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

Championship Summer

Richie's soccer team played in two tournaments this summer. The first was up at beautiful Park City. The facilities were really nice and we took advantage of the outlets as well. We could not stay in the city so we just drove back and forth between Lindon.

Richie heads a ball to his teammate Bessor. He can put a good touch on the ball with his noggin.

A burst of speed and Richie blew by his opponent.
Richie almost scored on this corner kick. It was just to the outside of the bar. Good idea Rich

Richie and team pose for the camera. It was very difficult to get a shot with everyone's eyes open. I think this is the best club team Richie has played on.

A close up of the back row show some excellent soccer players. Bessor, to the left of Richie, is one of his best friends. They went to Lakeridge Junior High together. They took 1st place in the Park City Tournament!

Here they are playing in the Sparta Cup. Richie puts his head on the ball and volleys it to himself on the run.... great stuff.

Richie plays in the center midfield and enjoys being one of the quarterbacks of the team.

The Sparta Cup trophy is proudly displayed as the boys where their medals.

Lions, Tigers and Bears.... Oh MY

A few weeks ago before I started back to school Jessica, Lynne and Jacob took me to the Life Science Museum at BYU. I have been to the museum many times, in fact I use to volunteer in their arthropod collection. I have donated many specimens to their collection. If you have not seen their arthropod collection, put it on your " bucket list". Going to the museum with Jacob was much different than any other visit. We took our kids when they were young but not as young as Jacob. I am older and much more self reflective lately and doing things with Jacob helps me remember my relationship with my children. What a glorious time those young years are. I know it's hard but the rewards are truly a treasure of memories that wealth and fame cannot duplicate. I challenge you all to slow down... take a moment to enjoy some time and simple activities with those around you. During school, life seems like such a blur and my family and students all need my attention... I feel stretched physically and emotionally. It is when we plan little field trips (BYU Museum), games in the backyard and family dinners that help me during these busy times. Last week we all went to Jessica and Dan's house for dinner and social time. Jacob and I played with balloons. We hit the balloons around a vent and they kept getting sucked to the grate. We hit them laughed and hit them again and again and again. Good times little man. Well this blog is really about the trip we took to the museum so I wanted to thank you Jacob for a fun little field trip! Love Grandpa
Mommy (Jessica) points out critters to Jacob. Of course he is very excited even though he as visited the museum in the past. I think he is going to be a naturalist when he grows up.

Grandma proudly walks Jacob through the upstairs displays. Jacob did really well. He would grab our hands and pull us along to show us what animals he wanted to look at. When he was done looking, off we went to the next thing that caught his eye.

Baboons are very scary but cool creatures. Jacob approached, but with caution. No wonder! Take a look at those teeth. Check out that tarter... give the critter a brush will you.

The natural curiosity of a young child... what a blessing.

Jacob give Smokey the Bear a high five !

Some of the interactive displays allowed him to burn off some energy.

Jacob likes matching or what I call pick-a-boo type of learning games.

One of his new words is "Guck" or what we would call a Duck. Jacob is learning a lot of new words. I think ducks were his favorite bird at the museum.

Grand Canyon Outing

Rich and I took off for a little get-away. I have never seen the Grand Canyon and so we took off just the two of us.One of my favorite moments during our visit was sitting on the edge of the canyon waiting for the sun to set.
It was breath taking and quiet. There were many people walking by and watching. They were all speaking different languages but they were all speaking so quiet.
It was almost like we were there all alone. It was really a beautiful memory for me.
I also loved to walk along the edge of the grand canyon. I could not believe how huge and vast this place actually is.
We had a wonderful time together, Thanks Rich for taking me here. Love you!