Building a graham cracker house...

Building a graham cracker house is fun. At work, we are set into different teams/groups. Last Tuesday we got the mere basic ingredients, a can of icing, colored sugar for sprinkling, and a box of generic brand of graham crackers, for the "Gingerbread House Contest." We could however supplement whatever other ingredients we chose to bring. The top three teams would get a prize. Sonia, Nancy and I brought extra stuff for the house. I put together the base and height of the house, placed almost half of the marshmallows used as snow, and put some of the pretzels to be used as fence. Mollie put the roof and iced the house and decorated it. Nancy finished the fence, the marshmallow snow and the trees. We did an awesome job. Just take a look. Most teams did an awesome job and had alot of creativity. We did not win , however I enjoyed this activity very much. Here are some pics of our house in progress and Mollie's creative touch.

First place went to a team that made an island near a volcano with water and dolphins and more. Truly a first place winner. I had to take several pictures of this one. Take a look:

Second place went to this one:



Third place went to this one:


The second and third place winners I don't agree with much. Well, actually I could have seen the second place winner take third.It was after all well put together. But the third place winner really should not have won. Sure it looks nice, but there was more creativity in some of the other houses that did not win. Another thing. The original contest said it was the top 2 teams who would win, and somehow there ended up being 3 winning teams and I have the filed e-mails to back that claim. Anyways, I'm sure you'll agree with me that the first place winner is definitely a winner, second place winner surely could have won, but take a look at the houses of other teams who did not win and you'll definitely agree that the third place winner should have been one of the other teams. Take a look at the rest of the houses below:



Judging for the contest was on Wednesday and Thursday we got the results. On Wednesday we also had our holiday dinner. I helped put together the tinsel trees used as center pieces. The food was good and we had team members as carolers. Yesterday, Thursday, we had our team potluck and gift exchange. Lots of food, laughs, and gifts. It was a great work day.

It's Friday now and off I am to do some final X-mas shopping.