Saturday January 2, 2010

 

 

Xanga Friend ~ Snow ~ Stew

…plus Diane’s Birthday and Scum

Friday, January 1

 

 

It was great to visit with Michelle (coolmomofeight on Xanga and Michelle Gordon McDougal on Facebook) again on this visit, and catch up on each others lives.

 

 

I enjoyed showing her the online scrapbook I made for Lydia ~ from her summer at our house. It was a gift to Lydia during this visit.

 

 

We talked about photography, cameras, family, and many other things during her almost two-hour visit.

 

 

This snowman looks pretty inside the window as snow begins to accumulate outside.

 

 

It was the perfect day to make venison stew, for which I had brought the ingredients. The venison must have settled on the bottom, because none of it shows on this picture. I should have stirred it before taking a photo.  

 

 

It was a cold, snowy, New Year’s Day. Snow accumulation, maybe four to six inches.

 

  

Elizabeth went to a lot of work to make her mother’s birthday cake. She even made homemade marshmallows.

 

 

She baked the cake and made the marshmallow mixture a day or two earlier, then cut the marshmallow into squares after getting home from her job in the photo lab department at Wal-Mart.

 

 

Rolling them in confectioners sugar

 

 

The finished product was a delicious, rich, chocolate cake.

 

 

Diane with her cake

 

 

Opening a box of presents from her sister, Deb

 

 

Anytime there was a lull in activity on Friday, we played Scum. Scum is a great game to play with a lot of people, with some coming and going, because there is no score.

After each set, you just change positions at the table according to when you got rid of your cards. In this set Mark is the “president” and Diane to his left is “scum.” Diane had to give her best two cards to Mark and Mark had to give his worst two to Diane.

Cerwin is “vice president” and Hezekiah is “assistant scum.” They had to exchange one card ~ best to Cerwin and worst to Hezekiah. The rest of us were just ordinary players, not having to exchange any cards.

 

 

You play the game for chair position, having to remember the order in which people get rid of their cards. In this set Mark is president, Nathaniel is vice president, Hezekiah is the first ordinary player, and Abigail is scum. There were probably four or five other players not pictured.

We use Rook cards, but the basic rules can be found here: http://www.brucegourley.com/scumparty/rules.htm

 

 

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Next entry: Saturday’s activities and the snowstorm

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