Happy Fathers Day!

Today I want to tell you about my father. My father is the best Daddy in the whole world. Yep. That's right. He's ours. Mine and my sisters.

That's us at breakfast this morning. See, my parents and sister decided to come all the way from Ohio to Virginia just to celebrate my 50th !!! birthday! They got here Thursday night and left Sunday because my Dad had to be back at work on Monday. That's a rough trip in my opinion. It's about a 9 hour drive but they drove here in thunderstorms and terrible rain so that took longer. But they came! Just for me!

There were actually 13 of us for breakfast as my hubby's father and his wife were here from Florida also, so we got to celebrate with both our fathers. Whoohoo!

Hubby and his father last year at a family reunion in West Virginia

 

So let me tell you a little about my father. I don't even know where to start...lets see. Shortly after my parents were married they felt called to the mission field. My father is not a preacher but there were missionaries at their church one night talking about God calls ALL kinds of people to be missionaries not just preachers. God can use everybody. Teachers, preachers,  secretaries, engineers, and tower riggers or tower maintenance workers.  So, when my sister was about 5 and I was about 3,

 

off we went to the tiny island of Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles.

That is by Aruba and Curacao off the coast of South America.

 

 

http://www.globeholidays.net/Europe/Netherlands/Bonaire/Maps1.htm  Click here to see a satellite picture of Bonaire. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaire I found this extremely informative also if you want to check it out.

 

He worked on the radio towers. It was his job to make sure the towers were maintained. That means it was his job to climb the very tall towers and paint them or replace parts and whatever else needed to be done. When we first moved to Bonaire one of the towers was over 700 feet tall!!!

This is him riding on the guy wires (part of the tower)

 

My father doing what he LOVES

 

Here he is just last year up on the towers again. Even though he retired from the mission field, they still call on him every once in awhile to help on special tower projects and he will go back to Bonaire and spend a few months helping out and still climbing those very tall towers!

 

 

 His mantra was "Skin we can loose points we can't" when playing volleyball or baseball with the other missionaries. He worked hard and played hard. He drove a motorcycle to work and I would BEG to go on rides with him. I loved those rides!

 

My Dad and Mom

 

A fellow missionary and my father. 

My father was somewhat of a prankster.

 

My sister and my Dad

He loved fishing!

 

Sometimes we had special church services by the ocean.

 

 

 

 A couple random pictures

Me playing footsie. See the ring around my ankle? There is a string with a ball attached and you swung the leg with the circle to make the string go and you jumped over it. Loved that game! See the VW bug? Wish I had one now!

 

This is me roller skating with the dog. He was SO strong that he would just grab the leash in his mouth and pull me while running down the road! We would fly!

 

Oops..getting off subject.

 

My father has always been there for me. Just a phone call away whenever I need to talk to him and my Mom. I have the BEST parents. I still call and vent and they are always there with great advice or just to listen.

 

My father always knows just what to say. I used to ask him..the perfect family is one girl and one boy..after you had my sister didn't you want a boy? Weren't you disappointed you had another girl? He said "No way. I got what I wanted. Two beautiful little girls" Just the other week I emailed my parents and was venting about something and my father called and said "I just wanted you to know that you are pretty." It brings tears to my eyes just saying that now. My Daddy called just to tell me that I am pretty.

 

 

 

Daddy, I love you

 

I love the guidance you have given me thru my life

and the advice you still provide

I love you for all that you do

I love that you have shown me that life is tough

but the tough get tougher

I love you for all that you have given me,

so much I could never repay

I love you for still loving me even when

I messed up and lost my way

I love you for showing me that true love lasts a lifetime

and I should love the same way

I love you Daddy for a million, trillion more ways but mostly

I love you for being you

Daddy I will always be your girl!

 

 

Pecan Pie Muffins

Pecan Pie Muffins

 Ingredients

 1 cup packed light brown sugar

 ½ cup all-purpose flour

 2 cups chopped pecans

 2/3 cup butter, softened ( 11 Tablespoons)  

 2 eggs, beaten

 Instructions

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease mini or regular muffin cups generously. Grease them well or they will stick. In medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour and pecans. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and eggs together. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined.Spoon batter into muffin cups about 2/3 full. Bake for 12-13 minutes for mini muffins or 15-17 minutes for regular size muffins. Run a knife around the edge of each muffin and pop it out.

