

Erin Myone