the heavy lifting…
Preparing the land:
Before our party could move onto the decorating phase we had to get the land ready, bring out all of the furniture, and build our firepit (we kept our firepit super simple and I love the way it turned out). This is where the skills of the boys came in.
If called upon, I could probably get a fire going, but having all of this manly help was a huge deal for us. We had so many details to remember and bring together that it was a relief to know that these boys were more than happy to flex their muscles and take care of the property work to get our party going.
The chainsaws were rev’ved up and fallen trees were made into log seats for sitting around the campfire. The firepit was dug and rocks were carried to circle the firepit. Lots of kindling and branches from around the property were hauled to the fire side to keep the fire going later in the evening.
Natali and I worked to get the twinkle lights up and when we plugged them into the generator (an absolute must to pull this party off since there is no electricity on the property yet) they lit up the first 2 strands and then nothing….no lights.
Thanks to Bob’s talent for solving problems and inventing things he and the boys solved our lighting problem (they found that simply plugging in only 10 strands to each other makes the current get through the whole strand in the generator…so we plugged each 10 strand set directly into the generator).
Meanwhile, Natali and I finished arranging seating and getting back to our houses to pack up all of the decorations and food. At our homes both Carol (Natali’s mom/my friend) and my mom were hard at work creating delicious soups, bread, and an amazing pear salad (those recipes coming tomorrow).
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Carmel Apples:
This may have been one of the sweetest and stickiest projects of the day…and the kids loved doing it with my mom (so thrilled she could be here!!).
First: Grace went out to the woods to gather the perfect twigs to use as caramel apple holders. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the caramel apples…and the caramel…and the chocolate…and….(okay, maybe I liked it all!).
We chose a variety of apples: granny smith, fuji, red delicious, and pink lady (my hands-down fave apple of all time)
And then put together a whole bunch of candy and nuts in small bowls: heath bar, butterfinger, almonds, melted chocolate, mini recee’s pieces…yum!
Thanks to this video on One Charming Party we made some pretty cute caramel apples. We usually the family that uses those caramel wraps so this was an adventure and let me just say….WAY more fun to do. Dipping the caramel apples into melted milk chocolate and white chocolate made my mouth water. And then getting to be creative with the candy and almonds had everyone claiming the caramel apple creation they had made with an identifying ribbon. Everyone wanted to make sure they were going to get to eat their delicacy.
Some things we learned:
*use a big spoon to get the caramel on your apple and then swirl the spoon around the apple
*scrub the apples so the wax comes off or else the carmel slides right off
*use a small pan to heat the caramel that way the caramel is deeper in the pan
*the twigs as apples sticks are super cute (and may even make the apple taste that much better…maybe)
*holding your apple up while the caramel and chocolate set up a little bit makes a big difference
*you’ll wish you had bought more caramel
What special things are you doing to get ready for the Thanksgiving weekend?
Tell me in the comments and if you’ve got a link that shows your plans, please share it.
2 Comments
Everything is amazing! Those caramel apples are going to make the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory shake in their boots!
Holy cow! The caramel apples *were* the best ever, I think! Pink ladies are the way to go!