Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Jim and Nancy Blattman Family cookbook

I want to organize and get a Jim & Nancy Family Cookbook printed. I looked and I think I can get them printed for about $7 a book.
I wanted to include sections like:
Grilling
Camping recipes
Family Heritage recipes (from all lines of our family and in-laws)
and also the standards:
sides and salads
breads
main dishes
desserts
If you like this idea leave a comment and begin compiling your recipes! You can send to me via email!
Loves,
Sarah

Monday, May 30, 2011

Remembering on Memorial Day

we were able to get to the Mountain View Cemetary today and put some floweres on the name markers for Grandpa and Gramma Markham, Ward and Gramma Dee. I think Pam and Grant may have also been there because there were some lovely flowers already there. It was a nice warm day and sunny. It was quite impressive and inspiring to see the waves of flags placed on the veterens graves.
We searched for Benny's gravestone also but I could not find it. I hope to return this week and try again. So many markers were grown over and I am sure it is there, I just need to look harder.
If you have a good memory of our loved ones, please share it in comments!

Friday, May 27, 2011

May 21, 2011

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
May 21, 2011


6:00 (Family Radio’s Rapture Event deadline)has come and gone. Even accounting for Daylight Savings Time we are still earthbound. The jokes will continue through tomorrow, I’m sure. “Never thought I’d see you still here on the day after Rapture,” sort of thing. So what’s our lesson about for Monday? The End of the World. Naturally. Fortunately, as Mormons, we understand it to be the end of the wicked, that is: the end of the worldly, so we won’t have to account why we are all still here.
We took an hour or so off during the time we were inspecting missionary apartments for bedbugs and mold yesterday to check out Penns Landing. It’s the Delaware River dock area reminiscent of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We checked out a clipper ship turned into a restaurant, a submarine (subs are tough to turn into anything more interesting than long black cylinders of death), and a Teddy Roosevelt era Navy Cruiser. Then we watched tugboats bring the USS Kaufman up the Delaware, turn it around in front of the Ben Franklin Bridge, and dock it right next to where we were watching. Then a thunderstorm drenched us so we ran back to the car. Sorry, no photos of Nana next to some handsome sailor in a white uniform.
Nana got to shake hands with Julie B. Beck, the General Relief Society President last night. Sister Beck came to speak at a fireside. She seemed a very kind and unpretentious person. There was no fire and brimstone – little use for that on the day before Rapture- only a kindly question and answer session with about 500 people attending. That woman was brave to let the microphone wander through the audience to let them ask and comment as they pleased.
People of our age always remark about the weather. It is wet. It seems like it is always wet here. Just out of the blue, well out of the grey anyway, the sky seems to suddenly dump buckets of water. Other days when it’s not pouring from the sky it has been foggy and misty, but the rain hasn’t missed a day for weeks. With the rain has come more green that we’ve ever seen in our long senior missionary lives. Even many of the rocks and sidewalks are covered with green moss and or tinged with algae. The lovely flowering dogwood trees gave way to the sweet smelling locusts and also the bright azaleas have now been trumped by the rhododendrons. We walk a mile or two most mornings and again in the evenings through the suburban rainforests of Jenkintown. I’d say it was like walking through the Garden of Eden but the doves are gray and we are far from innocent. Unreasonably, some days we crave the lone and dreary world of home where the rain is infrequent and dirty, our skin is dry, and the wind sometimes blows sand in our eyes.

Monday, May 23, 2011

I was not part of the rapture...

But I was read for blast off!


Trip to San Diego



I finally was able to get a time nailed down to go and see the San Diego Blattmans! and what fun we had!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

May 14th

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
May 14, 2011





We went on an adventure this week with our Doctrine and Covenants classes. Well, not all of them but we took 2 class members for each of the two classes. And then there was the mother and the three children too. We drove to the site of the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration in Harmony,(now called Oakland), PA. The church apparently is planning to develop this site and has bought some of the lots close by the Susquehanna River. This is the monument showing John the Baptist ordaining Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.


It was a beautiful sunny warm day and we sat on the stone benches around the monument eating our lunches. There was another couple with a child there when we arrived and we found out they were LDS and traveling through. While we sat there eating our lunch, a pick-up truck with 2 missionaries and another man pulled up rather quickly. I guess the missionaries were with their Elders Quorum president and saw the crowd at the monument and had high expectations of converting lots of people. They were pretty sad as they walked up and noticed our missionary badges.

At this same site were the footings of Joseph and Emma’s home at Harmony.




