Main Dish Recipe

I owe you a blog update post... it’s on my list, but here’s a favorite main course at our house:

Crockpot Potato Soup
6-7 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
4c broth (I use either veggie or chicken)
onion, if desired

Cook in crockpot on low for 8 hours, or high for 4 (low yields the best results).

To finish:
Mash potatoes with potato masher or mix n chop.
Add 2 cups cheddar cheese, let it melt in.
Then add 1/2 cup heaving whip cream. Stir all.

Serve with extra shredded cheese and bacon bits.

The Dairy-free version finishes at mash potatoes. Sprinkle Daiya cheese on top and let sit so it melts.

Hello from Fountain St.

We have had visits from Andrew, Katie, and Theo for the fair and meeting relatives,
Hannah and James for Kate and Tyson's wedding, and Tim's family for his birthday and Thanksgiving.

Tim played with his student Aiden for a concert in Winfield.  We went to the dress rehearsal as I had a bell event at church the same day.

Samuel and I planted a fall garden.  It includes strawberries,  cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.  We have little cauliflowers on some of the plants!

We enjoyed pasture work day.  A HUGE tree had fallen over but didn't totally break off.  We think it must have been wet at the time.

Our back yard was pretty this year as the yellow sweet gum and the red maple both had their best colors at the same time.

Samuel and I made spring rolls one day.  They turned out pretty good but they are a lot of work with chopping all the veggies and getting the rice paper just the right softness.

Samuel attended a theory class as Southwestern to see if he could concentrate for that length of time.  He is considering taking a class.

I also finished Samuel's advent calendar!!!  I think I will take a break from those for awhile:)

Erik has arrived back from his semester at SEA.  You can read some of his adventures at the ship's blog or look at his face book page. 

Best wishes for your Advent and Christmas preparations.

Love from the Shooks

Thankful for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Break is here! We celebrated James' birthday on the 17th to kick it off. We'll be at the ranch outside of Blanco, TX on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving with James' extended family. On Friday, our good friends Danny and Jerry are getting married and on Saturday we will celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. There are so many things to be thankful for! Here are a few of them in pictures.

Awesome orchestra kiddos. Here is a bus selfie with the orchestra peeps that attended a youth concert at UT's Bass Concert Hall. Fifth House Ensemble gave a live performance of the soundtrack to the video game Journey, conducted by the composer, Austin Wintory. The game was projected on a screen and a gamer played as they performed. The musicians used iPads and foot pedals to turn the pages.

Family - Grandma and Grandpa at Kate and Tyson's wedding! What an amazing weekend. We're so blessed to have such an extraordinary example of unconditional love in Grandma and Grandpa. May Kate and Tyson find that theirs grows stronger and deeper with every passing minute.

Veggies from Johnson's Backyard Garden. We get a CSA box from them each week, so we were excited to attend their open house in late October where we got a tour of the farm on a flat bed pulled by a tractor. Our last CSA box had collared greens, spinach, cilantro, cabbage, broccoli, peppers, and beets. Yum!

Austin - a pic of downtown from the UT football stadium

Longhorn football - We've enjoyed cheering on the team this season! There have been a lot of close games.

Community performances. I took a small group to perform at Round Rock's Chalk Walk Festival. It's a fun community event in downtown Round Rock and the students had a blast!

Backyard Gardens - Giant Swallowtail larvae on our lime tree

Nephews - We took Ian (left) and Alexander (right) to the San Antonio Symphony's performance of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

beet hummus - easy to make and a beautiful color!

 

Kitties - Rimsky and Duncan watching for squirrels out the front window

The outdoors - James ran a 5K at a local vineyard.

Sunshine - Hook 'Em Horns!

Sending lots of love from Texas! May your Thanksgivings be full of friends and family and yummy foods. We miss you!

Hannah and James

The Chris and Theresa Givans

Since our last post, we've:

1. Moved houses
2. Stayed in our current jobs (Chris at the library, Theresa at the Cosmosphere)
3. Built and baked some things

1: We moved into what was Kate and Tyson's house on west 13th avenue since the mortgage and utilities were less than our rent in the apartment. Thanks to the parents' help we moved pretty easily and then Theresa's parents helped us repaint to match our aesthetics. Father did drop a washing machine down a set of stairs and onto me. But I turned out fine.

Excuse the lighting.

2: I think there was a job opportunity I was feeling hopeful about in our last post, but each one of those has turned into nothing so I know whatever one it was, it came to nothing. Next up is one application to the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, where Theresa and I previously met the hiring supervisor in a professional capacity; one interview at Liberal's Mid-America Air Museum because they responded favorably to my unsolicited inquiry; and volunteering at the Combat Air Museum because they appreciated a proposal we had sent them previously but could not afford us so we'll use it to improve our portfolios/resumes.

The fancy inquiries I'm sending out, because that's what I've come to.

3: Theresa's been doing lots of baking for Kate's bachelorette parties and wedding (120 cupcakes + 4 cakes!). I built a pirate ship for the library, which disguised a donation bin. It also needs a home now so if anyone is dying to own it, I'll gladly pass it along. I'm now building a cutaway of the nose of a B-24 Liberator in the basement in preparation for the interview at Liberal since they were a base during WWII—I'm using it as a demonstration of my skills, an experiment in rapid prototyping for museum content, and because the ability to cheaply build a Liberator may appeal to the museum since they don't have one of their own.

The stand is actually made of palettes from our reception. Using them also meant there's less to carry out of our basement :P

Construction of the pirate ship

Completed ship + sails

An old cutaway + 3D model of my current project

Theresa and I also went out to Denver for her father's birthday (on Oct 28th) and we saw the total solar eclipse back in August! Here's two difficult to understand pictures of that:

The eclipse at totality, poorly captured.

Instead of staring at the sun through our glasses the whole time we also had a mirror, shielded by an envelope, projecting the eclipse-in-progress on the side of the house we were visiting.