A Giveaway winner and other odds and ends.

Things have been a bit busy around here lately which made me rather delayed in drawing a winner for the Canvas Print Giveaway, but I had Ken draw a name tonight and the winner is Martha, my lovely sister! I hope she is able to figure out a very fun picture to get printed on canvas.

Today I am feeling more than a little tired. Yesterday some other women and I worked here at our house to cook enough food for 200+ people. We made Pork Roast, Chicken Breast and Seasoned Potatoes. We had 8 roaster pans, the oven and crockpots all going, spread all over the house so we didn't blow fuses. I was amazed at how well 7 women were able to work together in my small kitchen. I had also made (with the kids and a neighbor helping) 300+ butterhorn rolls on Thursday. People also brought desserts and green beans but they didn't have to be cooked at my house (well Jonathan did bake some desserts earlier that we did take). After cooking we loaded it all up and transported to the high school where we then served it to around 200 people. It was the biggest cooking project that we have ever tackled and it was a lot of work but it went pretty well so that was good!

 We were cooking for a Republican Fundraiser. Ken had lined up all but 2 of the Republican candidates (12 in all) that will be on our areas ballot this November to come and speak. We also had a silent auction and bake sale that we made things for (I am looking forward to sharing some of the projects I made soon!) that went pretty well. We put together a cookbook recently as well which had just arrived so we sold copies of that. All in all it was a very successful fundraiser.

 We tried to make the event a bit elegant so a couple of violinists were asked to play during dinner and then I made/brought candle centerpieces for all the tables and we asked a bunch of people to help serve the meal instead of doing buffet style.

 Last night after the event (and the cleanup!) the candidate who is running for US house in our district and his campaign manager came and were our house guests overnight as well. Others from his campaign stayed with another family. It was fun to get to know him better. His name is Lee Byberg and he is hoping to unseat a democrat that has been in office for around 20 years. I think he can do it! He has an interesting story as he was born in Chicago to Norwegian missionary parents. He spent much of his childhood in South America - he told us stories of his pet monkey, anteater and parrot. The parrot had learned parts of some hymns which I guess he liked to sing, he died a martyrs death when  drunken neighbor decided he had had enough of the hymn singing bird and shot him. (the bird, not Lee). He lived a while in Norway too but when he turned 18 he had to chose whether to be American or not (since he was born here) and after some thought he decided that he did want to be American and ended up coming over here to college. He was very impressed by the freedom that he found and he wants to go to Washington DC to help preserve that freedom.

 
 I had to included a photo of my handsome husband he MC'ed the event and as usual did a great job!

Anyway, that is the reason that I didn't blog much this week. It was fun to do but I am glad it is over! :-)