Illness,illness,illness

Our family has been rampaged by illnes !!!
Almost every member of the Franco clan (including myself) has been attacked by
colds, ear aches, etc. etc.
I therefore ask my readers
to be praying for our family's recovery.
If you could also pray for my sister-in-law Jessica as she broke
her arm while snow boarding recently and will have to be operated on Monday.
Thank you all so much.

Coconut oatmeal pie-Oh my!!!

For Christmas my parents gave me a set of fall leaves piecrust cutters.

The set has 4 different types of leaves, A maple leaf, Grape leaf,
Oak leaf, and a Cherry leaf.
I decided that since I had them I might as well use them on one of my
favorite pies, a Coconut oatmeal pie.


This is what the pie looked like after coming out of the oven.
Aren't the leaves beautiful?
Now as I know that I must be wetting quite a few appetites I shall
post this recipe.
~Coconut oatmeal pie~
Makes 2 pies.
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
4 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups light Karo syrup
1 stick butter
1 cup coconut
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
If you are like me and like to decorate your pie, you will probably want to make one and a half
batches of the pie crust recipe.
Makes 2 pie shells
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
8 tbsp. lard or shortening
5-7 tbsp. cold water (4 first, and then one at a time.)
Pour batter into unbaked pie shells.
Bake for 1 hour @ 350 degrees.
I hope you all enjoy!!!
I would also like to say to all of you who visit my blog
regularly that my daddy bought the family a lap top to replace our old computer
yesterday and so I think I might be able to blog more often.

Christmas and new year

Caleb's camera isn't here again but I
am going to do this post anyway.
On the 24th all my family got together and we celebrated Christmas
with plenty of Cuban food, Christmas hymns, and gifts.
in the evening on the 24th all my immediate family got together
to read the Christmas story and open gifts. We had a wonderful time!!!
On the 25th we invited the "Codiciados", or young men
from our church who don't have any family here, over.

Nacho

They stayed 8 hours and 30 minutes!!!
And most of that time was spent playing dutch blitz!!!

Victoria and Roberto

It was lots of fun!!!

*** WARNING***
If you are an animal lover please do not read the next half of this post!!!

For new years we decided to do something adventurous,
sooooooooooo,
we bought a WHOLE pig to barbecue for the
BIG feast at our church.

With the help of Fernando Morales we set to work.
(I don't think he is carrying the pig here as it was much bigger.)

Here is the BIG grill we cooked it in.

Here is the pig daddy was poking it with a knife all over so the seasoning would
go inside the meat.

Here I'm rubbing in all the seasoning, it really was an interesting experience.

We let the pig cook all day long and took it out around 7:30.

This is what the pig looked like after cooking all day...

and this is what it looked like after everybody started eating from it.

We had 3 sermons, and several games.

Here is the birds eye view. I hope you all enjoyed!!!

A post postponed

I had intended to write my Christmas post long before this
but I am afraid that I will not be able to for another couple
of days, as Caleb's camera (which is the only one in the house with Christmas pictures on it!!!)
doesn't have the memory card in and won't have it for a couple of days.
Thank you for being so patient with me!!!