Ginger Bread 09

Hey we had our 2nd Annual Ginger Bread get together. We have been looking forward to this activity for weeks. Each contributor brought uniqueness to our evening. There was the traditional and the strange and bazaar (in a good way). I have given each team a special award and look forward to having them return for next years fun fiasco. Oh we also had some of Mama's chicken broccoli soup. Yummy !

Heather, Stephanie and her guy friend (they have been seen together many times. I do not know how serious they are). They started with a ginger bread house kit and created a very interesting house. I enjoyed their unique perspective.

We are missing Dan and his parents in this photo. They came later after the football game.

Richie and his friend Rachel built a ginger bread castle. Their stain glass window was a tremendous addition. I would like to add this feature to our house next year.

This was easily the biggest house created this evening.

Check out the stain glass window. Awesome stuff!!

Ok Richie and Rachel here is your award / acknowledgment...... "The Biggest Castle with Towering Christmas Trees on Cream Filled Cookies". You also receive a second award. This is very unusual but we are giving your the "Best Use of Stain Glass on a Castle with Cream Filled Cookies". Nicely done !!

The faces of seasoned competitors can be observed in the image above. Returning from a successful 08 season Heather and Stephanie try to get Justin pumped up for piping.

Their finished product was stunning. One look and you think, what the heck. So you three receive the "What the Heck Award" This is not the kind of award that can be sought after. It is a gift and I give you all big time props for having the courage to create such a wonderfully strange house.

Your second award: "The Most Likely Ginger Bread House to be Mistaken as a Ghost Buster Ginger Bread Marshmallow Tan Man on the Loose" Award.

Both Rachel's are busy at work while Richie looks on. Rachel LaRae Glassford Anderson single handedly puts up the walls to her house while in the lower left hand corner Justin (Stephanie's friend) contemplates if they will put a second large tan Man in their ginger bread house. I know he wanted to, but I think the girls over ruled him.

Jimmy enjoying some of Momma G's soup and cheering Rachel on.

Here is Rachel and Jimmy's tremendous house. Your first ginger bread house together and your already experts. For your first award..... drum roll please, You get the "I can Build the Narrowest Ginger Bread House Without it Tipping Over Award".

I want all to know that Jimmy made the little Santa Want-a-be Ginger bread man. I thought the icing and the way the eyes and mouth were placed on the perfectly proportionate head was magnificent. You will have to ask Jimmy what the rest of the writing on the little ginger boy / man reads. I am not at liberty to divulge that information. Ok I love the idea with the little snow mobile pulling gifts. For this reason you receive the "I am Out of Control and Driving Into Santa's House" Award.

Here Jessica is seen using cheap generic canned foods as a stabilizing technique. This has only been pulled off successfully in 1935 by a Swedish Physicist that studied under Chris Kringle himself. I thought this process was sealed and stored in a granite vault in the North Pole. I know you are thinking 'there is no granite in the North Pole', Well they created the vault out of granite and hauled it all the way up to the North Pole to protect this technique..... some might say this is an illegal display of canned foods.

Jessica your use of chocolate, ginger bread and pretzels earns you the "I Can Create a Village on a small piece of Cardboard" award.

The three little pigs and the big bad wolf had nothing on you Jessica. You can huff and puff and not blow yours down, unlike your mother in laws heavy laden royal frosted house. One more award for you Jessica. I know you were physically hampered with contractions etc. so you receive the "I wish Dan was there earlier Award".

Nice piping Jessica..... You also receive the "You Can't Place This House at Room Temperature because Half of it Will Melt award".

It was nice to have Dan's parents come and enjoy the festivities. It would not be right of me to not acknowledge their innovations. Steve and Noreen I give you the "I Can Use More Frosting Than You Can Award". Congratulations !!

Nice Job Momma..... I was honored to be your partner. Your technique and pleasant demeanor throughout the evening allowed me to exhibit my piping talents. Now I cannot give us any awards because that would be self serving. So it is up to you readers to acknowledge our work of Ginger Bread 09

I had to pull out all the stops this evening and used my patented gooey finger tree. Yes it was unfair of me but Lynne needed me to bring game.... so I responded with all I had.

Jacob was very curious and wanted to play with the houses so we spent some time together downstairs and bounced on a big ball, played with blocks and watched Donald Duck. You Da Man Jacob.

Above and below is a front and back shot of our house. Come on guys give us an award. We deserve it.
Thanks you all for a wonderful evening and we hope you will all come back next year for our new improved Ginger Bread 2010.

Nov. 24 Dinner is Served

Thanksgiving Dinner!!

I watched a New York butcher turned gourmet chief carve a turkey on the internet. We decided to give his method a try. So we removed the turkey breast, legs and thighs and tried serving it a little different. It worked out great but the dark meat came off the bone while I was trying to serve.

We used only one of the turkey breasts and saved the other for another day.

I tried to give everyone a little glazed turkey skin with each piece. The internet chief suggested the pieces be fairly large to keep the moisture content in the meat.

Lynne is working on the gravy . We try to make our gravy like Grandma G has taught us. Gravy in our family is in high demand. Fortunately Nov. (turkey) gave us drippings to spare.

Richie is helping with plating the meat. He was a big help throughout the whole turkey thing. I tried to provide Richie a little self reliance lesson, I think it worked. He now knows how to dress and serve a large bird.

I had to sneak in a little taste. The dark meat was so tender. I thought the white and dark meat had more flavor then the store bought birds.

We had a few guests over to spend the evening, encluding Jessica, Dan, Jacob, Rachel, Jim, Kim, Greg, Stephanie, Jaimie, Dustin(Jaimie's friend) and Grandma H. I enjoyed their company and conversation.

Notice anything a little different in this image....... yes Daniel saw how cool my shirt was and went out and bought his own.

