It's been a while

Picture 1: Making chocolates

Picture 2: Byron helping!!!

Picture 3: Our new additions: Spooky & Jasmine"

Well, I've not been very good about updating our blog. A lot has happened since my last post. Alisa and Brandon both had awesome performances at school. Brandon found out that he made the district team for the soccer Olympic Development Program here in Missouri. The state tryouts were supposed to be this past Saturday, but unfortunately we had really bad weather and it was postponed. The tryouts were rescheduled for this coming Saturday, but because of all of the freezing rain, it is doubtful.

Yes, we have had some bad weather. All of the schools in the area were cancelled today because of a huge ice storm that was supposed to be coming through. Fortunately, the temperature is currently at about 32 degrees and we mostly just got rain and not freezing rain. However, it is supposed to continue into this evening and they said the temps may be dropping again. Byron was supposed to fly to Florida for a conference this morning, but all of the flights out of KC have been cancelled. He rebooked his flight for tomorrow morning (his birthday), so we will see what happens.

I had a very busy weekend. Mom, Erin and I made LOTS of chocolates and other goodies. Erin and I worked on making the fondant on Thursday. We made 3 batches of vanilla cream, 2 batches of coconut cream and 1 batch of raspberry cream (my favorite). We also made 2 batches of orange fudge. On Friday and Saturday, the three of us, along with another friend, worked on dipping the chocolate. We also made 3 batches of peanut butter balls, 2 batches of turtles, 2 batches of carmels with pecans, lots of nut clusters, and a batch of bonbons. The roads were so bad on Saturday that Byron had to go pick up mom in our 4X4 truck because we didn't know if her van could make it out here. The roads are always worse out here because our long driveway and the two roads that lead to our house don't ever get treated. We had a lot of fun making everything, but decided to wait several years to do a big bunch of items again. It was a LOT of work, but yummy. On Sunday, we put together about 80 boxes of goodies to share with friends and neighbors.

We also have two more additions to our family. We got two kittens from some friends of ours to help with the mice outside (at least that's what Byron says). They are very cute and the kids love them. The are currently staying on the porch because they are so small and the weather is so yucky, but they will eventually stay outside with their home in our old shed.

We are all ready for Christmas. Byron sent most of our packages (I still have a couple to send out) last Saturday and I sent out all of our Christmas cards. We didn't put out any lights this year because the weather has either been really cold, snowy, or rainy.

I will try to keep everyone updated every couple of days, but I'm not promising anything.