Harvest Moon Iron Chef Competition and Dance Party

The Doctor bought our house several years ago and turned most of the yard into a giant vegetable/cutting garden. He is in his late 30's, is not married, loves gardening and has a hot tub. HMMMMMMMMM?
Anyway, with fall setting in and the temps dropping, he was afraid that he would have frozen crops that would not get used. He had an idea, no, let's call it a vision. To have people take his crops and turn them into something delicious and edible. He contacted all of his friends and they both seemed excited. He contacted some family members and Megan loves to cook so of course she was on board. The hook was, he would give you a bag full of produce and then 24 hours before the competition, he would release the secret ingredient that must be used in every dish.

The secret ingredient was pumpkin. But not canned pumpkin. Canned pumpkin would result in immediate DQ. After some research, we found out that there are different kinds of pumpkins and we didn't grow the right kind, so Megan went and bought some sugar pumpkins and we started looking for recipes. We spent sunday afternoon cooking and baking and prepping for a great time.#3 and Nanny waiting for go time

#2 wore her dancing outfit and practiced her moves before dinner

#4 drooled but didn't end up eating anything

The savory spread

The dessert spread

The competition trying to intimidate us with heckling and pointing


Everyone ended up a winner in some category or another including the winners of Best Crossover Dish also known as Best soup-like dish of Indian decent incorporating a musical instrument.

Megan came in as a heavy favorite in the competition because she has a FLOG (food blog) but we were very pleasantly surprised by the vast selection and diversity in all of the dishes. We all left full and enlightened.
I will now have to introduce my wife as "The Award Winning Cook, Megan"

It is best that i don't mention the Dance part of the evening for eveyone's sake.

FUN, FUN, FUN

Another great weekend of Cross racing. It rained and rained and rained. After running the 8 miles from our house to where the race was in Draper, Megan spent most of the time watching from here and drinking hot chocolate warming up and drying off, while the girls got in and out of the car and ran around in the rain.
There were many first timers out for this race and i don't know if it is good or bad that this was their first experience.Bryce bought one of my old bikes and is going to race this season. I just need to keep getting people who are roughly my same size into cycling, so it allows me to upgrade my bikes. This picture was taken after Bryce threw up the first time on the second lap of the race but before he threw up the second time in the parking lot after the race.
My motto is; "If you're not throwing up, you're not trying hard enough."


Tayler showed up and took 4th in her first cross race.


Nancy showed up and was just glad to find a bike that had brakes. Not bad for a girl who had a baby 2 months ago.


Joe remembered why it is a good reason to ride your bike more than once in the month before you go and try and race. Work and family commitments don't help with conditioning much but props for him getting out and doing it.


Before our race, Cousin Kevin asked his wife if she would hand him a waterbottle as he came by every lap so he wouldn't have to carry it on his bike. The picture on the left shows jenn's reaction to his question. The picture on the right shows cousin Kevin riding with a waterbottle on his bike. Nice try Kevin.


The Robot showed up and raced Cyclocross for his first time and is showing off the mud on his teeth.

The Doctor didn't do as well as he would have liked. He had most of the summer off to ride and play. It is amazing what happens when a couple weeks ago he had to go back to school and start teaching again. Welcome to the rest of our lives of working.

During the Doctors race, there was a guy handing out a wad of dollar bills to people after they ran up the hill carrying their bikes. It was amazing that not more people took the dollars. It is kind of mean to be doing it at the hardest, most miserable part of the course, but very entertaining for the spectators.

After racing, it took a couple hours for me to get my body back to a comfortable temperature but #3 lit a fire and we played Yahtzee or as she calls it "Texxi", while megan took #1 and #2 to the store. They had to go and buy sugar pumpkins so we could compete in the Doctors "Iron Chef" party on sunday night. Pumpkins are the secret ingredient, and luckily, we get to make it at our own homes and bring them.

On saturday night, i heard some guys talk, and with a house full of women this quote stuck out.

