You're never too old

Dog Hill Bistro closed down for construction purposes Saturday with nearly a dozen builders, all with their own different design ideas.

"I love their creativity; they're so adorable," said bistro owner Kathy Logan about the 10 gingerbread houses. The houses were colorful and tasty, but they weren't being built by kids this time. This was the First Annual Adult Gingerbread House Class put on by Logan. "Parents are always doing something for their kids this time of year, so I wanted to do something for adults," said Logan, who joined the fun by building a pink gingerbread barn, complete with a non-working sliding door and a shredded wheat thatched roof.

Logan held a gingerbread house class for children two weeks ago and saw that the parents seemed to be having as much fun as their kids. Eight-year-old Avamarie Lawyer couldn't make the children's class, so she built a gingerbread house alongside her mother, Erika, and grandmother, Susan Swanson. "I have no idea what I'm doing," said Swanson, the only one to name her house – "The Rustic Hut." Because of large gaps between the roof and walls, Swanson decided it was going to be a summer home.

Six other women and two men participated in the event, including Logan's husband, Todd, who said he was glad no one was grading him on his work. He was the only one with a hip roof of multiple gables.

Logan put out more than a dozen candies and crackers for the participants to use on their creations. Logan stuck the children's roofs and walls together ahead of time, but the adults had to put their own together using melted sugar, a fast-acting adhesive. All of the materials were edible, except for the cotton smoke from the houses of Brittany Riddle and Erica Olson. Kim Revier was caught eating her house materials on the way to her construction site.

"It was definitely a lot quieter," said Logan about the adult gingerbread session. She also felt the adults were more patient and more meticulous with their houses, and less messy. Some of them went past the two-hour scheduled time slot. Angela Indigo was the only one to construct a complete pretzel log house, but she got help by Alan Lamb of Hot Springs, who builds log homes in real life. They designed their roof with cracker shaker shingles.

Naomi Banham had a combination brick and log home with crushed candy cane bits on the roof. "A lot of thought and imagination went into building these houses," said Logan, who might consider making the adult class a contest next year.

Revier and her daughter, Kayla Lilja, were the first to arrive, but almost the last to leave. Both ladies spent nearly the entire two hours beautifying the outside of their houses with an assortment of decorations and holiday messages before erecting the walls. Revier spent nearly 10 minutes on a detailed ginger snowman complete with a cracker hat, M&M eyes and a frosting scarf. Lilja composed her house with a raspberry-nose Rudolph reindeer on one wall and meticulously detailed snowflakes on another wall.

Most of the adults' creations can be seen at the Dog Hill Bistro next to the children's gingerbread houses for customers to see. "I think maybe they had more fun than the kids," said Logan, " and they had more interaction checking each other's work out."