Set Up Time

Got an assignment to help set up for the ward Christmas party tonight.   A few of us met at the church at 8 and put up a few tables and chairs... roughly 275 or so.  Jack came with me and had a lot of fun pushing chair and table carts around and cultural hall.  When we finished up Jack decided he wanted a picture.   Here it is...  

A Day of Soup

Today was spent making soup, transporting soup and serving soup.  We catered the LDS Institute Closing Social again this year and though it wasn't as big as last year we still had 600 to feed.  That is a lot of people to make soup for.  Broccoli Cheese and Chicken Noodle.  Wow, busy day.  4800 ounces of soup.  It took quite a while to make it all, pretty much all day, and then it disappeared in a mater of minutes.  Now, I am beat.  I have to make cookies for the Brick House but I am beyond tired and so those cookies are going to have to wait.  I do believe it is off to bed for me and I do hope that I am not dreaming about soup. 

Viva Madiba!

My Xhosa name is Vuyani.  It means happy to be with you.  My clan is Madiba, same clan as Nelson Mandela.  I am sad to report the news of the day that Nelson Mandela passed away.  It was not unexpected as he has lived a full life and his health has been failing over the last several months.  Though sad to learn of his passing I am grateful for his life and for the example he set for many people of all backgrounds.  Indeed it was a great privilege for me to serve in South Africa for two years and to witness history when Mandela was elected.  I then saw a leader put at ease much of the tension that existed leading up to those elections.  Wonderful man. 

The Plow

I was up at 5;25 this morning, not because I wanted to be but because I knew my alarm was going to sound off in 20 minutes and I couldn't get back to sleep.  No, I was up knowing that I had to put on my snow plow pants and go for it.  We had a networking group scheduled to use the upstairs conference room this morning at 7 and with all the snow fall from last night I knew there would be some work ahead of me in order to clear the front entry to the building.  Holy cow, that was a lot of snow.  That was a lot of snow in our driveway that I needed to clear just to get out of it.  Anyhow, I got to the shop, shoveled like crazy, got things set up and ready to go upstairs with the heat on, the lights on, water even.  Well, turns out that no body showed up.  I can only guess that they cancelled the meeting because of weather.  I had to run home so I could get the kids ready for school.  We managed to get everyone to school on time.  I continued to shovel snow around the neighborhood but the real treat is when I got to drive the snow plow to clear our parking lot when I got back to work.  There are some things that I consider fun to do and driving that snow plow certainly falls into that category.  The plowing wasn't done.  Turns out that the 8th Ward is in charge of snow removal this month at our building.  We were invited to stop by and help with removal.  Once again I pressed forward and did my duty, yep maybe calling me "the plow" is fitting on a day like today... 

Snow Falling on Cedar... Again

Ethan Hawk right?  I think I saw that movie once but I have no idea what it is about.  I saw the cover of it some time in the last year and other than the fact that there is snow and a tree and said Ethan Hawk on the cover with an oriental gal I couldn't tell you a single thing about the movie.  Somehow the title always sneaks into my mind whenever it begins snowing in Cedar City.  I have probably titled a previous blog post the same thing, perhaps I have even done it more than once since this is now my fourth winter typing the blog.  Crazy how time flies, how my forgetter forgets and just how un-imaginative I really am.  How else could I title the same thing?  White Crystals of Bliss Softly Drift through the Cold Winter Sky and Rest Peacefully on the City Which is Known as Cedar.  See, that is just to long and it certainly doesn't remind anybody of the great Ethan Hawk. 

My goodness, it is snowing rather heavy tonight actually.  We have at least 8 inches out there now if not more.  It started coming down around 4 and it hasn't really let up.  That is a good thing.  We need to get some snow pack up in the mountains for sure.  I will be up in the early AM to run over and shovel off the front walk at the Brick House.  I actually did it tonight and moved quite a bit of snow.  I figured I need to make it as easy as possible for 6 AM and hopefully tonights effort will make that so.  It's a good workout and when I look at shoveling as exercise it makes me feel like I'm fulfilling multiple needs.  I wasn't real excited a couple of weeks ago during the first big storm of the season but I am a bit more prepared this time. 

An Attempt at Lemon-Sour Cream

Tonight I went for it.  I have heard much about Lemon Cream Sour Cream Pie, I've been asked if our lemon cream pie has sour cream, I had a slice of Lemon Cream Sour Cream on fathers day and finally I have gotten around to making one of my own.  I did mine a little different.  First, I started with a Gluten Free pie crust - follow a graham cracker pie crust recipe and replace the graham crackers with rice chex - blended up in a vita mixer.  It is really quite simple though baking times on the crust may take a little longer.  I pulled mine out after 8 minutes but ended up putting it back in to crisp it up a bit.  So Gluten Free - check.  I also made it sugar, um, less.  I used the truvia baking blend which, if I am correct has 75% stevia and 25% sugar.  I think that is what it is.  I had a customer today request diabetic friendly desserts so I figured I might as well see how it goes.  I researched a number of recipes for Lemon Cream Sour Cream and found that most were fairly close.  Some called for milk and others called for half and half.  I went with milk.  The filling set pretty well though it may be a little clumpy.  I will do a few things different the next time I cook the filling to try for a smoother filling.  Anyhow, the flavor is good.  Using a stevia sweetener I wasn't too sure how it would turn out but it cooked just fine.  I think we have success there and really it was quite simple to do.  Perhaps I will sneak a piece of my Sugar-less, gluten free, Lemon Sour Cream pie in the morning and perhaps take some in for everyone to try.

In other news we watched a couple of Christmas videos from the Church for our FHE tonight.  We had a good discussion about what we can give this Christmas and everyone got excited.  Next week we will make some Fontano Family Fudge to distribute to friends and neighbors.  Not sure if we will go with the traditional fudge or try some of the Candy Cane stuff we do at the Brick House.  I tried to convince the kids that we should sing We Wish You A Merry Christmas at the door-step when we drop it off.  Natty wasn't having any of that.  Hmmm, what can we do to fix that? 

Move a Piano...

The primary had a combined meeting to start today after Sacrament Meeting.  They did a quick rehearsal of the Nativity for the Ward Christmas party coming up on Saturday evening.  I had been hanging out with Andy because he was on the program in primary sharing time for the scripture.  Anyhow, Morgan asked me to help him move a piano into the cultural hall so they could practice the songs they are going to sing.  I went to help him but the piano he was headed for was being used by another ward.  I turned around and walked back into the cultural hall and was asked by Sister Simmerman if I would help her out.  Oh, fantastic, what could this be?  Turns out she asked me to be the narrator for this little program and that requires that I commit to doing it on Saturday as well.  That is usually done by an older brother in the Ward isn't it?  Older brother... wait just a minute here.  I will do my best to be there.  Perhaps I need to work on my South African accent a bit and give it a go.  I am sure they will appreciate that.  Or perhaps I should bring my Hawaiian Pigeon New Testament and read the account that way, just to mix things up a bit.  I don't know if that will be appropriate but one things for sure, if I were to pull out the accent or the pigeon, the next time I go to help move a piano they will most likely look for the next unsuspecting guy to rope into to this narration thing.