Final Cake Class - Level 3

Tonight we did our finale cake for class. Tonight's lesson was how to stack a cake & how to do tiered cakes. We put together all our knowledge of flower making & fondant covering & brought two cake layers to class. I decorated mine for the Easter season. I made bright spring flowers, butterflies, and a bunny out of fondant. It came together great.

Kaye made a cool tied-dyed fondant cake. I never would've thought about doing a swirled cake, but it came out so cute.

The other girl in glass did a tiered cake with red roses - a girl after my own heart. I have now graduated from class & was presented my Wilton certificate.

Nice Surprise

Vince came home last night with some beautiful yellow roses for me. They had a slight pinkish tint to the edge of them. Thanks Vince! I love flowers.

Last night I worked on my grand finale cake for my last night of class. I'm going to sell it tomorrow in a bake sale at work to benefit March of Dimes. So far it's looking really cute. I struggle with getting the fondant even at the bottom edge of the cake. It wants to crease on me. So if any of you have any tips on how to prevent this, please share them with me. I'll take a picture of it after I stack it tonight & complete the decorations.

A Few Small Dents

After I washed my Rav4 yesterday afternoon (okay so I took it through a car wash), Vince inspected it for hail damage. Keep in mind we just spent over $300 this year to fix the hood after a huge metal wrench put a gash in it. It now has very slight hail dents all over the hood, top of the car, and a few spots on the sides of the car. Luckily, they're not very noticeable, but I would like to get them fixed. All the local shops are completely swamped with fixing hail damage on other cars. I guess it's good to see the economy picking up for those guys, although having a deductible doesn't really help my economic pocket.

We will have to clean & inspect the Celica next. At least my cars are getting clean!

Before & After

I took a few pictures this weekend of before & after things. The first pictures are Vince's car. He replaced his rotors & brake pads, and painted the calipers, new rotors, new brake pads, and shined up the brake pad holder. And he cleaned up the tires & replaced his shocks. And he painted the inside wheel well. All of this was done on the back two wheels.

Vince is very glad to have a nice dry garage to work in. Below are before & after of my tulips that had just bloomed. I took a picture Saturday of them blooming and then Sunday after the hail storm. Poor little flowers.

This last picture is just an after because I didn't really think about taking a before picture of my flood lights on my house. This one shattered during the hail storm.

Hail Storm

This evening Vince called me out to the garage to look outside at the clouds. They looked greenish/gray and were circulating a lot. They were definitely tornado/storm type clouds. I closed the garage and 2 minutes later, the hail came down hard & fast. We don't know the damage to the cars yet, but my Celica, Rav4, and Vince's Olds were outside in it. The car cover on his Olds flew off. The flood lights in the front of the house are shattered with glass on the ground. We're not sure if hail busted it or the car cover when it flew off. All my beautiful flowers that were looking great this week & in full bloom are now pummeled into the ground.



The hail was pea-sized on up to walnut-sized. Vince scooped some up & put it in a cup. It's now in our freezer.

Ahhh...the weekend

This Saturday & last Saturday were so pretty. Vince & I got a lot done. Vince worked on his car, painting parts and replacing shocks. I planted some flower seeds and admired my tulips which have bloomed...then I tackled lots of fondant flowers. I practiced flowers for several hours trying to decide which flowers to use on my cake that I have to take to my final level 3 class on Wednesday. I really enjoy making the fondant flowers. I can't wait to take the next class which focuses solely on fondant & gum paste (which I haven't used yet).

Our 1st anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. We'll be celebrating it on the first night that we sail away. I can't believe it's been almost one year. What a fabulous year! We've really enjoyed getting to know each other & loving each other more & more every day.

Now if Sunday could just stay as pretty as Saturday. This weekend & last weekend it rained. Why can't it wait until Monday? And where did the warm weather go? Please come back quickly!

