Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene came and went without much of a fuss. We were very lucky. The power only cut out for about 2 hours on Saturday night. I later found out we are in Zone 1 which is high priority since we are located between the jail and courthouse. Lucky us!

Saturday was very windy and rainy but not too much it wasn't until we hit the backside of the hurricane that we got more flooding. Because of the direction the wind was blowing much of the water from the sound was blown inland. It's slowly receding though.

The kids were suppose to start school on Thursday but because of mandatory evacuations on the Outer Banks they cancelled school Thursday and Friday. It was cancelled today as well since there are still many roads that are flooded. I guess we'll have to wait and see about tomorrow.

We did loose our big tree that the treehouse and rock climbing wall were on. So sad! It was in the wet part of the yard and the top of the tree was dead. I think the weight of the tree pulled it down as the ground became saturated with water plus the strong winds. Thankfully it fell back into the 404 so we can take our time cleaning it up after the area dries out. I'm guessing it'll probably take at least a month.

Yesterday since church was canceled, we had a small sacrament meeting in our home with a family that live in an adjoining neighborhood. I gave a short talk on service and then we changed and went out into the neighborhood to help others that had trees down in their yards. We helped about 8 other neighbors with cleanup and had 5-6 households out helping at the time. It was nice to enjoy serving our community with others that were not of our faith.

Serving our fellowman is so essential to our being disciples of Jesus Christ. We have had some tension in our neighborhood over the past year about some dredging proposals and it has left many with hard feelings. I was saddened to see some neighbors continue to harbor hard feelings and willingly help some neighbors but not all. It reminded me of the sermon on the mount in Matt 5: 44 & 46 when Christ tells us

"45... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

46. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?"

It gave me much food for thought so that even in our unusual Sunday activities I had spiritual food for thought.

Do you like Greek Yogurt? I do!

July was busy with Youth Conference, Girls Camp and Creativity! Each was fun but I didn't take pictures of much except for the creativity.

A couple of weeks ago the I taught the girls I work with in Church how to make these cute flip flops. They were so adorable! What do you think? I got the idea from the Make it- Love it site.

Noah had asked for "Army" PJ's so I decided to use my silhouette to make some awesome heat transfers army cutouts for the shirt. The bottoms I made using a old pair of his PJ's and tracing it on some paper.

He cracks me up with his hand on his hip. I did not tell him to pose like that it was all his own doing. I'll probably do some more like this for the fall. He really liked the shirt and the way it turned out.

After hitting the big 4-0 this June I decided to try to contain my sweet demon by eating only 1 sweet thing a day. It has been hard but I've been doing well until Noah asked to make donuts last sunday. I had been wanting to try a recipe for Beignets. They are similar to donuts but shaped differently. Still fried yumminess. I decided to glaze some of them. You're suppose to powder sugar them and I did do some like that too but I preferred the glazed.

I did feel a little guilty about that because this week I decided to try to make my own Greek Yogurt. I like Greek Yogurt because it's thicker than your typical yogurt but usually cost $1 a carton for like the single serving!! More than I like to spend so I wanted to see if I could do it for cheaper. One site said making it yourself was about 10 times cheaper than buying it. It was so easy and such a success, I ate it for breakfast the rest of the week with mandarin oranges and way more of Amy's granola than is on there in this picture.

I mean look at it!!!

Do you want to know how to do it?

I know you do....

This is all you need :

4 cups whole milk ( you can probably use 2% it just might not be as thick)

1/2 cup dry milk

3 Tablespoons plain yogurt

A two quart thermos

First you take your milk and stick it in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

Stir it and microwave for apron. 3-5 minutes more. You want it to reach a temp of around 180-200 degrees. The milk should be bubbling around the edges of the glass bowl.

Pull it out of the microwave being careful not to burn yourself, and let it cool on the counter until it reaches between 105-110 degrees.

At this point mix your dry milk, yogurt and about 1 cup of the cooled milk in a bowl. After throughly combined, add it into the other 3 cups of whole milk. Whisk to combine well then pour into the thermos. Cap and let stand on the counter for 6-8 hours. Be sure not to jar or move the thermos.

(If you like your yogurt tart then leave it for the longer time-

the longer it sits the tarter it gets)

After you have done that dump it out into a mesh sieve with cheese cloth in it over a bowl and place in the fridge to thicken overnight or 8 hours. This is where it gets so cool!

After that time much of the watery whey will have separated and you have your super thick Greek Yogurt. Whisk again to work out any lumps. If you want to eat it plain go for it but popular way to eat Greek Yogurt is with Honey so you can pour over as much or as little as you like or if you like fruit just use jam to flavor. I also read that Greek yogurt is a good substitute for sour cream. Give it a try and let me know how it turns out!