TAMMY'S CORN CASSEROLE RECiPE

I was up in Spokane the last few days, (more about that later) and had something that was so good I had to put it into the Blog.  Tammy made this corn casserole that was scrumptous.

Here is her recipe that is similar to Paula's on the Food Network  (check the video).

One stick of Butter or margarine melted
2 Eggs beaten
8 ounces sour cream (one cup)
One can Kernel corn drained (15 ounces)
One can creamed corn (15 ounces)
One box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
Cheddar Cheese (optional)
Pre Heat Oven to 350 degrees.

1. Beat 2 eggs first.  Mix together with the Eggs: 1/2 cup butter (one stick melted), one cup Sour Cream, one can corn, 1 can creamed corn and the Jiffy mix.  Combine well

2. Spray or grease  a  baking dish or bowl,  Pour mixture into the dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (Could put cheese on at the end.. see video linked above)

3. Serve warm

This is yummy, Love Dad

EASTER, SPRING TIME IN THE ROCKIES

DEAR FAMILY,

It has been a beautiful weekend here in Salt Lake.  We have had so little snow in the valley compared to last year.  The fruit trees are in bloom and here is a shot from our doorstep.

It did not feel exactly like Easter As General Conference preceded it this year. The weather was wonderful and Spring is in the air.  General Conference was great as well.

T.  

Rebecca and her family came to stay on Thursday night.  On Friday, there was this gathering of many grandchildren for an Easter Egg coloring session.  Dozens of egs were colored and here they are taking a lunch break.

Saturday, we all gathered at Mike and Rayanne's house for their yearly Easter Egg hunt celebration.  They put a great effort into this event preparing a large brunch that is always so yummy.  Rayanne baked 48 New York style Bagels for the occasion and all had a great time.

I had a birthday yesterday and woke up feeling grateful for life and for the last 11 years since the open heart surgery.  We are sow blessed and grateful.

We had a visit from Kelsey L. and her husband from Indiana.  Kelsey was another one of our great sister missionaries and we had the most pleasant birthday lunch.

That evening, Madeline H and Paul Jr.  picked me up for a birthday dinner at the East West Restaurant down the street.  It was a feeding frenzy as the  kids came off sports and dancing practices.  The food was great and I love being around the kids.

Warlier in the week, we had a visit from Bequis C.  who was visiting from Boston and she brought her friend, Tom F.  It turned out that was her birthday so we had a little birthday dinner complete with Mom's famous cake as the birthday cake. We had a mini FHE and it was great to see her again and meet Tom.

There are about 23 birthdays in April so it is a busy month.  I leave for Spokane this afternoon for another eye injection up at Rob's clinic in Spokane,  It will be fun to see Rob and Eva, Jeff and Tammy and all the kids again.

We love  you all,

Dad

MUNICH GERMANY AUSTRIA MISSION REUNION

Dear Family,

Our Mission Reunion occurs on the Friday Evening before  Spring Conference as great untold number of missionary reunions all over the valley are being simultaneously held. We have been having them at our home the last few years as the numbers are dwindling with time and it such a pain to clean up the cultural hall of a Chapel.  Here is the gang after dinner with my former Counselor, Lutz Herber and his wife, Mom and Me (in my Bavarian leather vest).  Lutz said, "The only one there that looked like a Bavarian was an American!"

We  usually start by announcing the event on Facebook and send out invitations through Evite but we are never quite sure of the numbers coming. We thought there would be 40 but I believe there was more and little kids were invited as well.  They were enthralled with the Lion, Leopard, Crocodile and all the toys in the basement.

Brett Lameroux and others did the invitations and he organized many to bring dishes.  He thought that "pulled pork" sandwiches with sides would be a great meal.  I bought four "Boston Butts', brined two and smoked all four.  The flavor was great! Here is Brett and Michael C. pulling the smoked "butts".  Thanks to Brett and his team for all the help.

We had s short meeting, sang a hymn in German, (Oh Du Quelle Jedes Segens) and had everyone say what they are doing and giving a little update.  Lutz Herber, visiting Bishop of the Augsberg Gemeinde, mentioned current missionary work there which is different than when we were there.  Because of the drop in missionary complement, only two missionaries serve in any Ward.  Augsburg, a center of the Reformation and always an open minded city, was very productive and we had many missionaries there.  I spoke a little about missionary work in the Salt Lake Valley.

