News From The Nolens, 2010

Last Christmas (which was technically in 2009) was spent in downtown New York City with Karis’ family, after Joshua and Karis (and Joshua’s mom and brother) won roundtrip tickets to NYC at a baseball game.

The New Year was then “rung in” with Joshua’s friends at a Frank-Lloyd-Wright-style house, in Pennsylvania, a style of house we are now determined to live in (or at least dream about).


In January school began again, as it often does, with Karis returning to Shepherd University and Joshua returning as a substitute teacher; Karis doubled her schools by working two days a week as an aide in the local elementary school’s first grade.

Although more school was scheduled for February, it never came; Snowpocalypse hit and 20 school days in February were quickly reduced to 7 with 3 half days. While snow days might be fun for a student (even Shepherd was closed for many of them), snow days are not fun for a substitute teacher. Luckily the Olympics were on TV, and Joshua could spend his time watching curling.

March, April and May went much smoother, and Joshua began a Master Naturalist program, offered by the Audubon Society.

Karis completed the school year with a second semester of straight A’s and then got another A in her summer class (good job Karis!).

The late Spring and later summer were filled with many wonderful family events, including Caleb’s college graduation (Joshua’s brother), many weddings of friends and family, and the celebration of Karis’ grandparents 50th Wedding Anniversary (which included Joshua’s first trip to Maine).

Joshua and Karis had also begun attending Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church (SPC) in January and joined their fledging college student group: Connections. In the Spring, Joshua and Karis decided to volunteer with the Youth Group and in May, Joshua was offered the position of Youth Director. We then became members of SPC in December.

Summer flew by with Joshua returning to Fountain Rock for his 6th summer while beginning church meetings, and Karis took a summer class while working at the local grocer.

August saw Karis return to Shepherd for her last semester of Gen Ed requirements and to the first grade of Shepherdstown Elementary, meanwhile Joshua returned to substitute teaching and officially began his work with the Youth.

September included the sad, but peaceful, passing of Karis’ aunt Michelle, God rest her soul.

Karis ran in her first (hopefully not last) race in October, running through a National Park during the Freedom’s Run 10K.

The year included several trips to Lake George to see Karis’ parents, but unfortunately no trips to visit her brother Canaan, who is a Junior at Pepperdine University in California.

And finally, Karis was officially accepted into Shepherd University’s nursing program (after another perfect semester – 4.0)! She will begin clinical rotations in the Spring.

With laughter, love and good cheer, we hope this letter finds you well and your loved ones well.

Epicurean Exploits

This week, Karis and I made two new things, at least new to our house: Sloppy Joes and Scones.

My first scone, or the first I can remember, came about 1 year ago, when Karis and I spent Christmas in NYC with Karis' parents. We were at a little cafe underneath the UN, and I had a very hard time ordering a chocolate chip scone (because I didn't know what it was called):

Me: Do you have any chocolate chip muffins?
Cafe Worker: No, only blueberry.
Me (seeing a chocolate chip scone): Oh, can I have that chocolate chip thing right there?
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip, only blueberry.
Me: But what about that, isn't that chocolate chip?
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip! Only blueberry!
Karis: Oh, he means the scone, can he have a scone?
Cafe Worker: Scone? Here is scone.
Karis: No, not that one, the chocolate chip one.
Cafe Worker: No chocolate chip!
Karis and I together: It's right there!
Cafe Worker: Oh... here.

That's basically the story, except it took 5 minutes longer.

But anyway, Karis made scones using a recipe from Epicurious (Chocolate Chip-Toffee Scones, but we just made Chocolate Chip ones).

We were also inspired to make Sloppy Joes, I used part of 2 different recipes (Epicurious and Betty Crocker) but then also changed and add things on my own - mainly due to our lack of Worcestershire sauce:
Heat 2 Tbls Olive Oil (on medium high)
Add 1/2 cup chopped Onion
Add 2 chopped celery stalks
Add 1/2 green bell pepper
Add 1 jalapeno pepper
Add a lot of minced garlic (maybe 6-8 cloves)
Add 1 lbs ground beef
After brown add 1 cup ketchup
1 tsp Crystal Hot Sauce (my favorite)
1 tsp soy sauce
a dash of apple cider vinegar
a pinch of ground clove
Salt and pepper to taste
Served on potato rolls, makes about 6 Joes.