**Check out my website too, where you can purchase the tools with which to prepare and serve these wonderful recipes – at www.pamperedchef.biz/gmkarnes**  This is where I got this recipe from

 

 

Just a few ingredients

 

 

Made 12 regular size muffins

 

 

Baked longer than the directions

 

 

 

                                                                     

                                These were very good! I thought that there was ALOT

        of butter in them but they tasted good.

 

 

BTS Cake

Hubby asked me what I was making. So I told him "BTS Cake" he looked at the computer screen and read what BTS stands for and he said.."That looks really good but if whoever came up with the name thinks cake is better, than someone isn't doing something right" Hmmm

I can't remember where this recipe came from. I have been trying to put names or web sites on all the recipes I get off the Internet but sometimes people send me recipes in my email and I don't know where they came from. I have seen versions of this recipe on Pinterest and of course if you Google it lots of versions come up. It is a flexible recipe. You could use hot fudge ice cream topping in place of the caramel or you could use a strawberry cake mix with strawberry ice cream topping with white chocolate chips or spice cake mix and butterscotch topping...use whatever you like. I like chocolate and caramel so I made this version. I would have drizzled both chocolate sauce and caramel but didn't know we were out of chocolate syrup...sigh..

BTS CAKE (Better Than Sex...)

 1 pkg. devil's food, chocolate, or German chocolate cake mix and ingredients to make cake

 1 can sweetened condensed milk

 caramel ice cream topping

 1 (8 oz.) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

 4-5 Health or Skor bars, chopped up

 Bake cake according to package directions for a 9x13 inch pan; cool for about 5 minutes.

 Using the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes into the cake. Let the cake cool for a little while.

 Slowly pour sweetened condensed milk over the cake, letting it sink into the holes; then drizzle some of the caramel over the top of the cake.

 (Some people I know heat the milk and caramel together and then pour it over the cake.... I've tried it both ways ... no real preference here)

 Let cake cool completely. Top cake with whipped topping. Decorate the top of the cake with candy bar chunks and swirls of caramel topping. Refrigerate before serving. (Great to make one evening and serve the next.)

 

 

Gathered the ingredients

 

                                             Baked the cake according to the directions on the box

                                       Let the cake cool for an hour or so and then poked the holes

 

Slowly poured the whole can of milk in the holes

and over the whole cake.

Then poured the caramel in the holes and

 over the whole cake. Total I probably used

 about half of a  bottle of Caramel.

After that I let the cake set for several hours until it was totally cool.

 

 Then I unwrapped all of the candy bars from the pack I bought.

Put them in a zip bag and then crushed them

 with the edge of my kitchen hammer

 

 

I spread the whole container of Cool Whip

on top of the cake, sprinkled the candy bits,

 then drizzled more Caramel over that.

Now the cake is in the fridge until tomorrow when

 we will finally get to have a piece!

 

Oh yes, this is GOOD stuff!

One version of this recipe I saw said to only use half of the can of milk and that would probably be enough. I've only had one piece and was too busy enjoying it to notice much. HAHAHA

Organization idea from Pinterest

My dresser is pretty big..it's long and has 6 long drawers but the 4 drawers across the top are very small and hold very little. I have had such a problem with my sock drawer that I decided to try this Pinterest idea but with socks instead of tank tops.

 

http://pinterest.com/pin/126663808242046699

 

 

Here are MOST of my socks. Some were still in the dryer. Yes, I have a lot of socks but mostly that is because I can never find any socks to wear. And yes, there are a bunch of St Patricks Day socks in the pile but that is because they were on clearance for 50 cents and no on sees my socks when I'm out of the house! teehee

 

So, this pile turned into...

 

this.....which turned into this...

 

 

HAHAHA see? all my "socks" are in the drawer...

 

He just HAD to know what I was doing!!

So, I really like this new way of organizing my socks

and so far it is working out great. Next, t-shirts!