Homemade Applesauce

Oh, what a wonderful way to start fall around here! We took the bags of apples from Grandpa's house and decided to make homemade applesauce for the first time ever. Dana borrowed an applesauce-making sieve from her mom and we gave it a shot. First, we filled up Dana's HUGE sink with apples to wash them.

Then came the process of coring and cutting out bad spots. This step was the most time consuming but with me, Dana, and Vince, it went a little faster. Surprisingly, the apples from Grandpa's were way better than we thought and only had a few bad ones. Since they were grown without chemicals, we left the peels on for extra nutritional value and color. This was mine and Dana's pile; we eventually gave up on the corer tools and just grabbed knives.

Vince, on the other hand, stuck with the Pampered Chef apple corer and wanted to display his work proudly.

We then cooked the apples; it took 2 stockpots and one regular large pot to cook all the apples in.

After the apples were mushy, we started putting them in the sieve. All the kids had to take turns and it was a really neat "school" project for them. Vince and Dana started to show the kids how it's done.

Here's Dylan taking his turn with Matthew next in line,Then Faith,And of course little Joshie. Gabie, as usual, had absolutely no interest in what we were doing and was off in Gabie-land.

Everyone's favorite part was watching the applesauce just ooze out of the sieve. This step was a lot easier than I expected.

After putting them in containers, we discovered that we ended up with about 10 pounds of homemade applesauce. (Not all of it is featured in the picture below!)I was so impressed with the color because when you leave the skins on when cooking, the applesauce comes out a really neat shade of pink. We made apple juice with the leftover juice in the pan by straining it through cheesecloth into pitchers; it looks like pink lemonade but tastes like apple juice! The kids have already eaten so much of the applesauce, we'll have to go back out to Grandpa's soon before the frost takes all the apples!

Visit with Grandpa

This past Tuesday, we drove out to Grandpa's house for a visit to see how he's holding up. We hoped our company would get rid of the loneliness that might be creeping up on him and it's always so much fun to see what Grandpa's growing. The apple trees were doing great and Grandpa helped us get a total of 4 big bags of apples to take home. (By the way, these pictures were not taken under the apple tree. The kids had already moved on to the butternut and black walnut trees to learn about those.)
(I like this picture because my grandpa, who normally doesn't smile much, especially considering the circumstances, is smiling at the kids.) Dylan ate at least 3 apples before we even left there and asked for another one on the way home! We're hoping to try our hand at homemade applesauce.
Grandpa then decided to bless us with more good food and showed the kids how to dig up potatoes. The kids thought it was pretty neat that you couldn't even tell anything was growing there (aside from the horseradish) and with the twist of a pitchfork, voila!
Grandpa invited us back next week because he said he'd be taking out the tractor to dig up the rest of the potatoes. Speaking of tractors, the kids (and Pete) had lots of fun trying out Grandpa's new John Deere's!
We had a really hard time getting Gabie off of the tractors, but there were so many things to do that he eventually just moved on. Grandpa sent us home with a total of 4 bags of apples, 1 big bag of potatoes, a bag of tomatoes (including his famous cherry tomatoes), zucchini and cukes. He blessed us so much that I just hope our visit was half as much a blessing to him. Thanks to everyone who has been keeping him in their prayers.

Sorrowful Weekend

This past Thursday morning, I received a phone call from my sister saying that my grandma had a massive heart attack and hadn't survived. If you remember from my July posting, you'll know that I was so glad to have seen my grandma during our visit up here then. (Check July posts for a picture too.) You can imagine how much more glad I am now for that visit. It's been a tough weekend but we are happy for Grandma that she can shed that sick, earthly body and start the beginning of her eternity. She gave me so many wonderful memories that I will cherish forever and I will miss her deeply.

I am mostly writing this post, though, to ask that prayers would go out for my grandpa. It's difficult to imagine how hard it would be to be married for almost 59 years and then be alone. My heart is heavy for him and I just pray for God to give him the strength and comfort that he needs. May God intimately comfort my grandpa and each one of their children and all of us grandchildren as we learn to live without her. Thanks for your prayers.

A Successful (and once again temporary) Move!

We said goodbye to Oklahoma and all of our new friends there. There were some great kids in the neighborhood and we'll miss them lots! Here's Vince's friends Jordan and Paul.

Vince and his friend Paul got confused a few times because of how much they look alike. Here's the view from the rear. Can you guess which one is Vince?In the three months that we were in Collinsville, these boys had a great time.
It was extremely hard to say goodbye to Mr. Brian and the karate classes we were so blessed by. We will keep our prayers going for Mr. Brian's karate ministry. Check out his website to see all the places he's used karate to bring the news of Jesus to people in other countries:

http://www.combatteam.com/.

Here's Faith and her friend from karate, one of the karate teachers.

When we came down to Oklahoma, we had a 26-foot truck stuffed to the MAX with our possessions. I was a bit disappointed, however, that after having a couple of mega garage sales, we still ended up with a 17-foot truck being almost filled upon returning to Minnesota. I was hoping we would have had even less than that, but it's definitely an improvement. We kept a few big things like our mattresses and our couch and dining room set for our stay at our friend's house.As always, it was a long, hard car ride back to Minnesota. We finally broke it up over two days and stayed in a hotel in Kansas City. The kids are definitely getting used to riding in the van for these drives and it was a huge improvement! It was our best drive ever considering that and the fact that the weather could not have been better! When we arrived in Minnesota, we pulled up at our friends' house to see the sign they made hanging on their front porch:

They have been so welcoming that I don't think I'll ever be able to show my gratitude. For those of you that don't know, here's as much of the painting/vision that God has given us:

From now until at least the end of the year, we will stay in our friend's basement for free in exchange for childcare/homeschooling of their two little boys. During that time, we are to pay off all of our debts in accordance with God's word in Romans 13:8: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law." We decided that this would only be possible by relieving ourselves from the burden of a house payment/rent and all the utility bills that follow. Pete will continue to work in whatever states God calls him to and when our debts are paid, we will hopefully be able to pay cash for our next home. That next home, as God has revealed to us, will be the RV that He will use for us to begin our ministry and serve others across the country. Until then, we know we are exactly where God has placed us and will enjoy every minute of it. We are definitely going to miss all of our new friends in Oklahoma but will make sure to visit in God's time with the RV. We are looking forward to catching up with all of our friends and family in Minnesota while we're here!