Merry Christmas from 1969!!!!!

Christmas Trees Shopping

Here are a couple of pictures from our tree hunting adventure. We missed Mckenzie this year, but she will be home on Saturday!! I talked to her last night and she said she wanted us to make a welcome home sign.. can someone help with that ;) Such a funny girl!!!

Singapore

Okay, now a couple of shots from Singapore. The trip was great, the class I taught went well, I just received my reviews and they were all excellent. I will put up a couple of pictures that I thought were just amazing! The first one is a temple, if you look at the sign in the front you will see there was firewalking on this day, the one below is where everyone just puts their shoes outside the temple.. amazing anyone can find them when they come out. Next is the famous Raffles Hotel, then a city shot and finally a monkey I saw when going through a nature center.

Pictures from one of the B&Bs

Ireland

Hello,



I tried to do this a couple of days ago, but must have overwhelmed the system with my pictures. I am posting a few pictures of our trip to Ireland, hard to believe that 3 months have almost passed since we went. But that is okay as now it doesn't seem like McKenzie will be gone much longer. She is doing great teaching over there and they have invited her to be a substitute teacher as well as a student teacher, so she will be ready for the sub track when she gets home.



We had a great time in Ireland staying at all kinds of B&Bs, driving on the wrong side of the road and facing off with a herd of sheep while driving along the coast. No kidding, we all stopped and stared at each other trying to figure out who was going to have to get off the road and who was going to pass. Eventually we won. I wish I had gotten a picture of it though.. it was crazy!



Kathy

halloween pics

I wanted to make a little journal entry in here. I just got home from going to a Baptist revival with my neighbor at her church. Every religion has a lot to offer. This preacher was a very vibrant, energetic speaker, his conviction shone through, he definitely knew that Christ can change a person if we let Him. I need to remeber to allow Jesus to show me the best person I can be.
-Amelia

FARMERS MARKET!!!!

I just wanted to keep the blog alive and thought a couple of cute pictures of Mikaela and her friend Maya at the farmers market would capture some interest. I love the 2nd picture, Mikaela looks like she is in heaven among all these wonderfuly sweet smelling girl things.

I just thought since the Kachers are such big fishermen, you guys would appreciate seeing what Grandpa Koko took Mikaela to do while we were in Utah. And, you're probably wondering-- No they didn't catch any fish, But Mikaela didn't seem to mind.

My First Lesson

Hello Everybody! I hope everyone is doing well. I just wanted to give an update. Today I got to teach my first lesson, it was a P.E. Lesson using the parachute. It went really well, except the students got a little out of control at some points, but that is to be expected during gym! I have never had to teach a P.E. lesson before so it was a really good experience. I am in a 4th grade classroom this week and next week I will be in a 3rd grade class. I will be switching between them as of right now, but I'm not sure I want to. I'll give it a try. I have all girls, which is different. They are all pretty chatty! Today in class one of the groups asked me to spell horse, so I did, but they said the only reason they asked me was because I say "h" funny! It was cute. They are all very interested in America and ask about it all the time. The teacher I am working with right now is very friendly and is giving me plenty to do! Starting today I will be teaching PE one day, science one day, history one day, and geography, on the other day! I'm really glad that she is letting me have the opportunity to teach a lot, it will be good to get all of that practice in!
I love the house I live in, it's really unbelievable and only a 10 min walk to my school! I live with 5 other people in a 3 bedroom house, so it gets a bit cramped. So far everybody is very friendly and we seem to get along well. We all went to the grocery store and found it a bit overwhelming, but I'm sure we will catch on! That's about it for now!! I miss everyone! - McKenzie

Update from the Dunhams

We are back from Ireland after an excellent trip. As soon as McKenzie has internet access from her computer she can email me pictures from our new digital camera (that she is keeping while in Ireland) and I can post them here. The trip started poorly as Mckenzie and Sam were sick, by the third day everyone was perking up and we were getting use to driving on the wrong side of the road. We drove all over the Island and saw the major sites including Connemara peninsula, which was along the Atlantic ocean, Galway, Cliffs of Mohr, Dublin, and Wicklow. More on that later.

