Fasnacht (Doughnut) Evening

Every year my friend Michelle has a Fasnacht party.  She grew up around Pennsylvania and her family would eat  fasnachts on fat Tuesday. Fasnachts were made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter, which were traditionally fasted from during Lent.
I just love this little tradition of Michelle.  Come to find out that Fasnacht is basically a Spudnut doughnut and I made these with  Manine a couple years ago. Last year I helped Michele roll out the doughnuts and cook them.  This year I offered to help her with making some dough. She was going to have about 60 people over for Fasnaucts this year

Michele, Tina, and Brooklyn.  The cooks are in their aprons and ready to go.

Michele made 5 batches of dough and I made 2 batches of dough.
The kids and I started Rolling out the dough 

That is a lot of doughnuts to roll out and cut.  But We totally did it!!! 

First two batches of Doughnuts

Tina Sarah, and Michele.
Here we have a lot of the doughnuts.
Notice the ones behind us.  There were so many doughnuts.  As soon as we cooked the doughnuts
they were dressed with all kinds of different toppings like chocolate icing, tang, pink lemon aid, cinnamon and sugar, key lime glaze, chocolate and powder sugar, and any other kind of topping you could want.  They have had strawberry drink mix what ever you want.  The kids sure have a good time putting the doughnuts in the brown paper bag and coating the doughnuts.  What a super fun tradition.  I can't wait to continue with this super fun Doughnut party.

Learning how to cook Korean Food

We had a great time at our District Relief Society Korea Themed Activity.
I signed up to learn how to make Bibimbap. It's a signature Korean dish.   The word Bibimbap means "Mixed Rice" it's served as a hot dish. The bottom is a fried white rice, with lots of seasoned vegetables. there is also a red paste and sauces you put in the pot you top it off with a raw for fried egg. You can put meat in it or leave the meat out for a vegetarian dish. It's delicious.  It's so fun to learn how to make a yummy Korean dish.

This is what we will be putting in our Bibimbap.  

The presentation of the Bibimbap is so important.  You have to start with the rice on the bottom of the hot bowl then you add the meat.  And the veggies have to be placed just right.  You can't have two reds together or two yellows they have to be layered on the rice just perfect. *** Note you have to cook the veggies separate. and make sure you cook the carrots last so that the colors do not mix.***

All the veggies are placed and looks so yummy

Now you cook the egg and place it in the middle.  Our lunch is complete.  YUMMY!!!!

The next cooking class I took was learning how to make Korean Dumplings.  You can have Mandu which is a steamed dumpling or you can fry the dumpling and that is called Yaki Mandu.  

Here are the ingredients for the Mandu.  There is Tofu in this recipe.  Crazy!!!  I've never like Tofu but I love Mandu.

Look at all the yummy ingredients. Cabage, Carrots, onions, tofu.

After you blend it all up it looks like this.  It doesn't smell very good.  

These are the little shells for the Mandu.  

You take a little spoon full and put it in the wraper.

There are two ways to shape the Mandu.  the half moon or you can connect the corners to make a cute little shape.  I'm not sure what it's called. 

It's so fun to meet and learn from some amazing Korean Women.

Here are the Mandu being steamed. 

Here are the Yaki Mandu being friend.  They are soooo yummy

After my two cooking classed I learned a Korean Kraft.  It's called Hanji Paper Craft.
this craft is made from mulberry paper, 

Here is my fun little Hanji Paper Craft.
So much fun.  I love learning about this great country we get to live in.

Girls Weekend with Crystal

Crystal and I left our husbands and kids to have a fun overnight trip in Seoul.
We stayed at the Dragon Inn in Yongsan.
We left home around noon on friday.  We drove to Seoul.  We had a couple really good conversations and just enjoyed each others company.  

After we checked into our hotel we headed out for dinner.  I was trying to find this indian restaurant  but alas I couldn't find it so we opted to try this Thai Restaurant.  

It had the funnest environment.  I love the lights.  

This was the door on the way into the restaurant.  How fun is that?  So cool

This was a free drink.  I'm not sure what it was.  

Crystals Dinner

My dinner

After dinner we did a little bit of shopping and went to Jamba Juice and got a yummy smoothies.
We went back to the hotel and got in our bathing suits.  We took our Jamba Juice down to the pool and spent the next hour sitting in the hot tub just talking.  We had the whole place to ourselves.  It was pretty awesome.
We closed the pool.
We went up to our room and started making some fun cards.  We stayed up until 3am.  You would think being away from the kids would allow us to sleep in.  Ha ha ha...  We had a great time craving and talking all night long.

The next morning we ate breakfast and went to the Orphanage.  We spent 2 1/2 hours snuggling, feeding, changing and loving on 20 infants.  I fell in love with one little girl.  I asked if she wanted to come home with me.  She put her little hand on my check.  It was so sweet.  I named her Jaclyn Marie.  I wish I could have taken her home.  She was just precious.  She had the roundest little face and the cutest little eyes.  She was so adorable.  What a fun experience and what a fun time.  I love snuggling these little babies.  I think I could have a weekend like this every month.  

