Family

This past Monday was our annual President's Day family get-together with the Maurer side of the family. The reunion was at our house this year, and we had twenty three people in all. It was a busy, fun, crazy day!

Playing games:  Apples to Apples

Cousin Micah

little Andrew trying to revive Nate =)

We all thought this was hilarious! =D
{Pap and Uncle Tom snoozing}

the guys playing football...

Chinese Christmas once again:

 

 

I guess I didn't really get any pictures of all the food, but rest assured - we ate plenty!

We almost forgot the get the usual family pictures, but unfortunately someone remembered just before the guys left:

 



{Dad, Nate, Cousin Caleb, Pap, Uncle Tom,
Cousin Lincoln, Uncle Tim, Andrew}
These eight guys left Monday evening and headed down to Georgia for a three-day hog hunt.

While the guys were away the rest of the week, Melinda was able to stay with us! We had a great time with her, and with Grandma, who was also with us for a few days. I only got a couple pictures of the week though, when Anna came over and we made cards on Wednesday:

The guys got home Friday afternoon, and we got to listen to all the exciting hunting tales. Dad had gotten two, Nate had two, and Andrew got one. Both of Dad's were big, but the one especially was quite large. I'll have to get a picture of it later. On Saturday, we butchered the five hogs. We girls weren't needed much since there were several guys, but they wanted us down in the shop to help with the concert. It's habit: we almost always sing when we work.  =)

 

We boiled the bones and the livers in a big kettle over a fire in
order to make scrapple (which is kinda like mush with meat in it)

Getting the rest of the meat off of the boiled bones
(pudding meat, we call it)

 

We mixed the broth, pudding meat, corn meal, buckwheat flour,  and white flour together in the kettle and let it cook for a while. Then we poured it all into bread pans to let it set up. I think we got somewhere around 31 or 32 quart. We like to slice it and fry it up for breakfast with some syrup or applebutter. It's nice to have all this scrapple and sausage! Now ya'll just need to stop in for breakfast some mornin'!