Rachel and Stephanie spent some time playing with Jacob. He seems to have a great time at the family get togethers. There is always someone to play with.

Jessica is planning the Friday morning shopping expedition. She went though all the ads and organized her stops in the most professional way. No deals escaped her gaze. The kids went over to Dan and Jessica's place and spent the night in anticipation of an early start.

Rachel always has fun with little Jacob. It must be so fun to be Jacob. Carefree and lots of attention.

Richie challenged Jimmy to the ultimate challenge...... "To the Pain". The hand smash challenge can be gurgling to say the least.

Pain and determination can be seen on their face. This went on for hours..... actually only minutes but it seemed like hours. Until both declared a draw. Until next year..... keep on training guys.

After Thanksgiving the village (mostly Lynne and Heather) began to set up the Christmas decor. Christmas cheer and jeers can be heard throughout the house. Thanks to everyone who cooked and brought things to make our Thanksgiving get together a success. I love you and miss those of you who could not attend. God bless !

Turkeyzilla, 38 lbs +

Today Richie, Rachel and I dressed ONE of Grandma and Grandpa's turkey. We call it TURKEYZILLA. Both of their turkeys are big but we chose one to be our Thanksgiving dinner. These birds seem to be in constant display mode and gobble when they hear any sudden sound. We have also discovered the turkeys do not get tired of gobbling.

As a kid I remember raising both the bronze and white turkeys. I think the bronze have beautiful feather iridescence. We have given both these birds very specific and intimate names. The one on the left is called December and the one on the right is called November.

Turkeys have an interesting featherless head (vulture like). The colors of their heads intensified when in full don't mess with me display.

November and I spend our last moments together before starting its journey to our thanksgiving table. I really do not enjoy this part of the process and approach it as humanly as possible.

Boy do we have a lot of feathers to pluck.

We plucked the turkey in the shade under the apple tree. This process was very time consuming but eventually we got most of the feathers out. If you find any feathers in your dinner blame Richie.

Lynne, Heather and Jessica kept their distance. Lynne was good enough to take a picture of Richie and I before she left the neighborhood.

Richie continued with a pair of pliers. The big wing feathers were very difficult to completely remove.

Look at the size of this wonderful bird. I am carrying it to the table to remove the visceral contents.

At this time Rachel came and joined us. Here I am trying to get the hard to remove stuff along the back bone of the turkey.
The hardest structure to remove was the turkeys neck. Wow they are tough. We finally got the pruning shears and removed the neck.
The turkey came indoors and Rachel continued with feather removal. As you can tell I got a little aggressive with the removal of the crop exposing some of the meat. Lynne will drape the meat with cheesecloth drenched in a marinade. Thanks to Rachels detailed observations the bird became mostly featherless.
Richie takes a break and takes an image of Rachel and I. Rachel was a big help and cleaned up the entire kitchen while Richie and I cleaned up the outside. After this shot we weighed the bird...... 38 lbs. Wow !!

Turkeyzilla had a hard time fitting in the cooler. Looks like we will have to make a few modifications. We look forward to a great Thanksgiving meal tomorrow with some fresh turkey and great family and friends. We hope you all have the same.

Heather's Volleyball Season!

HEATHER GLASSFORD: Team Captain, Varsity setter, Senior, Utah Valley 1st Team All Region Player and M.V.P. for Mountain View High School!
Mountain View High: Region Champions (10 wins, 2 losses), and 5th place in State of Utah.

Heather's volleyball season has been very good. She is a senior this year which means this is the last year of high school volleyball for our family. I must say that Heather has made it wonderful and we have thoroughly enjoyed going to her games. She was the team captain and also the setter of the team.

This was the first year that she was the setter for varsity. Last year she was outside hitter, and the two years before that she was their defensive specialist called 'lebro'. I was amazed at how well she could pick up a new position and practice and learn it until she understood how to play that position!

I remember at the first of the year, she was struggling to understand how to cover the right side block. She talked a lot with Rachel (her sister) and she taught her how to watch the hitter, watch the ball, and Heather practiced that and by the time the season came to an end, she was blocking the opponents as good as anyone else on the team. Her picture was in the paper quite often along with a nice write up on her stats.

She really gave this season everything she had, and was always SO positive! I was really proud of how she took on the leadership role and helped the team take 5th place in the state of Utah.

She also had a lot of family support: Grandparents, parents, brother, and many friends!


Congratulations Heather on a wonderful Volleyball season!!!

Hum !!

I have not posted for a while. Life has been very busy with soccer, volleyball and school. Even with all the ciaos I should have posted. The first quarter of school just ended and Lynne and I have finished grades and we are ready for a new term. over the last few years I have been somewhat discouraged by the amount of student procrastination. Parents..... teach your kids to plan ahead.... put education at the top of the list.

Grandpa and Grandma G have left for Las Vegas and will be spending the winter in the big desert to the south. We miss them all ready and wish they did not have to leave. If it was my choice I would have my entire family all living in the same city so we could enjoy Sundays together.... fishing... bug collecting.... gardening... going for walks etc. We know that Chad and Angela are getting an important education in Seattle and we are fortunate to see them at least twice a year. Cell phones / texting has helped us keep in touch with Chad and Angela. We hear from them at least once a week.

We live on this Earth for a short time. A big thank you for my kids taking an interest in the lives of their siblings. When I see my kids together, getting along and enjoying themselves I am a happy man. We are very lucky to have Dan and Jessica 20 minutes North and Rachel and Jimmy 20 minutes to the South. Chad and Angela are a little farther away about..... 14 hours north west.

The two youngest are not very young anymore and will be grown and on their own within 2-3 years. May we all keep in touch with our loved ones and nurture these relationships.

We love you all,

Rich and Lynne