Before we went to Ireland Lauren, Mike and I went fishing on Bush Lake, so I am putting some pictures up so you can judge for yourself the fishing skills of our group. Notice who is not holding up a fish… but he did come in very handy with the battery on our trolling motor got too weak to get back to the boat launch. Although he didn’t really want to get in the water and push ;)

SALSA RECIPE...



Let's see if I can write this so that it makes sense...



You will need:



One food processor

one bunch fresh cilantro

one lime

one medium onion, white if possible

one jalapeno pepper

about4-6 tomatoes



dice/chop onion into 1/4" pieces, rinse with cold water and drain.



In the food processor, put in:

approximately 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, washed and dried

the jalapeno pepper, just the outside stuff, not the seeds or "ribs" unless you like it very spicy

run food processor until finely chopped.



Add the tomatoes which have been cored and seeded (cut out core and squeeze out seeds) and cut into large chunks. PULSE food processor a few times until the salsa is the consistency that you want.



In a large bowl, stir together tomato mixture, onions, lime juice and salt until you like the way it tastes.





I hope these directions are helpful. Please call if you need more clarification. I will get together some more recipes and post them. Good luck and let me know how it turns out.



Amelia, I am so sorry to hear about your Grandpa Miller. He was such a great guy.

Tomato recipes...

So, as a way to get everyone to post on here, I'm asking for people to submit recipes that use tomatoes- either cherry tomatoes or any big tomatoes. Any kind! Our garden is providing more tomatoes than we can handle, we'd love to know your ideas of what we can do with them!

Thanks, hope everyone is doing well. And make sure you keep scrolling down to see all the new posts.

love

amelia

Mikaela has some news to share...

Yes, it's true Mikaela is a big girl now :)

Where is everybody!!??!

I keep checking and NO ONE is writing, so I guess I will need to. Well, it was back to school for me this past week. It was a fun week and easy because there was no teaching involved. i am looking forward to Tuesday, however as I have brand new kitchens at school, even if there are no chairs for the students to sit on and no projector for my powerpoint. The kids can stand and I will use boring old black and white overheads.

Amelia...what about your garden? I would love to post some beautiful pictures of my tomatoes but my digital camera is BROKEN! My garden is wonderful and the tomatoes taste excellent. I have made many quarts of fresh salsa and canned 25 jars of cooked salsa. Will that get me through the winter?

Nonny Pat begged and begged me to read a book called, Bringing Back the Streetcars. I am finaliy reading it and I think that it must bring back lots of memories from her youth. It is a good book and I enjoyed reading it and wondering about if this is what it was like when her and Grandpa (Mom and Dad, to many of us, of course) young. I think it must be and that is why it was important for someone to read it. I am glad I read the book.

It's late and I have to break this habit of staying up so late as my alarm will go off at 5:45 on Tuesday. I hope that everyone is still checking the "blog" because I think it is a great way to keep us all connected.

Love to everyone from Kari

Away we go...

I thought I better weigh in before we begin our great adventure in Ireland. This may be the last you hear from me as we will be driving across the island, on the wrong side of the road and I have great fears of falling off the ring of Kerry. I am going to take mom's advice and actual take a tour bus for that route. We are so not ready to leave, nothing is packed and we have all kinds of loose ends to tie up before we depart at 5AM on Thrusday. Oh well, I imagine I will have many stories and pictures upon our return.

Kathy

Good luck everyone!

It seems like everyone is taking off or starting new adventures either last week or within the next couple of weeks. So, here's Mikaela and Kacher packed away in a suitcase, saying to you all world travelers, and studious studiers- good luck in your upcoming adventures, and please fill us in, and KACH US UP on your adventures on this great blog site :)

Thanks for that post, Kari, I hope you read the comment I left you at the end of your post (just click on comments).

We're Home!!

Great job on the blogs updates and pictures, Amelia!!!! And the whole idea of course.

We just returned from our week at Broadwater Lodge. It was a great week but lonely as "the girls" were not there. We are counting on them for next year though, right, Kelsey?

Perfect weather, lots of sun and saunas, and good food too. We returned last night (well, 1:30 am) and knew immediately something was WRONG!!! The house was quiet, there was no longer a high chair in the kitchen, no more toys...Amelia, Mikaela and Kacher were no longer there! Of course, we knew they wouldn't be there, but it really hit us when we returned.