Scripture Study "Hope"

This months topic on Hope we learned a lot.
Kayden learned Hope is another way of saying Faith.  Hope can help you through your trials. We have to have hope and faith.
Brooklyn learned Faith and hope go hand in hand.  You can't have one without the other.  It's important to have hope during our trials.  It will help keep us on the right track.
Chandler learned if we do n to have hope we can not have faith.  Hope is not something you can see.

We studied a couple scriptures stories on Hope.

~The Parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15:11-24
The story is of a boy who had made a lot of bad choices and was afraid to return home to his family because he was afraid they wouldn't want him.
 The message of this story is the "Hope" we have in the amazing Atonement that when we make bad choices we can always repent and return to our Heavenly Father. He loves us and wants us to return.  Just like this boy's father wanted him to return home to him.

~The Life of Job found in Job 1-42
Not all our trials are because of our own sins.  Sometimes we have trials to strengthen us by overcoming them.  Job had everything taken from him his home, family, health, food, etc  He never once denied his testimony he never once cursed God for this trial.  He knew everything was going to be okay and Job was blessed 10 x what he had because of his faithfulness.

~Mormon and Moroni found in Mormon Ch: 1-2,7 and Moroni  Ch: 9
They both had hope that one day their decendence might be saved through the power of the Lord. These two great prophets showed us the importance of keeping our hopes alive even in the darkest of circumstances.

~Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail found in Doctrine Covenants section 122
Joseph Smith taught us a lot about Hope during his life.  Joseph taught us that Hope and Faith go hand in hand.  Each building up the other.  Through our faith in Heavenly Father and the Atonement of his sons Jesus Christ we can fain hope to drive away all despair.

As we continued our study of HOPE a song kept running through my head by Michael McLean
called, "Hold On"

The message of this moment is so clear;
And as certain as the rising of the sun.
If your world is filled with darkness doubt and fear,
Just hold on, Hold on; the light will come.

Ev'ryone who's ever tried and failed
Stands much taller when the victory's won.
And those who've been in darkness for a while
Kneel much longer when the light has come.

It's a lesson ev'ry one of us must learn;
That the answers never come without a fight.
And when it seems you've struggled far too long,
Just hold on, hold on; there will be light.

Hold on. Hold on. The light will come.

When you feel trapped inside a never-ending night.
If you've forgotten how it feels to feel the light,
If you're half crazy thinking you're the only one
Who's afraid the light will never really come

Just hold on. Hold on! The light will come.

The message of this moment is so clear;
And as certain as the rising of the sun.
If your world is filled with darkness doubt and fear.
Just hold on, hold on, the light will come

Elder Holland said,"To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on.  Keep trying.  God loves you.  Things will improve.  Christ comes to you in his more excellent ministry with a future of a better promises.  He is your high priest of good things to come."

The Scriptures we loved on "Hope"

Jeremiah 17:7-Blessed is the man that has Hope

Joel 3:16-The Lord is the Hope of the people

Romans 15:4- We have hope through patience and the scriptures

1Peter 1:3-Hope in the resurrection of Christ

1 John 3:2-3-everyman that hath this hope purifieth himself.

2 Nephi 31:20-Having a perfect brightness of hope

Alma 7:24-see that ye have faith hope and charity

Mormon 7:1-Mormon spoke of Faith, hope, and charity

Alma 13:27-29-Harken unto my words, having a hope that ye shall receive Eternal life

Alma 32:21 if ye have faith, ye hope for things, which are not seen, which are true.

Ether 12:32-Man must hope or he cannot receive an inheritance

Ether 12:4 Hope comes of faith and maketh an anchor to the soul.

Mormon 7:40-43- Ye shall have hope through the atonement of Jesus Christ to be raised to eternal live

Mormon 8:26 The Holy Ghost fills you with hope

Easter in Korea

One of our traditions is to host an Easter Egg hunt and a Dinner.
However, this year our little Branch organized a brunch and easter egg hunt.   

Chandler is so excited and ready to hunt for eggs. 

Kayden was one of the Easter Bunnies that was able to hide the eggs.

Jeremy and Tina

Tia, Brooklyn, and Kendyl.  Easter is so much more fun with Best Friends.

Can you see Brooklyn?  I love doing Easter Hunts at the park with lots of trees.

The Young Men hid the eggs well.  

Cute Chandler Hunting for his eggs.

Look he found a  blue one.  

Dad was helping Chandler find some eggs.  Steve and Polly were hunting too!

They had over 500 eggs hid for these kids.  Wow!  The kids took the candy and put all the eggs back in this bin to be used again next year.  I think another fun tradition is in the making.  

After our fun hut came a fun activity of throwing leaves.

  I love Brooklyn's face it says it all.  So much fun!

It's raining leaves.

Even some adults got involved. 

Brooklyn has some serious cute attitude.

My beautiful Children.
I love pictures in nature with my cuties. Look how big they are all getting.

Kayden 8th grade.

Brooklyn 5th Grade

Chandler 3rd Grade