Weekending

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

Friday evening, Donnie and I and some of our neighbor friends walked into town for a large festival called Oktoberfest. Yes, in early September. Yes, on the same narrow street that the high school is on when the high school had a home football game. We waited in line for at least fifteen minutes to pay to get in and then waited another forty minutes in line for some authentic German food. Beer lines were not long as festival workers walked around with little red wagons full 'o beer for sale :). We got our food inside and then took the food outside to eat where there was live music and lots of people.

The festival closed at midnight and we were there for it. Six hours to be around people drinking was kind of A LOT! However, mostly it was fun with lots of laughter and silliness. I didn't take many pictures but I have a few:

We saw our favorite 80's cover band, the Trapper Keepers

Ja! Sehr gut!!

Around midnight- my friend and neighbor Cory and me. Just a couple of hours earlier this area was packed. By midnight, it was just us, security and a few stranglers. When I saw this picture, I remarked that it looks like we don't really like each other with our bodies being so far away. So then we posed in the sorority sisters/teen girl friend style. I'll keep those photos on the camera roll. They were good for a lot of laughs!!

We didn't get home until after midnight and then I couldn't fall asleep until after 2:00 am. Ugh! I got up and read some of my book and then of course was awake for good the next morning well before 7:00 :(. We didn't have plans until the evening which was nice. I worked on making some goodies for a get together we were going to on Sunday. 

I finished the book I was reading called Every Moment Since by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen. It is a fiction book about an eleven year old boy who went missing in the 1980's. It was poignant and well written. Donnie has a family member who had good friends who had a child go missing during a camping trip. The child was never found. I couldn't help but think of that family as I read the book. I also had time to read the news and isn't it interesting when real life news intersects with fiction books read?

The article that I was read was from The Daily Mail and it was about efforts that the current presidential administration is taking to ascertain the whereabouts of the approximate 233,000 children who crossed illegally into the United States in the years when Biden possessed the title of president and who were subsequently "lost." What does lost mean? It means that the children who were apprehended at the border were not given court dates to appear before an immigration court. Also, addresses where the kids were being taken to were not verified to make sure the child was living there. Kids were sometimes released into the hands of strangers. (And if you have the stomach for it, you can read about how many of the strangers did not have the best interest of the child at heart and the child suffered horrifically at the hands of the stranger.)

Fast forward to today- the Trump administration is trying to locate the children. So far, it has tracked down over 22,00 children. Some of them, sadly and not surprisingly, have been found to be living in deplorable conditions having been taken advantage of horribly by their "sponsors." The administration is improving the vetting process significantly by requiring DNA proof of a relationship, a criminal background check and more before a child will be handed over to someone. And best of all, border crossing are way down under this administration. Policies have an impact on chaos, crime and depravity that the most vulnerable are subjected to. As podcaster and author Allie Beth Stuckey says, "Politics matter because policy matters because people matter." That is why, try as I might, I can't help but be interested in politics. It's too important a topic to ignore (for me anyway!) completely. 

Back to the weekend and onto a lighter topic: cookies! I made the dough of one of my friend's favorite cookies since said friend had invited us to her house on Sunday to watch football. Sunday morning I baked the cookies. I also made sausage cheddar balls to take to our friends' house. These balls take four ingredients- sausage, cream cheese, Bisquick and cheese. I didn't have any Bisquick and didn't want to go to the store, so I made my own after looking up a recipe on how to do so.  It was easy peasy lemon squeezy and I don't plan to buy Bisquick again as I don't make recipes often that call for it; I can use this recipe when I need some.

How the balls o' savory and sweet started...

...how it ended. Well, the final ending was eating- both items turned out good and everyone liked them!

Make yourself Bisquick mix- Add the ingredients to a bowl and mix completely. You can use shortening or oil instead of butter. I used shortening since it was softer than my butter that was in the refrigerator.  I also needed more than a cup so I just added a little more of each ingredient. It worked!

 

Donnie's work has had an annual picnic for as long as I can remember. It's always a good time with great food, fun games with prizes and fellowship with his coworkers. Those who work at the firm are invited and they are free to invite immediate family and extended family to attend. However, the owners decided to change things up after fielding complaints (some adults complained that children were playing (and winning- that was the problem with the kids playing) bingo. You truly cannot please everyone all of the time- why even try at a certain point?). This year, in lieu of the picnic, they decided to buy tickets for everyone to a Dayton Dragons game in a suite with food and drink being provided. So we headed into Dayton Saturday evening to see a Dragons game.

The evening was really fun and everyone agreed it was a nice change up from the picnic and no one could get mad at the children for taking away a potential prize from an adult 😆

Here are a few pics:

The Dayton Dragons baseball team has a cool record: It has the record for the most consecutive sold out crowds at its field at 815 games! (This is for North American professional Sports teams.) Founded in 2000, the Class-A Midwest League minor league baseball team and a Cincinnati Reds affiliate sold out every home game for 11 1/2 straight seasons which broke an 18 year record of pro basketball's Portland Trailblazers. You could make the argument that the streak is a bit less impressive than it could be- since it's a minor league baseball team, the stadium isn't huge and therefore there are fewer tickets to sell to make games sell outs. Still, it's kinda a neat honor to hold :).

The evening that the sell out streak ended, a cloud in the shape of a dragon appeared over Dayton. My stars, er, my clouds!!

In the suite, we had a large selection of ballpark type food- burgers, brats, a taco bar, popcorn, etc. 

Workers rolled in a dessert trolley at one point. (This was in addition to the cookie tray and Graeter's ice cream that was in the freezer.)

Oh yeah, there was a baseball game, too!!

And the mark of a lawyer was indelible...

Sunday we went to church in the morning and shortly after we arrived home, we went to our friends' house to watch football. Our friends are Steelers fans and we are Bengals fans- both of our teams won and we had a great time watching the games together.

I had no idea Aaron Rogers is the Steelers QB. Respect for the 41 year old!!

The best Ohio NFL team won :)

Hopefully it's this young QB's year…

Lots of good food, too!