Getting Excited

I'm getting excited about our cruise coming up next month. We looked at several excursions available at the 4 ports of call. There are some really fabulous things to do. Some of them are way over priced. I've done a few in the past & some are worth the money more than others. The problem is that you don't know that until you go on them. Some of the beach excursions are $50 just to lay on the beach (with a provided chair). Two of the ones we are looking at are 1. cave tubing in Belize and 2. pirate adventure in Grand Cayman. We've heard several people give us good feedback on the cave tubing. I bought a wet suit to take with us so I don't get too cold. I haven't heard much about Grand Cayman, but the pirate adventure seemed to be one of the least expensive. I'm sure we'll have a good time whatever we do. Who knows, maybe we'll even do a zipline excursion somewhere. Or maybe we'll just hang out on the boat by the pool. The great thing about vacations is that you're on vacation!

Our cruise is 7 nights long (from Sunday to Sunday). Vince's parents will be in town that week so it will be nice having someone staying at the house to keep an eye out for things (like neighbors that burn yards or coyotes). We've heard coyotes at night lately and roosters during the day. If either get in our backyard, I'm not sure either will last long.

Work Work Work

We are installing a huge system change at work. Our implentation was this past weekend, but we've been gearing up for it for several months. We've written new procedures and tested all sorts of data. This week we are reviewing all the production data before it goes to our customers to make sure all the data is accurate. Needless to say, we have a ton of data and I've been working until 10 or 11pm each night. After we feel the data is spot on accurate, then we will decide to stop checking each one & let the system send them automatically. But I don't think that will happen this week.

The one reprieve is that I usually have a two hour window when I get home that I don't work. That's when I fix dinner (last night I grilled) or clean the dishes. So I guess I do work, I just do house work instead of computer work. I do have to thank Vince for bringing home some Chick-Fil-A on Monday night. His co-worker had a fund-raiser for her baby that has eye cancer. Chick-Fil-A donated the proceeds from sales that night to her family.

And on Tuesday night, I went to my 3rd level 3 cake decorating class. We learned how to make a rose out of fondant and we made 4 flowers out of royal icing. I put way too much water in my icing so it was super runny. I had to use Kaye's icing (thanks Kaye!). The flowers turned out cute & were not too hard to make, but the royal icing is so thick, it's really hard on the hands.

Next week is the final week of level 3 class. We will put a tiered cake together and use all the skills we've learned so far. This weekend I will need to make whatever flowers I decide to use on the cake so they will have time to dry.

After next week, I will be screaming for our cruise vacation to get here quickly.

It's thunder, no it's an earthquake, no it's...

construction. At work they are rennovating the customer center, which is one floor directly beneath my desk. They are removing walls and opening the space up. Since Monday, we hear loud booms, hammers, drills, things falling, and sometimes I think the building almost shakes. I'm hoping that we do not fall through any time soon.

Meanwhile, we are starting to get that faint whiff of saw dust smell. It's 76 degrees outside and gorgeous. I think I'm going to petition that we move our desks outside to the patio when it's sunny & beautiful outside. At least until the construction is over.

308 Pages in 2009

I got my blog book for 2009 in the mail this weekend. It looks so nice. The pictures look great and this year they finally designed it so the sentences match up evenly with the pictures. My 2008 blog book did not have that feature so it listed all my pictures in each entry and then all the verbiage. That made it kind of hard to follow since there would be a random sentence every now & then with no picture beside it. This book has everything I like. It's from the same company, so I kept the same black cover. I put one of our wedding pictures on the front & back of the book. It has a table of contents, it's a hard cover, and the pictures match up with the verbiage. If you'd like to make your blog into an album, the webiste is sharedbook.com. I found out about it from the blog layout website that I use...thecutestblogontheblock.com.

Spring Has Sprung!

It is the first day of spring and it has been gorgeous all day...sunny and 76 degrees. Vince worked on his car today by making his calipers shiny. We ventured to 4 automotive stores and to Walmart to find the right paint for them.

My task today was the yard. We went to Lowe's twice for mulch, potting soil, weed & feed, and plant food sticks. Vince prepped the lawn mower for me and then I mowed the grass. Whew! The hill on the back yard is a killer. The weeds were really slick so the mower had a hard time cutting through them and getting back up the hill. It took me forever to weed the rose garden. The weeds have really taken over this spring. I mulched all the beds, put out weed & feed on the grass, and put plant food sticks around all my roses. I also watered the roses with Miracle Grow for roses.

