ginger bread extravaganza

Last week we got together with our neighbors the Barnwells and had a ginger bread house raising... much like an Amish barn raising.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are the entrants:

Chelsy went for the classic, candyland approach.  Picturesque, quaint, delicious!

Ashley went for the... "big on landscape, little on house."  Unfortunately she didn't finish as she got distracted by the party and putting George to sleep.  She didn't want the paparazzi (me) to take a picture of it.

I went for the classic, Frank Loyd Wright's Falling Waters.  I have never gone for something so ambitious and I was certainly limited by the medium and patience, but I was happy with the overall end result.

Tyler went for the ultimate neo-gothic castle.  Fresh with suspension bridge held up by licorice strings!

Look at that attention to detail!  Tyler definitely wins the craftsmanship award.

Here's Ashley's submission.  As she was putting the finishing touches on it I heard her say under her breath, "Ashley, you've done it again, another masterpiece."  : )

We also went to see Santa at our Church Christmas Party.  As we placed George on his lap, George kept his arms stiff as a board, as if he wanted to keep contact at a minimum at all costs.

We hope you are all having a great Christmas and Holiday season.

Merry Christmas

You probably already received this in your email, but just in case:

Also, I'm curious. How does this year's rate compared to 2009 and 2008? Cast your vote here.

I was also thinking of funnier captions than "Happy Holidays."

I was thinking of:
"Don we now our gay apparel."
"Have a Royally Awesome Christmas"
"Montana's really rubbing off on us...

Any ideas there?

it's winter

Slowly - but surely - we are coming to grips with the fact that it's winter here in Montana.  As we had been winter-free for nearly four years, we weren't exactly sure how we'd adjust to the cold slap in the face that is a Montana winter.  We've braced for it, and made adequate preparations.  We've bought our winter coats, snow tires, shovels, and dusted off our mittens and hats.  It kind of seems comical that we even owned a pair living in Los Angeles.

Something that was ironically fortunate, was that the first "real" cold week was a string of days that were in the negatives.  It was serious cold.   It has since warmed up... and now we find ourselves enjoying the 20's and 30's quite well.  We have got a lot of snow (at least two feet I'd reckon) since it started, and I am now a firm believer that if you want to enjoy snow, there's got to be a lot of it.  A couple of inches and it's just annoying.  A couple of feet - now there's a party!  We've got several strategies in place for enjoying the winter... with more to come I'm sure:

Ashley and George pause from a fun day in the snow.  When the sun comes out and its 30, it's quite easy to spend a comfortable few hours out playing.  We go as long as George can handle it... wear him out.  And just when we think he's ready to go in...

... we put him to work shoveling the snow.  Nothing like burning off the ole "Thanksgiving five" with some manual labor!

We cut down this beauty, for the steep figure of $5 smackers.  It is probably about 7 feet or so (our first full sized tree) and I'm absolutely in love with it.  At night we turn off the lights and though I'm supposed to be watching season four of prison break (a death march right now), I can't help but look at this beautiful tree.  It's got everything I want.  The look, the feel, the smell of a family tree.

We also are experimenting with George's housewear and lounge looks... everything from the...

German tourist at the beach, to the...

Indie hipster in Brooklyn picking up a redbox rental for him and his sweetheart.

Last Saturday they closed down Main Street for the "Winter Stroll."  Bozeman has a great civic scene... lots of events and tons of kids out.  We meandered our way through the caroling and crowds and settled in on some delicious fry bread, pizza by the slice, and hot apple cider.  So much fun.

George enjoying fry bread

Ashley caught this spectacle on Sunday afternoon.  It was quite cold, but the sun was out. It had completely frozen everything on the tree... reminding me of an image of bronchioli from a 7th grade biology book.

I'm sure there are more adventures to come.  We're kicking around the idea of becoming snowshoe or cross country ski-enthusiasts... though I may also take up snow-sculpture.  We hope you all are enjoying your winters, near and far.

retiring the food blog, now on to death defying adventures

8 foot plus icicle on our roof.  I knocked it down with a shovel and it seriously almost knocked me over. 

Photoshop recreation and scale so you can see the magnitude of this bad boy.

big news, pulsipherad is turning into a food blog

Over Thanksgiving and with a little help from Ashley, I made my first pumpkin pie. I documented the highlights and I was inspired to quit my job and rebrand this blog.  I'm going to take super high quality pictures of the meals I make, in painstaking detail.  Don't try to talk me out of it... because I know no one's thought of this idea already.

It was a pretty good pie though... all joking aside.

celeb look a like, revisited

Earlier this year, George had some pretty serious Nick Nolte/Tom Cruise action going. But now that he's knocking on 2 years, he's starting to grow into a more mature, celebrity look a like.  His awesome bouffant is the product of some sweaty, snowhat fun.  Ashley took some great pictures and we thought we'd share them.  Take a gander and see for yourself.

I guess the big question is:  Is it more Dean or Dylan?   I'm not sure... I think I might be leaning toward Dylan.   If you can find pictographic proof - then lets see it!  List your vote below. Write-ins are also acceptable.

first snow/thoughts on coats

Well, after a beautiful indian summer in Bozeman, winter is finally here.  We had our first snow.  Not that much accumulated even though it snowed for a full day.   George wasted no time getting acclimated.  Eventually we'll need to figure out more... "fun for the whole family" activities - other than rolling around in it like a bank robber might roll in their newly acquired loot.  But in the mean time, this will have to do.  

