LeDuc Christmas 2005 Video

Here is the video I made of our LeDuc Christmas 2005 visit:



Click on the picture to play the video.

Some pictures from Minnesota

Here are some pictures from Mom and Dad's in Minnesota:



And my personal favorite of Luke:

My Christmas Present!

It was the best Christmas ever! My Dean & Deluca breakfast meats. On the platter we have: Duck Bacon, Virginia Country Sausage, Country Ham, Maplewood Smoked Bacon, and Wild Boar Sausage!

Yum! 

Family shots at Christmastime

A nice collage of our family.
Clockwise from top: (1) Scott & Becky, (2) Eddie, Luke and Aunt Lucy, (3) Smokey, Ed, and Bob, (4) Philomene and Grandpa John, (5) Becky and Kathleen.

 

Collage of snowy fun

 

October 2003 pix of the boys

Kathleen had these great photos from October 2003 on her fridge.

Eagletree in Bloomer, Wisconsin

 

Ice fishing (3)

 

Ice fishing (2)

 

Ice fishing (1)

 

Early morning at the LeDuc's

 

Wisconsin Tractor

I really like this photo. I took it in Bloomer, Wisconsin, today:

 

Venison Dinner Presented

And here is that wonderful venison roast served up!

 

Christmas Videos

Here are a couple of Christmas videos.

The first is Eddie and Luke's Christmas Pageant at St. Peter's. They sang three songs:

Come Let Us Worship the King, Silent Night, and Praise to the Infant King.

The boys did really well and had been practicing all month.


Click the picture for the video.

The second movie is one Mom took of her wintery home in New Ulm. They're definitely getting the snow up there!


Click the picture for the video.

More great venison recipes

There's so darned many deer around these days, I'm thinking of going on a strict venison-only diet. I will single handedly cull the herd, reducing traffic fatalities and eliminating a nasty garden pest... all with my knife and fork!

Here's some great venison recipies from the March 2005 issue of Field and Stream:

The Wild Chef: Bring Me Your Venison

Andrew Sullivan in Time

Andrew Sullivan writes in Time about the further tightening of the Catholic dogma, and how it is incongruent with the examples set by Christ of grace, love, tolerance and acceptance.

He writes about it much more eloquently than I could:

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1137648,00.html

Christmas Venison Recipes

Some good recipes for the Christmas Eve table:

Venison Pot Roast (from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 1989 ed.)

2-3 lb venison shoulder or rump roast
(marinate with crushed garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2T crushed juniper berries, salt, pepper, 1/4 cup whiskey for 30-120 minutes)
2 T cooking oil
1 6 oz can tomato juice
1/2 c chopped onion
1/2 c chopped carrot
2 t instant beef bouillon granules
3 T flour
1/2 c sour cream or plain yogurt
4 c hot cooked noodles
-----
In a Dutch oven, brown meat on all sides in hot oil. Drain fat. Stir
in tomato juice, onion, carrot, and bouillon granules. Bring to
boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours or till meat
is tender. Remove meat from pan.

For sauce, add enough water to pan juices and vegetables to equal 2
cups. Return mixture to pan. Stir flour into sour cream or yogurt.

Add to pan juices. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Cook and
stir one minute more. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Slice
venison thinly; spoon sauce over. Serve with noodles. Makes 8 servings.

And Chef Sixto's Best Venison Sausage recipe is:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/outdoorskills/article/0,13199,578664,00.html

Christmas is coming

Christmas is coming, and we're getting ready for the holidays. Eddie and Luke enjoyed my company's Children's Holiday Party, with a visit from Santa Claus. Eddie wants a live snake for a pet (yeah, right!), and Luke wants a punching bag with gloves. Santa looked at me afterward and told me that I must have my hands full! Indeed, I do.



We also got out our Christmas decorations, which include this totally cool Christmas Train Tea Kettle. Becky found this kettle last year on the clearance rack, and she had always suspected it was lacking a stopper for the spout. So one day, she experimented with putting a wine cork in the spout, and Voilà!


Click the picture for the video.

Thinking of Dad...

I remember my father's old saying, "I don't believe in luck. You make your own luck." This morning, I read this Quote of the Day and thought of him:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

Smart words, wouldn't you say?

Belted Kingfisher

This morning, Dec. 10, at about 7:30am while I was walking Frank down by Catoctin Creek, I saw a Belted Kingfisher. I haven't seen one of those before. I first noticed his call, a rapid chirring, like a cell phone ringer. It was a call that wasn't familiar in my yard. It was perched atop a telephone wire directly above the creek, making all kinds of noise, and when I walked up, it flew a broad circle and came back to roost on the wire. He's still down there as far as I know.

Happy Hannukah

At their school, Eddie and Luke both got to go to the "Holiday Shop." They each took $3 of their allowance and used it to buy Christmas presents for each other and Mom and Dad. It was a cute way to give them a little responsiblity, and the boys really enjoyed the gift giving. They were so excited, we had to open the gifts last night.

Luke was so excited, he could hardly keep the secret of what he got me.

"Dad, I'll give you a hint. It's two things in one," he proudly said.

So I guessed, "Is it a gumball with a liquid inside?"

"No, but keep guessing."

So I did, trying hard not to really guess the item so I could still be surprised. As it turned out, it was a combo tape measure, bubble level and keychain. So I told him, "Luke, it's three things in one!"

He snatched it out of my hands, examined it, and walked off with it enjoying "my" new tool.

Eddie and Luke both gave little Christmas tree ornaments to Becky. From Eddie, for Christmas no less, I got a bag of marbles and a dreidel! The dreidel is pretty cool. It's a real wooden dreidel with golden letters on it, and it only cost him $0.50. What a thrifty boy!

Eddie then gave Luke a stuffed snake plush animal, which was patterned like a jaguar. Luke liked the jaguar pattern, but was not otherwise really into snakes. Eddie then became sad that he didn't get the snake for himself. So Luke let him play with it. Luke, incidentally, got Eddie a green dreidel too.

The boys had fun with their gifts, and once Eddie calmed down about not getting the snake, we all enjoyed the toys very much.

This morning, Luke wanted to play with the dreidel, so I got onto eHow.com and we looked up how to play with the dreidel. We also had to look up the Hebrew alphabet, because we don't read Hebrew either.

There are four letters on the dreidel: shin, nun, gimel, and heh. But it's funny, my dreidel didn't have a shin on it. Only what looked like a peh. So I think I got a bum dreidel.

I instructed Luke to run up and grab my pocket change, and we divided it out and played a hearty game with the dreidel before I went to work.

Of course, I lost. I always do.

National Museum of the American Indian

We visited the Smithsonian's NMAI. It's a very nice museum, beautiful architecture, and very interesting (yet sad) inside. Clearly, it's been created by Indians. It comes across almost as a Holocaust museum, which I suppose, sadly, is exactly what Native American history is. But as such, it didn't have a lot to keep the kids entertained.

Our favorite part was the cafeteria, where you get to sample native foods from all over America, North and South. I had a black bean-filled tamale with plantains and yucca. Becky had a chicken burrito-thing with a wonderful pine-nut, tomato, pumpkin, and golden raisin fruit salad. Eddie ate a buffalo burger, and Luke ate "All-American" chicken nuggets. That's really my favorite way to explore culture... through their food!

Here's some photos.

Christmas is blooming

It's Christmastime, and Becky's Christmas cactus is blooming nicely.