Stop and take time to smell the flowers...

even if it's in a home store and the flowers aren't real - it will make for a really cute picture.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Today I got an urge to make Grandma Ketchum's Lemon Meringue Pie.  This is such a great recipe that we used to have every Thanksgiving.  Grandma would make it the day before, and it would be sitting on the washing machine out of the way of all the other food, along with a couple of pumpkin pies.  I haven't thought about the trouble that Grandma would go through to make pies for us, but I thought about it today because this pie is a PAIN to make!  Well, it's just a lot of work, and I'm not that good at it (as you can see by a sunken crust on the right and the strange meringue shape).  But, to my credit there were two power outages this afternoon that I was also having to accommodate.

But... it did make me think of a couple of funny lemon meringue pie stories that we've had over the years.  Once when Ryan was trying to make this pie he mistook the egg whites that we had separated out for the lemon juice (they do look alike) and added it to the filling instead of saving it for the meringue.  He realized it just as he was pouring it in and the mixture was turning into something resembling scrambled eggs.  We ate the pie anyway, and it was fine.

Another funny pie incident happened when some friends were over and I had a fresh pie shell cooling in the fridge.  We were all standing around ready to assemble the pie and then eat it warm when I accidentally  hit the pie plate against the door of the fridge.  The pie shell fell onto the floor and broke into a bunch of pieces (but luckily not the pie plate)!  We all just looked at the floor and then looked back at each other.  I said, "I just mopped the floor this morning."  So we quickly gathered up the pieces of the crust, put them into a casserole dish, poured in the lemon filling, and put the meringue on top.  After a few minutes in the oven and a few minutes of cooling we ate the pie with four spoons.  That was a great night!  (Thinking of you Derek and Chelsea - sorry that you're sick this week!)

Rat: Take 2 (or is it 3?)

We caught another rat.  This one has been scavenging through our kitchen ever since we were on vacation this summer.  We think it was also the one that was in our attic, and ate through a couple of toys in Brenna's room.  Seriously - I HATE RATS!  So, now that we've bleached everything in our house and caught the rat, we're resting a bit better.  That is... until the next one shows up.

Funny

This is a video that was taken of Addie when we were in Colorado this summer.  We were having dinner at a park with friends, on a very windy evening, when Addie started this "production".  It's pretty funny!

Cross Country 2009

Okay, okay... I know you're all wanting blog updates.  This school year has been absolutely crazy (all 2 months of it), but I do have a few things to post of our life here in India.  The Hebron School cross country race was on Ryan's birthday this year (Sept 5th), and here are a couple of pics so you can see Lauren and Brenna during their race.  I don't know how long the route is, but I think it's over 2 miles up and down hill.  The girls did a great job!  Brenna came in first place for the girls in her age group again (here she is crossing the finish line).  She especially loves running - where did we get that girl?  Lauren had a strong finish with a great attitude.  She is definitely her mother's daughter, and I was so proud of her for persevering through the entire thing.  Way to go!

What Could Be More Fun Than... COUSINS?!

Here are some pics of our recent visit to the US.  One of the highlights was getting to be with Abby & Micah and Gregory & William.  What fun!

It's been a long, long time...

Hi Everyone!

We're back in India after several weeks of traveling all over the US.  We had a great time with family and friends, but we were so happy to finally get back home!  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting pics of our travels, but not today.  All of the boarding students return to school today, and classes start tomorrow.  I've been back in Ooty for over a week, and have been working in the clinic like crazy.  India is in quite a state right now because of influenza, and even though it hasn't reached international news (because it's not new to the rest of the world) it is creating a lot of panic around here.  Needless to say, it makes my job a lot more difficult.

Well, enough about that.  You'll be glad to know that I got all of the rat poo and pee cleaned out of my kitchen cupboards.  And we were able to find places to put all of the stuff that we brought back from the US.  The girls were really happy to be back in India, which we didn't really expect but it has been really great.