Chilly….Or Is It: Chili?

As you guessed it, there has been lots going on for the last couple of days. 

Wednesday began with my Aunt arriving into town fro Israel, and Ezra and i going up to the airport to pick her up. She ended up catching a flight that put her here 5 hours before she was scheduled, which wasn’t that big of a deal…but it was a contributing factor to Ezra not eating his mid-morning snack for the second consecutive day. The weird thing is that he wasn’t hungry (or at least acting that way) on either occasion. Don’t know if this is a new trend, or we were just too busy…so stay tuned.

Wednesday night brought our return to family dinner for the first time in a couple of weeks. We had suspended our attendance in an effort to establish a bedtime routine for Ezra, but Wednesday of this week was our turn to host and cook. It was great to see everyone again, and we were thrilled that Mary was back and everyone could be together for the first time in seemingly 50 years. 

My tour started back at work on Friday, along with class and studying. Saturday however, brought the annual Chili Supper and Starlighting Event to Castle Rock. For those that don’t know, accompanying the Starlighting, the fire department (and now the union) has hosted a chili supper for something like 68 years. For the past couple of years, I have been part of the cooking crew….we start at 730 in the morning, and finish the cooking around lunchtime….and the clean up around 6pm. 

For the past two years we have made 105 gallons of chili. If it sounds like a lot, it is….it’s almost three bathtubs completely full to the top of chili. We end up serving around 3000 people (in the last picture, you can see the line for chili stretching outside of the station) over the course of a couple of hours. Since I cooked, I was able to enjoy the evening with Ahna, Ezra, Mom, Dad, and Rena. We hung out for the Starlighting and the fireworks that followed, then proceeded to head home through lots of traffic. There have been estimates of 6-10,000 people downtown. 

To wrap up the weekend: the Broncos stink.