"Of all the creations of the Almighty, there is none more beautiful, none more inspiring than a lovely daughter of God who walks in virtue with an understanding of why she should do so, who honors and respects her body as a thing sacred and divine, who cultivates her mind and constantly enlarges the horizon of her understanding, who nurtures her spirit with everlasting truth."

Gordon B. Hinckley

Harvest Time

We have spent all summer working and cultivating our garden to be able to grow crops of our own because the taste is so superior to those purchased at the grocery store.

And by "working all summer" i really mean, planting too late and then ignoring for the rest of the summer.

It is true, we did have good luck with zucchini and it looks like we will get some pumpkins this year as well, but i think it is almost impossible not to get those 2 crops to grow. The deer ate our 14 tomato plants. We have some melons or squash or something that we are not even sure what they are, and then we have our plants that are putting out some really nice crops...
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...if you are a little personToo much water?
Not enough water?
Not enough sun?
Too much sun?
Too many loud noises?
Not enough singing?

The girls like eating the carrots because it makes them feel like they are giants.
Maybe next year, we will try a vineyard and make our own wine.

Painting the Treehouse

As I run out of daylight to do all of the things i want to do, i need to hurry and get the treehouse finished.
#1 and #2 helped me paint it on Saturday while #3 ate apples they picked from a tree in our backyard and watched on.I don't know what she is doing here but it is not painting or eating apples.
#4 napped inside and did not help paint at all.

Why children should not be allowed to choose their own outfits or Pick your Battles

At least she has an eye for this season's "WHAT'S HOT"

The Office is back

Me and Steve at last years christmas party

There are not a whole lot of shows that i try and regularly watch. The Office is as regular as i can get catching about every other episode. I have the first few seasons on DVD, including season 1 of the original British version, but it is very hard to go back and watch them again knowing you were so uncomfortable the first time. Knowing that, yes Michael is going to kiss Oscar.
With kids and family and work and life, i really need to get one of those DVR things. I guess it is good that NBC is back on iTunes so i can download the episodes and watch them on my schedule.

I wonder if Jim will pop the question?

I wonder if Andy really loves Angela?

I wonder if the new HR lady will be Michael's friend?

So many unanswered questions.

CYCLOCROSS IS HERE

With the surgery on Friday, i wasn't sure if i was going to race on saturday.
We gave #3 some pain meds at around 10:00 before she went to sleep and we were expecting to give her more every 4 hours as it wore off.
She slept through the night and woke up ready for action the next morning.
I packed up a couple bikes and headed for the Park City with the family.
The doctor (not my brother DR. storyteller, but the REAL M.D. kind of doctor) told us that she could do whatever she felt like doing except jumping on the tramp. When we got to Park City, she did just about everything but jump on a tramp. Little kids bounce back fast an she doesn't remember a whole lot so i guess that is good.

For those of you unfimiliar with cyclocross, it is a mix between road biking, mountain biking, cross country running and a mud fight. Megan prefers these races to all of the others i do because they are much more entertaining.
Our season runs from September through December.



The races are on a course that have paved sections, dirt roads, single track, jeep roads, grass, water, hills, logs, and then they throw some barriers you have to get off your bike and jump over just to make it more challenging. It is a closed course that you ride around several times and whoever rides around the most times, the fastest wins.

If Saturdays race was any indicator of how my season is going to go this year, i am in trouble. I always take 2 bikes to a cx race because these races are notoriously hard on equipment. About 4 laps into the race, i went around a corner and blew a tire and was thrown to the ground. I ran over and switched bikes. About a half a lap later, my rear derailleur and chain broke.
I realized that the front tire on that bike was still good so i ran back over and switched front wheels and rode the rest of the race. After the mechanicals i was going slower and figured it was because i had given up on pushing it too hard since breaking down twice. I realized about half way through the race that my 2 different front rims are different widths and my front brakes were going to be rubbing the rest of the race...a lot.
Megan really, really liked the acid washed jeans lycra this guy was sporting.