Sister Herber made some great Bavarian Sauerkraut mit Butter, Speck und Zwiebel. She came back from Conference on Saturday and had worn her Dirndl to conference.  She went into an automatic helping mode and was so kind to keep the food moving along and helped so much with the cleanup. We had such a great time.

I hoped no one notice too much but I was getting over a big dose of the flu and was a little like a Zombie but enjoyed the time.  

We took a picture of the group before too many had left.  Great time reliving a wonderful period of all our lives. Here are two who were companions, Heidi P. and Liza E., now college graduates and Moms.  Heidi has a agree in landscape architecture and chases an energetic two year old.  Liza received her degree in Bio Engineering and teaches early morning seminary while looking after a couple of rambunctious boys.  Both are runners by the way.

There were many others and it was so great to see so many.  So many are married and away from Utah pursuing jobs and supporting young families as time marches on.

Alles Gute

Mom and Dad

GUESTS FOR CONFERENCE

Dear Family,

It has been a busy and exciting week!!!

We had some great friends staying with us for conference and other meetings.

Here  is a picture of the group; on the left is Madeline Manwaring standing behind Larry Manwaring, on the couch is Mattt Herber, Gertrude Herber (his mother), The Mom and Lutz Herber.


I have written about the Manwarings before;  Larry was Mission President in Frankfurt while we were in Munich.  We went out together and visited often on the phone and in Mission President Training Seminars each of the three years we were out. After the missions, he has visited us and we have visited them on there farm in Virginia where we had great time hunting birds. Larry is an ENT surgeon and just about good at everything.

Lutz Herber and his wife live in Augsburg, Germany.  When we were there, he was the Bishop of the Munich 2nd ward.  He has been a Bishop three times and is currently the Bishop of the Augsburg ward.  He has also been a Stake President of the Munich Stake when they had Innsbruck and Salzburg as well.  He has been a Mission counselor three times and was my counselor as well.  They are a great and steadfast family.  Matt contacted me on Facebook and wondered if they could stay over conference and we were tickled to have them.  They stayed downstairs and the Manwarings stayed upstairs.

Everyone went to the LDS medical meeting on Wednesday evening for diner and listen to Elder Holland speak in detail on a Karl Bloch painting of the Savior at the pools of Bethesda and emphasize the healing mission of the Savior. Everyone had tickets to Conference (except for us) and all had a great time.  Larry took us to they great little Chinese Restaurant, "Little World" a couple of times where we had a great time as well.  We loved having our friends over and I had a chance to speak a lot of German for a few days.

We love you all,

Mom and Dad

BRIDAL SHOWER FOR JENNA ( AND JOHNNY)

Dear Family,

We had another event this last week.  Cheryl gave a shower for Jenna, who will marry Johhny H. in May.  This is the first wedding of the grandchildren.

Cheryl put on a very nice shower, well I think so although I do not remember attending a bridal shower int he past.  There were grandparents (Oma and Opa), both parents, uncles, cousins and friends.  I thought there was at least 50 there. Here is a picture of the older group.

Cheryl and others brought some goodies for the shower, pretty organic but very yummy with a salmon salad, hummus, spreads of all sorts, fruits and delicious desserts. It was well done.

Here is John H., Johnny (future bridegroom), Jenna (future bride), Jenna's dad, Chuck and Opa.  Johnny has one more year of chemical engineering before graduating from the Y.  He will do an internship with one of the large oil companies this summer.  Jenna's dad is a dentist.

Here are Madeline B., Madeline H. and Cathy, (their aunt).  Think there is a family resemblance?

Here is Opa with grandchild # 75. (Doug and Kristina's latest) She was cute, wanted to be held and was very well behaved.

The gals all pitched in and bought Jenna a yellow Kitchen Aid beater.  To celebrate this event, Suz baked these gourmet cookies, vacuum sealed each and shipped them u; from Arizona for the shower. Check her out on Facebook and hit "Like" if those cookies look appealing.

They all had a good time but after getting a quick bite and taking a couple of pictures, I quickly retreated to a distant room where Paul and I watched a movie. This was definitely a girl thing but all had a wonderful time. Nice work Cheryl! Conference next week and I cannot wait.

Love, Dad

TRIP TO SPOKANE

Dear Family,

I am a week behind in reporting on our trip to Spokane.

