Spiced Nuts for the Holidays

Special Christmas and New Years holiday treats include Spice Nuts. In testing, made a modification to the recipe that makes a nicer finish to the end product. The basic recipe is 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg add 2 tablespoons Karo or other corn syrup. Dissolve over low heat when melted and blended. Add a 2 lb container of Deluxe Mixed Nuts plus 2 cups of walnuts. (you may want to rinse the nuts if they are salted the water will not hurt them or the mixture) Bring to a boil and cook until all the water is cooked off stirring constantly until the nuts are coated. Remove from pan to a foil covered heat resistant surface and cool. Keep stirring so that the nuts do not stick together.

By adding the corn syrup it keeps the mixture from over crystlizing and make the coating stick to the nuts better.

Friends gather for Christmas lunch at the Briarwood in Golden, CO

Amid all the beautiful antiques the Baxter, Glassers, Berlins and Lockwood gathered together for lunch. Talked about our kids that all grew up together.

Operation Christmas Child

After 4 hours of working on the Samaritan's Purse Christmas Child project. With Lee , Barb, Robyn, Sandy, Larry, Kelly, Kieth and Gary being a hungry bunch so we all stopped at the Outback for a bit (big bite that is) before we drove home. It was a very fast paced assembly line of checking boxes, taping, sorting and re-packing them to be shipped out. All the boxes we worked on were going to Mexico.

More Snow Caedmon helps shovel

Over night we got about 10 inches of new snow and Caedmon wanted to help shovel the snow off the deck...... but just like his mother and aunt Tiffany he had to....... jump in it.

Christmas Lights are up

First snow of 2008

It snowed all day and now it is sticking to the roads.

First real snow fall of the Season 2008

It was only about 4 inches but the pictures make a
good black and white study.... looks like time to
take down the fall flowers. It did not even stick
to the roads just made them very slick.

Thanksgiving at the Cole's

The following are pictures of Thanksgiving at the Cole's, we start with Jerry the cut-up, then Nancy giving instructions, Barb and Matthew, Michael, The Wong's and Kara, A wonderful concert from Isabelle, Rachael, Nadine Wong, Rachael and Cosette making faces during Isabelle's solo which was to good to miss, Then on to Nancy's annual decorate the gingerbread houses, then the adults played domino's, Cora and Kammi were showing Mike and Sara how the do their karate moves.... yes Sara and Mike made a gingerbread house too.

Replacement wheels

Finally found a replacement for the GMC it is a Chevrolet Trail Duster

The color is Moondust (a light blue silver )

Trip to Casa Bonita

When Leif Heggem with daughter Amanda and son Erik came to visit the Howell family they all decided to go to Casa Bonita. For over 30 years Casa Bonita has been a Denver attraction for Mexican dining and entertainment ( western shoot outs, cliff diving and Kara's favorite gorilla). Here some of the pictures. Kara has pictures of their trip to the Butterfly pav. and the airplane museum.








Fountain in front



Caedmon and Cozette ready to race









at the table










Watching Bad Bart



Headed for Jail

Lief pushing ore cart

Howells by the pool

Cozette with a smile

Actually Kammie wanted a picture in the ore cart
but every one else tried to get in the picture.

Remember them

Today we discovered we were low on some items that required a trip to Sam's. Now most of you know what it is like to go there on a busy day but we needed some supplies so we went anyway.

Wel-l-l-l-l-l-l as if planned the first people we ran into that we knew was Phil and Lynne Pickett and Matti...... then who walks by but Donni then here comes Rick Dolfinger.

So-o-o-o for the next half to 3/4 hours we stood and talked about all of the various things the families were doing. Sean is a sophomore (and over 6' tall) , Lauren is a junior, Kati is (not sure) Matti is in 6th grade. Allison then bring up the last of the Pickets.

It was a good time and then the check-out was really fast, like a walk through in less than 2 minutes.

Will have to plan another reunion in 09 with all the daycare clan.

Art lessons with the Howell crew

Cora is creating a wind circle drawing using spokes to connect the inner and outer circles created using the blue roll of tape as a guide. Cora is very creative with colors and likes to make complete pictures.
















Kammi is using a protractor to create her wind circle with ovals between the inner and outer circles. She learned how to intercect at 90 degrees and how to mark off each 10 degrees.
















Caedmon "the speedy one" Started with basic instructions and completed the wind circle and colored it completely as instructed, he was the first one done. Even putting on wind lines to show movement. He added a ground line to anchor the drawing and even included a sun to shine on his picture.

All three did a great job.

The four Peterson children

Gay, Carla, Frank and Robyn (the line up)

Can you guess which 2 are seven years apart?

How many years total ----- 255

If one was 90 and the others less (with a 5 year gap)

How old were the other two?

1. LaVois on Right

2. Margaret

3 Lynn

It was a great party with lots of food.