Elser Family Blog

Last night was Our Little Towns Christmas Tree lighting festival. It just so happens that Our Little Towns Christmas tree is in the park across the street from our house.

Here is H and some friends listening to the high school choir singing carols.

Here is the choir, singing in front of the racist monument. Its so Small Town… I absolutely love it. If you view the movie, you will notice our Little Town is not shy about including Jesus in civic events. (click for a movie)

After the choir sang, the tree lighting ceremony was held. Some little girl I did not know got to light the tree.

And then, Santa came to visit! Too bad I didn’t get any decent pictures of him! But I did get a picture of H with Rudolph.

M, however, did not want to get near either of them! Poor M is getting shortchanged on the pictures lately.

I just added the ability to comment on posts at the bottom of each post… I’m not sure how it will work.. But, we’ll give it a try!

Happy first Sunday in Advent!

Follow St. Nick’s lead… Buy stuff for the less fortunate.

I almost forgot to add R’s contribution to the holiday.

I present: R’s Handturkey.

I just got this Letter from my sister in law, who taught in Lithuania:

Ed,

can you do me a favour??and stop perpetuating crimes committed by my family! after having lived in Lithuania and studying the language and food, i learned some grave errors my family was making … one is that there is no such thing as KUGALA.. doesn’t exist.. it’s called KUGELIS you can check this site to confirm spelling www.lfcc.lt/publ/kita/recipes.html and there is also no word as METAKOLOTCHKI, meta comes from the word meat in russian, and klotchky comes from a type of cookie in polish (well american-polish because i asked my polish friend and she’s never heard the word either) the real name of the dumplings is Ausytes (pronounced OWSHITAS) and then you add the word for mushroom, meat or potatoes whatever the ingredients.. Austyes-Grubys are mushroom dumplings..Ausytes-Mesa are meat dumplings..

And the worst crime ever is to refer to a lithuanian as a LUGAN, it’s the same as calling a pole, a polack, a jewish person a jew, an Italian, an Itie, a german a kraut.. etc. I think you get the point.. they used the term on the southside of Chicago as a derogeratory term..

i will be eternally grateful if you help me to correct these oh-so-common errors..and you showed that recipe of the KUGALA from that book, mind you the woman admitted she was the American wife of a Lithuanian decendent..

Labai Aciu,

Teri

heheh

Sorry.. I apologise.

However, allow me to be the apologist for the way that we HAVE been doing it.. 🙂

Yes, Your father told me that there is no such thing as “metakolatchki” (click here for unedited section where Ann says “Well that’s just the Sideikas bastardized version of it”)

A kolatchki is just a polish cookie, and I like differentiating from it. But thanks for confirming the etymology for me! (Click here for me saying “meat cookie”) I like the sound of it.

And, I looked up “Lugan” before I used it, and saw that it was an insult… But I like the sound of it too!! Actually, there is a web site called ““Lugan-Girl.com” that is a like a bride finding service… Sort of shlocky, I know. But when people are able to refer to themselves as a derogaory name, it is no longer derogitory, no? At least coming from themselves. Poles, Jews, Germans call themselves by those names all the time. Feel free to call me a “Kraut” any time you get the urge. (Besides, my whole comment was a bit of a slam, doncha think? As if a “Proper Lugan Girl”‘s place is in the kitchen..)

And finally, as far as kugalis goes… Did you know I have paperwork that shows your family spelled your own name SEVEN, count ’em, 7 different ways? 7 different spellings of “Sideikas”. Surely its not that large of a sin to call it kugala.

🙂

Please, how about a deal. Can we keep Metakolatchki and Lugan? And I will make every effort to make sure everyone calls it Kugelis from now on, and that they know metakolatchki is sideikasese for “meat cookie”! “Ausytes-Mesa” just doesnt have the ring… but I will try to remember it all the same.

Deal?

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Swell, I hope.

Here is the bird we deep fried.. Why, its bigger than R!!

We deep fried two 10 pound birds.. The great think about deep frying is It only takes 3.5 minutes /pound, and so far, it seems like one (me?) just can’t screw up! They taste delicious.

We also made Lithuanian dumplings. Here is a short video of H learning how to be a proper Lugan Girl.

Here is one I call “waiting for mom”. R just pining at the door, waiting for mom to come back in.

And here is H with her aunt Christine’s ball python… M is not shy, is she… How come I’m not suprised?

Teri, Here is a video Just for you. It involves Cali… If you don’t have a viewer, I suggest you go to the link and download it now…

Speaking of Teri, K was looking at swisstales.com and there was a picture of Lars on there. Out of nowhere, M comes from behind her and points to the picture and says “LARS!”

I guess this family blog thing really works.

Here is one more fun one. I took this a month ago… I don’t remember why they are dancing with no music in the background… HMMM. Bet there dancing their hearts out!

If anyone cannot see these movies, please go to the debate forum and let me know.

Thanks!

I broke down and purchased the QuickTime Pro Movie editor. (For the free viewer, look at the bottom of the links to the right of this page) Now I can edit the movies and make them smaller and more manangeable for the web… Would you like to see? Here is one that only about 50k .. Quick even on a regular modem. I don’t know what is with the spooky echo in my voice.. I guess its something to do with the compression. Also, Its compressed so much, it almost looks like an old movie! Weird, huh? 🙂

Run R, Run!

Here is one of my favorites. M in her duck outfit. Wait, is she a duck, a rooster, or a chicken? Only she knows. You might know too if you view this movie, I suppose. This one is about a half a meg, but its also about a minute long. I also encoded it so you can start watching it before it finishes loading.. Slick, huh?

We are going to Charleston (Summerville to be precise) this Thanksgiving. Bob and I are going to deep fry a couple of ten pound turkeys. That and some Lithuanian Kugala MM good!

Love to all, I’m thankful that God has given us YOU!

R was in the back yard this afternoon, visiting with the Girl and frog that Mom gave us last Christmas.

Ok, here is a challenge. It cant be a contest, because I have yet to send Tammy her prize, Teri’s prize never showed up in Switzerland, and Dales prize ended up costing big bux.

Besides that.. Here it is: Identify these pictures.

H and I got out the microscope this afternoon, after wondering what something looks like in it… What are these things? Bonus for identifying who they belong to.

We went to eat with H at school this week. It was good to see other parents there.

Before we left, the teacher invited us to walk H back to class.. Where she posed with her holiday project.

Here is Shieba girl… She is so sweet. How can you not love this dog? (we really do love her, but only people that know Shieba personally will appreciate the incongruity of our affection.) I’m afraid ole’ Shieba is not long for this planet… And we are going to miss her dearly.. She really has been a terrific Dog. She only barks at strangers, She never jumped on people or furniture, She was (relatively) low maintenance, She had a real personality, It was always humorous how she attached herself to some, and rejected others. And people really took it personally! (I guess I would have too) Anyway, She is getting old, and We are sad about that.

You know, nuthin’ special, just me and Ricky Skaggs hangin out together.

OK, working in teevee has its advantages sometimes… like, getting to meet ant talk to bluegrass legends.