Happy Fathers Day

Today was a wonderful day. I started out with toast with Gavin then took Edward to the donut shop for his favorite breakfast. I then returned home and we opened gifts. I have a new Triton router that will get a good workout and has two projects in the shed that need its services. Teddy received a great digital soldering station. For those of you who do not know he is working on Electrical Engineering degree and loves to solder circuit boards to create all kinds of wonderful projects.

I then sat down to listen to the Giants game and was treated to 61/3 innings of no hit baseball from Barry Zito pitching against the Texas Rangers. He has me hoping that it would go the full 9. Sadly he gave up a two run home run to tie the game. The Giants did however come back to win the game 3-2 while we drove up to Big Basin.

I took the whole family (minus Amber) to Big Basin for a Gavin sized hike. He was very impressed with the giant redwoods (scary to sit on) but very fun to walk on.As you can see many years ago his dad then 4 or 5 I think enjoyed it as well. Today Teddy spent the day chasing Gavin through the trees with Edward following behind. We had a really great time and drove way up into the Santa Cruz mountains. It was a beautiful day 80 degrees and lots of sunshine up there.

When we returned home we grilled burgers, and vegetables in the grilling basket that Edward purchased for me for fathers day. The vegetables were amazing, potatoes, corn on the cob, asparagus, and red pepper. The family was very impressed with how well it worked the entire dinner start to eating was 30 minutes.

It is very hard hanging with the big dog (Opa) for the day. But he tried really hard. He is sleeping well tonight.

Edward is very happy

Earlier last month I came to the decision that I would rebuild the scenery for Edwards Train set. I wanted to do it in sections so that if we moved it we would not face the same disaster we did with the previous set. I have completed the first section and Edward is extremely happy with it. It has the first part of the street, a house with a circular driveway and a large backyard with two trees and lots of grass. We have a street light ordered for the street that will be tied into the light in the house. The second house is now in the works.

Party for 20!

At a very weak moment I agreed to prepare a dinner party of 20 teachers at the end of Dorothy's school year. Well I dusted off all of Costanza's best recipes and one of my own. Figured out a cooking time table and at 8am I was at my station (stove) and ready to have it all on the table by 4pm. Here is the menu we served.

Leak tart
Mozzarella and Gorgonzola Crestini
Spaghetti Bolanase
Berries in Red Wine sauce
Chocolate cake a la Villa Paradisino
Della Nonna with Chocolate Ganache

I am quite pleased to say that everything with the exception of the Della Nonna cake was really wonderful. I am afraid that I used an unsweetened chocolate when it should have been a sweetened dark chocolate. There were many vegetarians in the crowd and the only item on the menu with meat was the spaghetti. The leak tart and Crestini disappeared very fast.

In the end our friends Sandy and Paul came over and we had a quiet dinner of left overs and opened a bottle of the Reserve Chianti that I brought back from Lamond vineyard in Italy. It turned out to be a wonderful evening.