Service, Banana Bread Bake-off, Christmas Lights, & Jim's Release

The first weekend in December, Ever and I started Saturday morning off with a service project at the stake center where we packaged up thousands of meals to be sent to school cafeterias in developing countries. Hats and hairnets were required. She stole my beanie.

Our one-hour time slot went quickly, and Ever didn't want to leave. It was a gratifying experience.

I had accumulated so many overripe bananas that I finally took the opportunity Saturday evening to hold a banana bread taste test. I have been dying for years to identify the very best banana bread recipe. I've primarily used two main banana bread recipes, although I'm not 100% sure they are better than others I've tried. Nonetheless, I figured finding a winner between those two was the first step. So we made one batch using Mariah Koehle's recipe and one batch using a recipe I got from allrecipes.com. The event was over-photographed.

Wrenzy's doe face:

There was some excellent chair dancing that became more rump-focused after I started filming.

The girls went to town on the bowls and utensils. They must be the most thorough lickers in all the world. I have to force them to stop after about a half hour, when they can't possibly still be getting enough to taste.

We all enjoyed the final products.

The bad news is that the vote was split. Tiny likes anything with chocolate chips (which is all banana bread I make because I only believe in it that way). Wrenzy and Ever voted for Mariah's recipe (which is less flavorful), and Jim and I voted for the other recipe. So that was sort of a bust. Plus I have other recipes to try...

Jim was intent on getting our house decked out for Christmas early and well, especially since Mamo and Papo were coming. He squeezed in some light stringing between meetings on Sunday.

That night he and all the other Oceanside bishops were released at a special stake meeting. He and his counselors (Derrick Karner and Phil Alexander) were sad to be released, which surprised me a little. They really enjoyed their callings and the bromance among them. The stake presidency was reorganized, and all the Oceanside and Carlsbad wards' boundaries were changed. We and a decent-sized contingent from Oceanside 4th joined what was formerly the Oceanside 2nd ward in the Mesa building. We are now the Rancho del Oro ward. Many O4 members grieved the changes, but for some reason I didn't really have feelings about it. O4 was a nearly perfect ward, with lots of amazing people, plenty of capable members to fill callings, and minimal welfare needs. O2 was struggling really badly. We heard that it was second place in the country for how much welfare money it gave out last year and that no ward has ever given out that much without fraud's being discovered. A lot of O2 people were really happy about the influx of new ward members. So anyway, Jim was released, and we changed wards, and it was the end of a good era.