We found a blueberry bush at Lowe's so I decided to plant it & see what happens. It looks like just a stick, so I hope it does something. I also read that it needs another variety to pollinate so I'll need to get another stick to plant. I'm hoping to have blueberries one day!

The flowers on the side of my house are really blooming this week. I love all the different colors. The tulips will most likely bloom this coming week. The crocus and daffodils are in full bloom. I'm hoping the weeping cherry tree blooms in the next week or so since the buds are on each branch.

Date Night with Vince

I was so glad to see Friday evening come this week. It was a long week. After decorating a cute Thomas the Train cake (I used some fondant!), we ventured out for the evening. Our first stop was the tool store. Every other week or so they put a coupon for a free flashlight in the paper. We now have about 5 or 6 of them (one in each car & then some). After the tool store, we went next door to eat some Mexican. We had not eaten at this restaurant before, but they were really good. It also seemed more cozy than the usual spot we go to for Mexican. The food always tastes the same to me at each one. We both really enjoyed dinner & I was glad not to have to cook.

1st Fondant Cake

In my fondant class tonight, I made my first fondant cake. We had to bake a square cake & ice it with a thin layer of buttercream icing. The first thing we did in class was roll out the fondant after making it pliable. We then covered the cake with the fondant & smoothed it out. Our next step was to make a bow. It was all so much easier than I thought. I don't know why I waited so long to use fondant. Since tomorrow is St. Patrick's day, I did a clover theme to my cake.

Next week we have to do quite a bit with royal icing (my least favorite). Royal icing is stiff and makes the arthritis in my hand and wrist scream. I'm learning lots of techniques and tips in this class. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Quick Trip to Ellijay, GA

Vince & I were going to drive to Ellijay on Friday night, but the lightening, rain, and dead stopped traffic on I-85 changed our minds. We decided to get up really early Saturday morning(6 a.m.) and drive. We got there in about 3 hours and helped his parents move lots of small boxes and rubbermaid storage tubs onto a moving truck. They are building a house in Simpsonville and will close on the house in April. In the meantime, they rented a storage spot near their house and are moving things little by little so it won't be overwhelming in April.

We drove back on Sunday and (thanks to Brian!) were able to get everything unloaded & into the storage building pretty quickly. While we were over there, Vince took us to a pizza place called Frodo's pizza. They have excellent pizza. It will be so nice to have Vince's parents closer than a 3 hours visit.

And like a moron, I didn't take a single picture all weekend. I had lots of oppotunities, but for some reason, never took out my camera. We even saw a tractor trailer whose front end was completely engulfed in 20 foot flames on I-85 (on the opposite side). I kept waiting for a huge explosion as we drove past it. So you'll just have to envision for youself what it might have looked like.

I'm now ready for a weekend to recover from my whirlwind weekend.

11 Months of Wedded Bliss

Vince & I have been married for 11 months today. Only one month to go until our 1st anniversary! It has been such a great 11 months. I truly have found my soul mate. I have told Vince several times that he is an answer to my prayers. Except that I never could have prayed for such a wonderful husband. God went above and beyond all my expectations. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

Fondant Class

Kaye & I have signed up to take the 3rd Wilton cake decorating class. This is my first introduction to working with fondant. I had a nice time tonight learning about it and actually using it for the first time. The only thing we really made tonight were the tiny little rose bud starter pieces for the full rose. The pieces need to harden so we can build the rest of the roses during next week's class. The last time I took a Wilton class was around 1999 (I think). It was fun practicing some new skills and having someone give me some helpful pointers.

Thanks for going with me, Kaye! There were 4 of us total in the class, which was a nice small number. Several others had signed up, but didn't show up so our class may grow next week.

Neighborhood Darwin Award

And the award goes to.....the idiot neighbor! Congratulations neighbor. This neighbor earned this award by trying to burn down the whole neighborhood.

Vince & I came home Sunday from church around 12:30pm and noticed the houses across the street had black back yards and people were moving sprinklers around all over the yard.