With help from aunts, clearance sales, ebay and garage sales - getting the Pulsiphers outfitted for winter truly has been a team effort.  We came to Montana with hardly any winter wear.  Now, for the most part we feel ready for it.  It reminds me of when I was in 5th grade and we moved from southern California to Colorado.  The first time it snowed I wore a sweatshirt, a light polyester jacket I got from my participation in little league baseball, and shorts.  It was an early snow that year in Colorado, and it caught us all off guard.  I'm sure the teachers at school were seconds away from calling child protective services.

We quickly got winter coats by going to the great... Burlington Coat Factory.  Me and my brothers had so much fun going, running around in what seemed to be an enormous "factory" searching for the right coat.  We all got coats, but the experience was so fun, that every time we needed new coats we practically begged our parents to take us to the BCF.  Pretty funny.

That experience is starkly contrasted to another experiment... the time they took us to "Bearly Worn."  The title/pun was certainly lost on the 5th grade mind - all I could think of was that somehow the clothes in this store were related to bears.  Maybe the proceeds helped fund a bear preserve?  As I cautiously perused the wares, the wheels began to turn...

bears.

bearly.

barely.

barely worn

BARELY WORN! THESE WERE USED CLOTHES!

Confident I was the only one who had cracked this divinci code, and not wanting to start a food riot, I calmly approached my mom to tell her the bad news.

"Mom, these clothes are... USED!"  (It would be many years before I would come to appreciate the treasures that awaited me in the regions of "pre-owned" clothing.)  My mom still cracks up everytime we tell this story.  Needless to say, I did not consent to buy/wear anything from that store, but my parents got a real big laugh out of it.

So here we come, full circle.  George is outfitted in a mishmash of "bearly worn" goods.  Both Ashley and I found our coats on eBay.  Finding ourselves moderately unprepared for a winter in Montana - I hope there's a shining Burlington Coat Factory out there, or something like it, for George some day.

yellowstone ho!

Last weekend we went to the world-famous, Yellowstone park.  We live about an hour and a half away from it, and it happened to be a perfect weekend to go.  It was the last weekend the park was open to car traffic, the place literally was a ghost town.  Ashley had heard that Yellowstone is like "Los Angeles" in the summer.  I'm assuming that's traffic-wise, but hey, it could be crawling with celebrities and fancy cars, great restaurants, beach access and what not.  Somehow, I doubt it.  The weather was beautiful, crystal clear day and brisk, but warm enough that we just needed a light coat.

We went with one of my very best friends, Bond, and his family.  They had a timeshare in West Yellowstone so we got to stay the night and live the high life for a day or so.  Ashley commented (and I agree), that seeing the park by car allows you to hit all the big spots, but also you don't get the real experience as you might if you were hiking and camping.  Next summer!  There's so much to see yet and we just saw a fraction of it.  Here are some of the highlights.

This was george doing his best Kevin Costner impression.  We saw buffalo multiple times.  They were all over the place. 

George was not scared... this was his reaction when I told him that we would not be taking one home with us.

Hot steam pours out of the ground everywhere in Yellowstone.  Half of the world's geothermal features are located in Yellowstone.

Family shot.  It's really a shame that this place hasn't been turned into a resort.  A Starbucks and Burger King would be so convenient.  We were quite peckish after a day of exploring.

When I told George about my plans for developing Yellowstone Park George exclaimed "I can just see a Best Buy right over these unsightly pools of water"

Old Faithful erupts approximately every 90 minutes.  We got there just as it was erupting. I was hoping for a little bit more downtime before the show. It was like skipping to the end of the Harry Potter series and finding out... whatever happens at the end of the Harry Potter series.

George was impressed with Old Faithful.

Not quite sure what this was. I think it was a coyote.  It would've been a lot cooler if it was a wolf.  Will someone out there tell me it was a baby wolf?!

I wanted to see a moose or grizzly really bad.  No luck... I kept a sharp eye out for any wildlife.

Me and Bond.  Want to see something magic - flashback twelve years!

Award winning photography from yours truly.  The rivers are just kind of different here.  Wide and shallow looking. In Colorado they always seemed, narrow and deep.  I don't know if that's reality - just my perceived reality.

Saw this happy family of elk on the way out.  Ashley took this picture before we had read the warning messages about elk.

A shot of the parking lot.  It really was a ghost town.  Highly recommend this time of year when you have kids running around acting wild.  They had a nice 1ft pool that George loved.  We can't wait to go back.  We think next time we'll maybe do some camping, biking - make it a real adventure. 

halloween wrap up

Our first Halloween in Bozeman was a pretty big success.  We were somewhat stumped when it came to costumes, but Ashley had a stroke of genius (as she is prone to), when she came up with George's costume idea.  Thank you current events!  Bozeman put on a great little trick-or-treat for the kiddos along Main Street.  There were a ton of people there and lots of kids.  I love being a part of community events.  Here's some of the hightlights from the day and from the ward trunk-or-treat.

to the founder of the feast

George says, "I declare this meal to be... delicious!"

 Last night Ashley made beet gnocchi that was out of this world.  George probably ate about two pounds worth.  We (George & I) are really lucky to have Ashley, who makes us delicious meals to eat, even if she doesn't feel like eating them.

Thanks mom/honey!

Love,

George & David