respublica

The day of Nicholas' Baptism

What a weekend this has been, so many family members in town from all over. This was the first time all five cousins have been together and it was amazing to see.

This won't happen too often from now on.

We got to church early and milled around and talked or sat and waited.

The Easter church service was beautiful, Dale baptized Nick.

Then the congregation welcomed him

Back at the house there was an Easter egg hunt before the meal. Christian and Connor's Texas cousins were here as Darren's brother Doug and wife Melissa were the God parents. So all cousins who were of walking stage sat for a pre hunt pic.

Let's go already

Then food

A Kruta cake

Then Ruth and Mary came by

Dale slept. Most of the others left for Kansas or Texas or Paris (Illinois)

Now I'd guess most are asleep or close to it. Me too.

Five Guys (if you count one tucked into his seat, asleep)

Today all five grandsons got together for the first time. It has been quite the morning. Here's a look.

Good Friday

click to enlarge

Plane landed, Drew pulled his own weight and then some out to the car

Got back home and Lizzie came by with Nick and the girls traded babies

And Drew played drums

And Opa got to hold Jake

Gonna be a lot of this this weekend

Oh Schnucks you were doing so well

St Louis area police are telling shoppers heading to Schnucks that they should use only cash because the company's credit/debit card accounting area has been hacked. This has been going on for at least a week and it seems Schnucks has been slow to get to the bottom of it. Our debit card was affected and thankfully our bank was on top of it early. How early we don't know yet. They closed our cards and we're still waiting for the new ones. 

Recently Schnucks has been showering shoppers with deals and coupons making buying there really worth the trip. But now...cash only may stop many until this is fixed. Schnucks should have done something a week ago, if our bank knew last Friday that the problem stemmed from Schnucks so should Schnucks have known. 

Putting in the car seats

With Katie and Charlie arriving today, we needed car seats installed in my car so that they didn't have to lug theirs along on the plane. Nothing harder than two babies and two heavy car seats being moved from the plane to the gate and garage. So knowing nothing about hooking up car seats, I asked Nathan from our environmental services if he could help. Nathan has young kids and knows all about car seats and he graciously took the time to put ours in. I've heard all kinds of stories about how important it is to do this correctly and after watching Nathan, I was sure I would not have been able to figure this out.

First he did something with the hooks and straps and then leveled it to the correct point on the built in meter. Who knew car seats had level meters? When my kids were small there was no such thing as car seats, I mean, back seats of cars didn't even have seat belts back then. The person in the passenger seat held the baby or they were in back in a pumpkin seat! Pumpkin seat! My gosh.

Then before he was finished he used his knee to force the seat back and in while tightening the straps. What a process. But the level meter is at the middle where it should be and...

They're in and ready to make the trip to Lambert. 

Thanks Nathan!

Lunch for Larry

Yesterday everyone who works in environmental services as well as 2 interlopers (Dale and I) came together for a goodbye lunch for Larry Schulze who will be officially retired tomorrow. Larry has an amazing ability to construct, fix or cobble things together to serve a perfect purpose. He could also operate heavy equipment and sculp plain old dirt into something useful. The seminary is going to miss his abilities that is for sure. The lunch menu was huge boxes of Porter's Fried Chicken and mashed potatoes plus soda and cake and ice cream. So good.

As always, if the images don't show up as high def, click to enlarge

The very first thing that drew everyone's attention was a gift from everyone in ES's, a table full of Miller beer and cans and jars of gravy. Two of Larry's favorites.

This of course got the attention of some of the seminarians who work part time in this department.

It wasn't just student who were interested in this table.

Anyway, everyone was in the room except for Larry. A call went out and pretty soon there he was.

After a prayer he started the food line

Good chicken

Even John came back for this celebration while recovering from knee replacement.

And the line went on

Finally everyone sat down to eat

Some thought hot sauce on their chicken was a good thing.

Others not so much with the heat

Then there was cake

Larry made the first cut with a plastic cake server which immediate snapped apart at the handle and was made so cheaply even he couldn't fix it.

Dale and first year sem, Mark Harriss, spent a lot of time talking and laughing, Mark is from Venedy and they shared stories.

Then it was time to pack up and get back to work

Things were taken out to Larry's truck

What a great time this was, we had so much fun and want to thank everyone in environment services for inviting us. We'll miss Larry and his talents and no nonsense manner. God Bless Larry, enjoy your time off.

Clayton's new pizza place

zpizza opens today at the intersection of Hanley and Wydown and from the stories about this pizza, it sounds good. And, better yet, the manager says he knows this delivery area well which is a good thing for those of us in areas rather difficult to find. 

Normally I'd wait a couple of weeks with a new restaurant opening so that they get the kinks out, but with tons of family heading this way for Easter weekend, I may just give zpizza a try.

What 2000 calories looks like

BuzzFeed did some checking and put together a short, succinct video showing how many of various foods add up to 2000 calories. Kind of shocking really.

How many kinds of Triscuits can there be?

Up front let me say, Tricuits are the perfect snack food. Spread a little cream cheese on them and it's a little bit of food heaven. But. The Nabisco Company has been tinkering with the Triscuit to the point where the cracked wheat cracker is almost unrecognizable.

Their original Tricuit has been altered by the addition of sea salt as opposed to the traditional salt and the result is a dry, tasteless cracker. And rather hard, not crispy. Why is everyone jumping on the sea salt bandwagon these days? Sea salt has its place, it's great on chocolate but doesn't lend itself to everything.

And, now there are so many flavored Triscuits grocery shelf space is a maze of choices. Brown Rice and Wheat, Brown Rice sea salt and black pepper, Brown rice baked with Red Bean savory Red bean, Brown Rice baked with Red Bean Roasted Red Pepper, Brown Rice Tomato and Sweet Basil, Brown Rice baked with Sweet Potato Roasted Sweet Onion, and Roasted Garlic. 

Please bring back the original original.