What a great week we had!!!! You could never imagine more wonderful guests to have. We had so much fun! Amelia's wonderful smile as she did so many activities. Who else would return from pushing 2 kids in a double stroller in 90 degree humidity for 7 miles around two lakes and say, "That was fun!!!!!!". What lucky kids to have Amelia for their mom.

Mikaela was more talkative and loveable than ever. I think I know where she gets her enthusiasm from. It took me about five days at the cabin before I miss hearing her voice whenever I was around kids. Whoever has spent a busy week with a three year old with NO tears or angry outbursts? Although, even if she did have angry outbursts and tears, she would be every bit as great. The world is much more amazing when you have a three year old around to share it with.

Kacher is amazing, what a mover!! Seems as though he will be walking soon. As long as he could see the dogs (and he can say "DOG") he was a very happy guy.

My house is empty and quiet and I sure miss my house guests. I hope we are starting a new tradition and I can look forward to their visit next summer. Thank you Amelia for being so adventurous and driving your wonderful children all the way to Minnesota!!! We sure love you!!! And we missed Tyler!!!

I will write more later, it is time for me to go to the Farmers Market. My refrigerator is empty and while I don't have my houseguests any more, I know that Kelsey is very busy with her first week of school and she will need lots of vegetables to keep up her studying...

One question...how do you know who is writing? For me, I will just say...

Love, Kari

B & B's wedding

Here's some pictures of Ben and Bonnie and their wedding, people were asking to see.

Book CLUB

So I don't want to force anyone to read Twilight... So here's some more book ideas of books I liked, please everyone add some ideas and let's pick one together!
-These is my words---- a young women's adventures in settling in the Arizona territory back in the 1800's (this is probably my favorite book of all time)
-Carter beats the devil---- a fun mystery
-A town like alice
-Mutiny on the bounty trilogy
-A gree grows in Brooklyn
-Jodi Picoult books are usually pretty good (my sister's keeper, vanishing act)

I know every one is going out of town soon, so maybe we should start up in september
let me know!!!
amelia

what a week...

What a great week! Lake Harriet, Burnsville water park, Historic street cars, malts, trader joes, more parks, lakes, runs, good food, and farmers markets galore... Thanks for taking such good care of us when we come, and especially making sure we have fun!!!

we miss minnesota !!!

Here's a quick blur of our week in MN, I tried to capture as many people as possible. This bottom picture was in St. louis park water park

in need of lunch recipe!!!

So---
We made it home safe and sound, I"ll post some good pictures of the trip as soon as my camera batteries charge. Thanks so much for a wonderful week. Our drive back was easier than I could have ever hoped for. Mikaela watched Cinderella, Dr. Seuss, Little Mermaid and others. When Kacher wasn't sleeping, he listened to the movies, and chowed down on multi colored goldfish, thanks to Nonny Pat. I was wide awake and so into my book on cd "Angry Housewives eating bonbons" that by the time we got to Chicago, we had no need to stop! So, we kept on driving through and did the whole trip in a day.
Actually, the reason for my post- I need ideas. I was inspired by my Angry housewives eating bonbons book, to organize a neighborhood lunch. I have 3 of my neighbors coming over on Friday for lunch, and I don't know what to serve?!?!? They are bringing things like spinach dip, and other appetizers- what is a good lunch that I could prepare? Please please please send your ideas your way, I know Kari is out of town this week, but you who eat with her a lot, maybe tell me something that she would cook.
Thanks for your help,
Amelia

Hey, is anyone out there? Congratulations to Amelia and Kari for getting this set up. I'm looking forward to getting lots of info from the family this way. \

Congrats to Ryan and Abbie on bambino boy! Looking forward to seeing them tonight at kathy's. Love, Sandy

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

here's the website where you can learn more about 'twilight'

if you get the book, make sure to have the entire day open because you will not be able to put it down until you finish!!!

WELCOME!!!

Hey Family
Welcome to our new kacher family blog! Kari & I (amelia) thought it would be fun to use this as an online family book club, as well as a place to post great recipes to share with eachother. But we can actually use it to do whatever we want- post funny stories, experiences, thoughts etc...
So, any ideas for the first book? I nominate Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, it's a trilogy, and the third book comes out in a couple weeks. These books are geared toward the younger reader, but are great for any reader. They drew me in like no book ever has before...
What do you think?
Amelia