Chili's are finally here.

How much do you love chili's? Well for me and my household (o.k. maybe just me), I LOVE CHILI's. If there is one thing I really look forward to it is spending time with the Holyoaks doing chili's. Even though it is a lot of work each year, I can't wait to do it again the next year.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity of a life time. The Holyoaks invited me to help them bottle chili's. Since then, I have been invited to join their tradition of bottling chili's. From my first year I was invited to help to current, the process has gotten bigger and bigger because people we share the chili's with LOVE them.

Every year we go down to Virden, New Mexico to pick up the loot. This year it was a whopping (26) 40lbs. bags.
Each bag goes through a burning process. This burner was made by Bishop Holyoak's dad many years ago. The man is pretty ingenious. He grabbed a few parts from bikes, motorcycles, air conditioners and other such items, put them all together and got a handy dandy Chili Roaster. The thing works like a charm.

Steven and Tillman came and helped out this year. This is Steven's 3rd year and Tillman's 2nd. Tillman was not only a good helper, but a good sport spending two days with dad and uncle Cody doing chili's. He would walk around saying "Lots of chilis." As they were driving away the first day, he asked Steven if they could come back and do more chilis tomorrow. My cousin Michael is in the background and the other two are members of my ward.

Probably one of the biggest highlights of doing chilis is being able to sit around and tell lies for a few days until we get the loot bottled.

This whole process wouldn't happen if we didn't have a good lady in the kitchen (sorry no photo). Sister Holyoak spends hours on end all by herself actually bottling the chilis as all the guys sit around outside. A special thanks needs to go out to the Holyoaks for tolerating all of us chili lovers as we invade their house. Even though its only been a week since we fininshed, I am already looking forward to next year.

Cody