Friday the 30th: Belleville

 Picture 1: A spire dedicated for the New Millenium that represents our prayers going up to heaven.

Picture 2: The outdoor ampitheatre for Mass with several beautiful chapels underneath and a stylized M on top for Mary. 

 

 

Thursday the 29th: Food of the Week

 *Friday will be Pasta with Roasted Vegetables (pepper and broccoli). I'm hopeful it will be tasty.

*Today will be Miner's Steak. This is one of the husband's favorite recipes, and I'll serve it with rice.

*Yesterday the Husband made macaroni and cheese while I went to a concert in Lenexa.

*Tuesday the Son made crock pot chili from Betty Crocker. It turned out wonderful!

*Monday we ended up doing a pizza and leftovers. We had accumulated quite an array, and we're really working this week on working them down.

Below are the cookies we made this week for Christmas: Chocolate Almond. They are delicious. 

 

 

Wednesday the 28th: Chores of the Week

 *The Husband took PTO Monday through Wednesday this week, so after getting back from Dallas/OKC, he's been shimming doors, changing furnace filters, filling car tires with air, getting grocery money for the month, helping me figure out an e-check, etc., etc.

*I still hope to work on a desk and phone this week.

*Today I'm taking a nephew to therapy and then taking a niece with me to Lenexa to hear my previous choirs in their first concert of the year.

 

Tuesday the 27th: Our Lady of the Snows

 *Today's photos are from the Shrine of Our Lady of Snows in Belleville, IL, just over the border from St. Louis. The first pictures is the one that inspired the priest to minister to those in isolated communities, and the second is from the Father's Garden on the grounds.

 

 

Friday the 23rd: St. Louis Arch

 We saw the arch, toured the museum underneath, visited the gift shop, and then took an hour riverboat cruise down and back on the Mississippi. The cruise was pretty disappointing, partly because there's not much to see on that stretch of the Mississippi other than bridges. 

 

 

Thursday the 22nd: Food of the Week

 *Tomorrow I'm making pasta with a pesto sauce. I have a basil plant thriving outside and I want to use up the plant before it gets frost bitten.

*Tonight we're having sausages, potatoes with dill and parsley, applesauce, and sweetened sauerkraut. It's our version of an Oktoberfest.

*Last night we had chicken rice with buttery onions from Smitten Kitchen. The rice took longer than the recipe said, but the finished recipe was quite tasty. The picture below is the pumpkin muffins I made for Christmas.

*Tuesday the Son made a buffalo chicken Cobb salad. While it was good, there were a few too many differing ingredients: the buffalo chicken, black beans, avocado, celery, carrots, romaine lettuce, blue cheese, and a creamy buffalo dressing. I still enjoyed it.

*Monday I made a sweet potato and turkey chili in the crockpot.  It was surprisingly good, thick, and we have very few leftovers.

*Last weekend it was my mom's turn to host family dinner, and she made roast and potatoes to have for my dad's birthday with an Italian cream cake.

 

 

Wednesday the 21st: Chores of the Week

 *Hopefully tomorrow I will call the dentist to schedule new appointments after getting the old ones cancelled last week.

*Still need to work on desk and phone; this will just take me a while.

*I still need to get rods or decide to make the ones we have here work. Paint still needs to be bought.

*One new thing this week is to make a "house chores" list for the Husband so he knows what the new priorities for the fall are to get done on weekends.