Good Clean (??) Fun

Tonight was last night of Institute* for the semester. Instead of watching a movie like the rest of the classes were planning, Mandy, who teaches a class I've been going to, decided to have dinner and games. We made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup just like Mom used to make, played a Church History game, then made my traditional Christmas ornaments (story behind the ornaments to follow).

In the process of making the gingerbread ornaments, some trash talking began, a little flour was tossed, but it all stayed under control...for the time being...

After everything was baked one of the class members with a truck volunteered to pick up Mandy's table and chair set she had in storage. Until then we had been using a creation born from my mother's ingenuity. With a house full of eight children, a limited budget, and a year supply of food storage**, she had to find a way to decorate the house yet house the clutter; so she took old army water storage barrels, fashioned beautiful wood round table tops in our garage with her power tools, fastened them to the lid of the barrel which she had, by then sewed a cover for, and voila! You have not only a table for eating or decorating, you can store 50 lbs of wheat or powdered milk too! It seems my table in the move from Utah, to Georgia, to Oklahoma, had become a bit floppy, and you couldn't lean too much weight on it without things shifting in your direction.

So a crew went to the storage shed to pick up the table, and as they assembled Mandy's tall dark wood square table, I disassembled my round medium wood water barrel table. As floppy as it had been till then, I could not pry the top off of that thing! Six sets of hands later, it was freed revealing five large cans full of powdered milk I've been storing for the past 4.5 years. Realizing in that time period, I have only gone through one, I tried to pawn some off on people. I was almost successful until someone pointed out that we were two years past the recommended usage time. But that's just a suggestion....right? We opened one of the canisters, and it didn't look like something I'd want to be drinking or eating in the next ice storm...And then the trash talking resumed. It was focal around Mandy and Kirk, but then the rest of us found ourselves in the middle of a powdered milk fight challenge.

The forecast said it was supposed to snow tonight. The skies didn't snow, but the cans sure did! In a matter of 3 minutes, our backyard was a flurry of milk, screams, and mud. We couldn't see what or who we were throwing at - we just threw for our lives. I'm still tearing milk from my right eye that got a handful at point blank.

We shivered and attempted to dust as much off ourselves before we went back into Da Plex, but I found if I walked too fast, I was trailed by a cloud of white dust. Mandy looked like a goul. Kirsten looked like Betty Crocker, and Alex (the other guy in the picture) looked like a mime. Me...I just looked like a big kid that had too much fun playing in my food. Perhaps I'll grow out of it one day, but it's not looking like it will happen before 30 hits. Don't they all say...'Rotate your food storage'?? Does anyone smell sour milk, or is it just me?

* http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/basic-beliefs/glossary/glossary-definition/institutes-of-religion
** http://www.providentliving.org/channel/1,11677,1706-1,00.html