Whoa, where did the time go? We've been in Kansas City for a month now and are starting to pack up to leave on Friday for Shreveport, LA. The past month has been filled with family time & laughs with Heinz's sister, brother-in-law, and extended family, along with working on the trailer.

There's been all sorts of work going on. We bought a new Dometic refrigerator and have it in place and bolted down. The heater and water pump have been installed, along with the radio. The bedroom is almost finished. Heinz built a bed frame with storage underneath, six large drawers and a bulk storage area. He's also got 2 nightstands almost finished. They're still missing the tops and doors, those are cut, but not stained and varnished yet - we'll finish them in Louisiana.

We've gotten the Vista window shades changed out and replaced them with all-clad aluminum with some cherry stained handles. We replaced the trim around the windows with almond colored molding used to trim up FRP panels. Following that we finished up all the interior riveting and re-hung the front curtain tracks. I've been busy making curtains while we've been here in Kansas, but haven't gotten the "G" and "T" slides attached, so sorry, no pictures yet. We decided to go with Roman shades in the bedroom and those are also made, but not mounted.

About a week ago, KC had the first snow of the season. Not much, roughly an inch, but enough to call it snow for this deep south-raised, ex-Californian. It's been cold here also, highs in the 20's and single digit lows. I'm looking forward to getting to Louisiana and temps in the 60's.

Last Sunday we went up to Heinz's aunt's house and helped her make Christmas cookies. I made a big pot of chicken and sausage gumbo with bread pudding for dessert and took it with us. We baked, laughed, ate, traded stories and mourned the Chiefs loss to San Diego. If you're interested, the bread pudding recipe is at the end of this week's entry. Enjoy and we hope you have a great holiday!

Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce

This is a "country" version of bread pudding and will not look like the nicely molded, "cake-like" versions you see in restaurants.

Bread Pudding:

One loaf of day-old French bread, cut into small pieces; 4 Cups of milk, scalded; ¾ cup of sugar; 1 tbsp of butter; ¼ tsp of salt; 4 eggs, slightly beaten; 1 tsp vanilla.

Soak bread in milk 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Pour into 1 ½ quart baking dish. Place dish in pan of hot water and bake for one hour at 350 degrees.

Whiskey sauce:

½ cup of sugar; ¼ cup of water; 2 tbsp of butter; 2 jiggers of bourbon whiskey or to taste.

Cook first 3 ingredients until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add whiskey. Serve immediately over hot bread pudding.