Across the road from their home is the site of Emma’s parent’s home. Also just a few yards up the road is a graveyard where Emma and Joseph buried their first child that died at birth and Emma’s parents. It was quite a beautiful place with the Susquehanna River in the background. It was very awe inspiring to stand where these great people had lived, worked and had had joy and sorrow. From here we drove a little further to where we could access the river. We had to walk just a short distance down to the banks. And it is a much wider river and faster than we had anticipated. It would seem difficult for someone to easily step into this river and keep their balance easily. But we were there---approximately where Joseph and Oliver baptized each other.




This is on the spot where their house stood.







These are the two sisters Frazier that come to our classes regularly. They are part Ramapo Indian. They live in the inner city and seemed to be excited to go on this trip with us.

May 14, 2011 continued

Here we are walking down the trail to the Susquehanna River. Somewhere here in the wooded area is where Joseph and Oliver knelt and prayed and received the visit of John the Baptist.




The water was pretty muddy and didn’t look that inviting. But I guess that was all they had. They had a man get baptized here in January. They had to chop a whole in the ice for him to be able to do it, but he was determined he was going to be baptized where Joseph Smith was.





So do you think Elder Blattman looks like he’s already standing in the water waiting for someone to come along to baptize?











So from there we went to the Newel K. Knight home where the Colesville Branch met for a while. The house is still standing. It is said that the persecution in this area was pretty strong and one night while Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were visiting here a mob came for them and they had to escape out the back and race along the river all the way to Harmony which took them all night. It isn’t verified but the story is that perhaps while on this flight is when the Melchezidek priesthood was restored. There is no exact date or place for that ordination and visitation.








So we had a lovely adventure and got to see some beautiful countryside. We are grateful to that these things came to pass and that we are blessed to stand in “holy places”.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Who has two thumbs...

and loves me?




This GUY!




Love this guy who works so hard, does so much and loves me.



***disclaimer: no, I did not do anything wrong, spent too much money or wreck the car. This is just a note to say how much I love Chris.

Monday, May 9, 2011

The garden

So this post is for Mom and Dad - but WARNING - this contain images that may cause homesickness!
My friend in our ward that is cousins with the people renting Mom and Dad's home and posted some pics of them getting the garden ready!

Check out the Carrots! holy cow!
http://16-watts.blogspot.com/2011/03/spring-fever.html

I thought it was hilarious! they said they were football size

Saturday, May 7, 2011

May 6, 2011

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
May 6, 2011



We are overcome with the beauty of this country in the springtime. It’s a wonderful place to visit. The flowering trees have lost their blossoms now and the sidewalks are carpeted in places with pink and white petals that scatter in our footsteps like the flakes of snow in winter. The greens are bright, with almost none of the grey, tan, or brown that we are so used to seeing. Each morning we walk for an hour along the neighborhood streets and admire the azaleas with vibrant hues of red, purple, and white. Stone retaining walls along the tree shaded sidewalks are covered with mosses and little flowers. The dogwood trees are blooming in bright whites and pinks right now. Homeowners and crews of gardeners care for the yards. It’s unusual to find any home not well kept. Our exercise is much more pleasant nowadays than puffing on the stationary machines in the basement while watching Korean News on the TV wall-screens.
Yard sales are a great temptation to one of us. Elder Blattman picked up a mint condition monkey wrench for 25 cents last week and the seller threw in a nice metal tool box with two pipe wrenches and a turn of the century screwdriver. We may have to rent a U-Haul trailer to get our treasures home. We keep our eye out for unusual stores. Dan and I went in one in downtown Philly that was full of African fertility idols – stacked floor to ceiling with the most hideous (they are supposed to be grotesque to frighten away evil spirits) wooden carvings that anyone could imagine. The man wanted to sell us the whole store. These things are incredibly valuable according to him. It was hard to imagine why anyone would want to display in their homes things so bizarre and repulsive. This week we found a little store operated by a retired psychology professor which was full of odd items retrieved from estate sales. Again, it was difficult to tell if we were in a museum or a store, but we opted for the store and purchased an old glass inkwell/paper weight with an old brass pen. –One more irresistible pound to pack in the car when we go home. While looking in a thrift store for ‘anticipatory sets’, or object lessons as most people call them, we noticed there were a number of if not antique, at least classic, furniture sets that would be fun to restore. Elder B. again was drooling over these trying to conjure ways to tie them onto the car to get them home and into the shop. What for? Just say the word anyone and he’d love to be your purchasing agent. You may have to arrange for shipping.
Next week we are taking the Frazier sisters on a trip with one of our classes to Harmony, Pennsylvania. It’s a long way but still in our mission and there is little to actually see at the site, but it is the nature of visitors like us to an area to go around and try to experience everything. Perhaps we’ll have more photos to share.