I went up their to se Rob and his opthamology group to improve my vision.  We flew up on a Thursday night and stayed at Jeff's.  It was great to be there again.  All the kids are getting bigger and  little Leo is talking up a storm.  Little Luke is also very verbal strong little guy.  I love our grandkids.

On Friday, Rob and I did some damage at a favorite store there in Spokane.  We had a lunch at a place featured on "Dinners, Drive ins and Dives," and then went to the eye clinic where I got the royal plus treatment.  I like going there as all are very professional and respectful which is something not found in all clinics.

Rob put me through the paces and found out that the vision had decreased since the last visit.  They decided to try intra ocular injection of a medication that cuts down on macular edema.  Rob did the injection and I did not feel anything.  We had dinner at Jeff's and Tammy must have cooked umpteen courses of her favorite recipes and it was so good.

Saturday was a fun day.  Tammy, Eva and Mom got out the magic mill wheat grinder and went to work,  They ground some wheat, used Rayanne's recipe and baked several loaves of great bread.  Eva is going to begin grinding wheat.

While that was going on, Jeff, Julius, Rob and I 
went to Rob's gourmet shooting range on the banks of the Spokane River and had a great time there.  We sighted in several rifles, had some pistol practice and just had a great old time.  My eyesight had improved over night and I was grateful for the improvement.

Sunday we went to Jeff's ward and attended the lesson he taught in Sunday School.  We had another great meal with multiple varieties of cooking excellence.  Board games were out again.  We had a nice Family Night.  You cane see the whole gang in the picture above.  Monday morning, I went back to the clinic where improvement in the Macula was documented.  I need to do this every month for three months.  The material injected usually cost $2000.00 a pop and hopefully the insurance will help out.  It is amazing how progress has been made.

Rob and I went to the range again to test out my eyes and sight in a rifle.  There you see three close shots at 100 yards with Rob's 308 grouped with my tired eye.  Not bad.

We had such a good time seeing Jeff and his family and Rob, Eva and their kids as well.  We never seem to get enough of our family wherever they are.

We love you all.

Mom and Dad 

MOAB MARATHON WITH CHERYL AND DOUG

Dear Family,

Had a spontaneous trip this weekend.  Doug and Cheryl signed up for the Moab half marathon.  This is one that Al and Mary did while they were at BYU. Cheryl and Doug rented this lodge for one night and in the last minute, Cheryl invited me to come along 15 minutes before they left.  I hurriedly packed and got into the car with Paul, Cheryl, Emily and Johnnie.  Doug took his entire family with extra friends in two waves.

This marathon is a big deal!  there were 5000 runners.  Cheryl and Mary are preparing for the Boston Marathon at the end of the month so this was good practice for Cheryl and was Doug's first marathon.  Moab is this little place that seems devoted to tourist trade, hiking, four wheeling, biking and rock climbing with special four wheel drive vehicles.  The town was packed and all these skinny kids were lined up in front of restaurants to get their carb overload before the race.  The town smelled like spaghetti sauce!

We all met at the lodge.  I was told that the race was a lower altitude than SLC but what I was not told, you had to climb 4000 feet to get to the lodge.  I survived the night!

Here is a picture of our runners before they left.  They had on their high tech stuff, wrist GPS, heart rate monitor, ear plugs for the iPhone, special belts for the water bottles, energy boasts.  So here is Cheryl, mother of eight, in her little running outfit complete with shamrocks (St, Patrick's Day) and Doug (noted vascular surgeon) looking chipper for the race.

Cheryl did not run for time but hung out with Doug as his running coach.  After two hours, here they are at the finish line.  Cheryl was very chipper and ready for another half.  Doug thought this was different than cross country in High
School.  I watched the runners come in, all these really thin people gasping for breath but looking fit.  I hung out a the EMS place as some of the older ones came in on stretchers and wheel chairs but all had a great time and I was proud of these two.

We drove around the Arches for a while while Cheryl called everyone and recounted the details of the run.  There is a science to this for sure and she seems ready for he big marathon in Boston.

We drove straight home and got ready for the next event of the day.  Madeline was is a dance group presentation at her high school.

Here is mother an daughter after the dance performance, Cheryl still glowing from her run and Madeline after her performance.

Well if we missed our family for three years while were on our mission in Germany, we are certainly making up for it now.

Next event is the visit of friends, missionary reunion and the Fathers and Sons post Priesthood meeting barbecue.

We love you all,

Dad and Mom