Week 58
COOOLD!!!!  Right now it is 6 degrees, and it was 1 degree when we woke up this morning. Wind chill makes it feel much colder (feels like -6 now), and we have a little bit of snow on the ground (very little, but we had none last year).  The pond by our apartment is completely frozen over--the poor geese should have kept flying farther south!

On Monday we met the couple that is coming to replace the CES couple in Edmond--they go into the MTC in January.  They have three children living in various parts of Oklahoma and used to live here themselves, although Texas was home.

For FHE we went to the bishop's house and watched White Christmas--many of the kids had never seen it before.

Wednesday we both saw Dr. Stubbs, the orthopedic doc--Kerby is now out of his boot but has to work up slowly to walking long distances and/or quickly.  I got a cortisone injection in my knee--we both agree with a sentiment we saw on a t-shirt:  "I thought growing old would take longer!"
We went to the institute in our jeans and sweatshirts after the doctor and spent the rest of the day cleaning out YSA cupboards and closets.  The accumulation of stuff was truly remarkable, and we took a huge load of craft supplies to the Wondertorium.  Then we took everything out of the kitchen cupboards and put down shelf liner; getting rid of even more stuff in the process.  It actually took us part of Thursday as well to finish the kitchen.  Nothing like a good clearing out to lift the spirits!!

I was not really aware of the Pioneer Woman phenomenon until our daughter-in-law gave me one of her cookbooks a couple of years ago.  Ree Drummond is a blogger, TV cooking show star, and cookbook author who lives on a big cattle ranch in Pawhuska, OK.  In October, she opened the Mercantile in Pawhuska, and I suspect the town hasn't seen as many people in the last 50 years as it has in the last few months.  So, on Friday we made the 1 1/2 hour trip to Pawhuska to check it out.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ in case you want to see the website (she really does have some good recipes).

Ree and her husband bought the old mercantile about four years ago.  It houses the offices for the ranch and they've spent the last four years remodeling, refurbishing, and reworking the old building into a deli/restaurant, bakery, and general store.  What they've done with the building is really remarkable.  The wait to get into the restaurant was about 40 minutes in the cold (it was over 3 hours the first few weeks), but they had tall heaters going and some employees were outside with a basket of gifts for the 'winners' of the little trivia contests, the Christmas charades, etc.  I thought they did a nice job of keeping the crowd from getting too grumpy.  Ree's youngest son and Papa, her father-in-law, were also on hand to greet and interact with the crowd.  The food was good, but not worth a 3-hour wait!

An original Nabisco ad wall they found when remodeling

Ree signing any purchase, the outside, and the ranch several miles outside of town

The Drummond Ranch next door neighbor (literally just across the fence) is the Church cattle ranch--it is also a huge operation.

Friday afternoon we went to the temple when Jeron received his endowment in preparation for his mission to the Alpine German Speaking mission. (Jeron's uncle Tal was serving in Taiwan at the same time I was.)  On the way down to OKC it got to 71 degrees then the chill hit us on Saturday.

Me, Molly, Nicole, Seth, Jeron, Elder Kerr--YSA eyes are not so eerie in real life

One of the things we really enjoy on our mission is attending the temple with the YSAs.  We've been with eight of them when they received their own endowments or did baptisms for the first time, and that has been a special treat.