After asking his kid what happened, we found out that his dad was burning "dead grass" in their back yard & it accidentally spread. The two neighbors directly across the street from me now have black back yards. His house backed up to their back yards. He also charred his next door neighbor's fence.

The point to note is that we don't have dead grass, it's dormant Bermuda grass that turns green in the spring. It's also sod, not seed, so it shouldn't be burned. Sod is expensive. I hope he has good insurance. The last time I checked, he is not a farmer that needs to put nutrients back in the soil from a good crop burn in order to plant crops for the next year.

I managed to get a few good pictures of the black grass. The award winner owns the hill. His property ends right at the end of the hill. Congratulations neighbor! Job well done.

Water Shoes & Wet Suit

Vince and I have booked our 1 year anniversary cruise so I have been trying to think of things I may need. One of the islands we'll be going to is Belize. Several people have recommended cave tubing to us so we are planning on doing that. They have a series of caves that you just swim through on an innertube. Knowing how cold I am in water (especially cave water), I knew I wanted something warm to wear. I was searching on ebay for some swim shorts when I came across a nice wet suit. I had a bidding war with 2 other people in the last 5 minutes of the on-line auction, but won it in the last minute. I also went by Academy yesterday to see what kind of shoes they had for water wear. I found a great pair for $4.99. I think Vince is going to get some too. We were told that you have to walk a little distance over rocks before you enter the water. I may be the only one with a wet suit on in Belize, but at least I hope not to turn blue from being so cold.

The other places we'll be visiting on the cruise are Cozumel (jewelry!!), Honduras, and Grand Cayman. I've never been to Belize, Honduras, or Grand Cayman so I'm excited to see these new places. Our cruise is 7 nights long - woo hoo!!! I'm definitely in the mood for a nice warm vacation.

Irish Festival

Vince & I ventured to downtown Greenville. It was held at the Peace Center Amphitheater. I had no idea that the Peace Center had an amphitheater behind the indoor building. It was really crowded. I think they didn't anticipate so many people coming to a free event since the sun was shining and the weather was so nice. We listened to several types of music including the traditional bag pipes and some not so traditional Pink Floyd songs. The amphitheater had one of the best notices posted that I've seen in a long time. No smoking & no pets.

We only stayed for about an hour and then walked around the river area. I forgot my digital camera, but managed to take a few pictures with my cell phone camera.

New Blog Book

I ordered my 2008 blog book near the end of last year. Since then, I've been patiently (or impatiently) waiting for a coupon from that website so I could order the blog book for 2009. They finally sent one. Yeah! I ordered my 2009 blog book and hopefully will receive it within the next week or so. I love having all my blogs and pictures in one big album for the whole year. It's such a great way to keep all my memories in one convenient spot.

Happy birthday to Jerry today! Jerry is Vince's stepdad. I couldn't ask for better in-laws than Jerry & Barbara. I hope you have a great birthday Jerry!

Visitors

Vince's parents came in town this week and stopped by the house this evening. We ventured out to O'Charley's to eat some good grub. They have new options on their menu that are 2 meals for $14.99. The three of them ate one of those entrees, but I just love their salads. The best part of the California salad is the candied pecans. They just make the salad so good. I can't stop eating it. Now I'm so stuffed, but in a very satisfied kind of way. It's always great to see Barbara & Jerry as well. Come back & visit us soon!

Sugar Free Recipes

I had to make a cake this weekend for a diabetic family. I looked around on line to find a sugar free cake recipe and found a great one on the Splenda website. I had a hard time finding a sugar free icing recipe. I finally found one that tasted great & had some stiffness to it so I could decorate, but it was still more of a pudding consistency. I'm glad I finally found a recipe that turned out well. I made sure to post it to my tastebook.com website (along with all my other recipes) so I won't forget it next time I need it. I still refer to this website often for recipes I've created before. It's so great to have my recipes on line so I can access them from anywhere.

I ordered the hardback cookbook with all my recipes in it over a year ago. Since then, I have several more that I need to get printed & mailed to me so I can add them to my book. I highly recommend putting all your family recipes on tastebook.com so you can have them forever & easily pass them to the next generation.