By adding the veggies in that order, they all had just enough time to cook and soften without getting mushy (ie. add olive oil, then start to chop onion, oil will be ready by the time you're done chopping, add onion then start chopping celery, etc...). The recipes I looked at said to let it all cook together and soften more after everything was added for another 15 minutes or so, I skipped that and it turned out great - it was nice to have a little bit of textural differences.

The last three ingredients (besides s&p), and extra garlic, were to substitute for the Worcestershire sauce, but the Joes were so flavorful, I think I'd do it the same way every time.

Long time no cook.

So we've lost our internet (neighbors moved) and have been very busy, but tonight we had a dinner I have to write about:

Jamaican Jerk Pork (from a Cooking Light: Grilling)

2 cups green onion (omitted)

1/2 cup chopped onion (omitted)

2 Tbls White Vinegar (used Apple Cider Vinegar)

1 Tbls Soy Sauce

1 Tbls Canola Oil (used Olive Oil)

2 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp thyme

2 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp freshly grated ginger (used powdered)

1 tsp allspice (used ground clove)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp cinnamon

2 cloves of minced garlic

1-4 habenero peppers (used powdered cayenne)

1 pork tenderloin (used pork chops)

We halved the recipe, did a quick marinade, threw it on the grill and served with white rice.

It was excellent.

August Rush

Summer has come and gone, and school is here (or just around the corner - depending who you talk to).

It's been a busy month: a new job for me, with school starting on Monday; and a new semester for Karis, with a job starting soon.

Both my mom and brother were born in August, he's in Utah and we'll be seeing her tomorrow. Karis and I are also going out to lunch tomorrow with my boss and a co-worker for an end of the summer wrap-up.

I've had a lot of free time this week, at least compared to 13 hours out of the house some days this summer, and Karis and I have made it back in the kitchen a few times.

We came up with a great double boiler technique tonight.

Back to Season One of Burn Notice.

School's Out (and that meant no homework!)

Actually, school will be in shortly; Karis starts school a week from tomorrow and public schools start the week after. During the last week of school a teacher asked if I would sub for her the first week of school (she was going to still be on vacation), but she hasn't contacted me in months and I don't have her info.

Karis is done working at Food Lion, she'll be back at the elementary school in the fall and we thought 2 jobs and a full credit load (7 different classes) was unnecessary.

My last day of camp was Friday, I worked from 8am-7pm (with an hour of travel time each way). But it was a great summer.

We had a week together of summer vacation before camp started, so I guess this is our second (and last) week of summer.

Today is church, Ultimate Frisbee with Yootz and a pastor's class with middle schoolers.

Tomorrow is hiking with the college fellowship.

And Tuesday is a church meeting, and then going camping for a few days with some settlers in Catan.

I don't think I mentioned, but last Sunday I officially started working as the Youth Director at Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church. We have a great group of kids ("Yootz"), and I can't wait for the school year to start.

As you can tell, it's an exciting time in the Nolen house.

Hot: Summer; Not: School

School is done for Karis for the semester, but she has summer school starting tomorrow for 6 weeks (or so). She'll be taking an economics course and the finishing all her pre-reqs (again) in the Fall.

I'm almost done with school: 6 different classrooms in these next 5 days, then memorial day and then only 5 more days of school!

We already have a lot of plans for the summer, weddings, camping, roadtrips... and working; Karis would probably like to spend the whole summer swimming, but you can't swim in the river and there's not really a good place around here to do it.

Still, summer will be good, but Karis said she already can't wait until Fall.

Killdeer

For 3 days this week, and 2 days next week, I'm subbing for an inclusive kindergarten (and we went to the zoo today). But my real reason for writing this is that outside the school, there is a killdeer nest.

There were 4 eggs, and 3 of them hatched today (in case you are wondering, both "killdeers" and "killdeer" are accepted plurals). Killdeer chicks are precocial, but they weren't up and running - both parents were there, however, the mother on the nest and the father was 10 yards away.

Because they are shore birds, I originally didn't think Killdeer lived in this area (even though Karis and I live down the street from Killdeer Ave).

Killdeers nest basically on the ground, often on gravel, and this one was nested a foot off the parking lot. Apparently she nests there each year, but this was the first year her chicks hatched (every other year the eggs were run over).

Unfortunately, the other teachers got WAY too close and scared the mother off the nest - Killdeers will do a "broken wing display" too distract predators. While it was fun to watch, I felt really bad for the Killdeer. Some people will just go too far for a "cute" picture.

(The above pictures are not from today, but are ones I found online.)