More cakes

It has been a busy month for cakes in our family. I made my in-laws a cake, Braden a huge robot cake, And then I finished it off with a German Chocolate Cake. Yummy. I can't wait to start the next class.

cake

Mike signed me up for a cake decorating as an anniversary present. I think I've made 5 cakes so far but I haven't taken a picture of all of them.

So far in class I've learned:
1. icing taste better when you don't know what is in it.
2. icing is really a pain to clean off of bowls, spoons, etc.
3. making icing without a mixer is great for sculpting arms and eating icing is great for filling in saddlebags.

I only have 2 weeks in my beginner class. I'm planning on make Braden's birthday cake. I hope I can pull it off because if it's not perfect Braden WILL tell me.

Books Say A Lot...

Ashlyn and I have gone to the library from time to time while Braden was a school. With summer in full swing, the library will probably be a weekly trip. It kills a few hours and it's free (as long as I can remember to return the books and movies by the due date).

Today as I was unpacking our books I noticed that the books we picked really "show" us. Braden checked out: "Bats at the Library", " Bats at the Beach", "Bone Soup", and "Dinosaur Dinosaur". All subjects are kind-of creepy. Braden has a dark side. I'm sure a goth stage will rear its ugly head sometime in our future.

Ashlyn picked out: "Princess Abigail and the Wonderful Hat","The Girl in the Castle", "Alice the Fairy, and "Shoe Bop!" So she wants to be a princess and she really likes shoes--diva in the making!

I, however, just finished reading the book in the picture. I loved it. It explained a lot about slavery in America. This trip I got "Spy Girl", "Treasure Hunt", and "We Bought A Zoo". I'm going to the read the Zoo book first.

What do my choices say about me? I like non-fiction obviously. Not one book is fiction. I guess that shouldn't surprise me since I'm a reality show junkie! I think it also shows that I'm a little nosey. I like stories that let in on the private stuff, you know the juicy stuff, the dirt, etc..

surprise trip

Saturday we were surprised with a phone call from Mike's parents informing us that his grandmother had passed away Friday night. So we dropped everything and headed to Arkansas for four days.

The funeral wasn't until Wednesday afternoon so we were able to visit with some of my family early in the week.

One of Mike's families favorite restaurants is George's on Grand Ave. We haven't been there in years of course since it's been almost 2 years since we've been in the state. Braden was very happy with the portions.

more space center pictures

New House & New Adventures

It's been a few very crazy months. First I must say that I LOVE my new house. I'm so glad Mike got bored one afternoon and drug me around town looking at model homes. It resulted in a great move!

We've been busy working in the yard. First we dug up the sod in the front of the house and made a bigger flower bed. It looked so good. That was about a month ago now it's starting to show signs of my green thumb or lack thereof.

2009 already?

I can't believe that 2008 is already over and 2009 is here. Last year flew by at our house. We rang in the new year....in bed. Mike's parents and brother's family came over for the evening. Randy and Sally left around 8:30 to get Ava to bed. Then I started feeling bad so it was an early night.

I made the picture montage of everything we did over the past year. You'll see that there were no Arkansas pictures in this years review. But that will be different next year. We are currently working on our plans to go home as soon as Braden gets out of school.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Day 3 --Day at Sea

Day three of our cruise was planned to be our beach day at Coco Cay but the weather turned on us. So instead of kayaking and building sandcastle we spent the day at sea. The ship had tons of stuff planned to try to keep us entertained. My favorite had to the be kids talent show.

Both Ashlyn and Braden participated. Ashlyn's class did a group dance which she finished with "Thank You Thank You" and blowing kisses to the crowd. She got a gold medal (everyone did) for her wonderful performance.

Braden's class didn't do a group thing. Some kids did gymnastics. Several did hula hoop tricks and a couple sang. Braden's first choice was to be a clown but since I couldn't make a small clown car for him to use....yes he really did want me to whip that up during lunch.... he settled for telling a few jokes.

His jokes were : "Why did the rooster cross the road?" "To Prove he wasn't a chicken!"

A Jason Tidwell original "Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?" "No! They're pretty good hiders!"

And then he finished it off with a classic knock knock joke.

Day 2 -Nassau

Our first port of call in the Bahamas was Nassau. The rest of our group went on another tour but Mike and I decided that the Fort & Pirates Tour would be the best one for the kids. Braden seemed to really enjoy it. Ashlyn was too tired to give it a real chance.

The tour was a driving tour and it was quite the experience. I only saw one street with traffic signals. The rest of the time the drivers would honk and go at intersections. I quickly realized that I needed to look out my window and not pay attention to the driving.

The best part of the day was the pirate museum at the end of the tour. It was really neat. Braden loved it and actually retained some of the information that we learned on tour-- (pirates would eat rats while out to sea, a lot of pirates did keep parrots but they didn't make people walk the plank).

We visited 2 different forts during the first half of the tour. Ashlyn and I missed the second one because she was napping in the bus. Braden and Mike really enjoyed the second one. It had different rooms to visit the first fort only had some canons on display.

Life On The Sea

Life on the sea is a GREAT place to be!!! We got back this morning from our first cruise. We went on a 3 night cruise to the Bahamas. It was so much fun even though the weather turned on us and our second port of call was canceled.

Our first day was rough. We boarded at noon and the activities for the kids didn't start until 8pm. That was a long time to entertain 2 little kids. We learned quickly that our closet (I mean stateroom) was not the place to hang out. So we went up to the 12th deck to hang out even though it was cool outside. We were so excited that we didn't even notice.

I have a lot more pictures to share but I'm too tired from my vacation right now.

Icing Wars

My mom and her husband Greg came down for the weekend for an early Christmas. Mom had a wonderful plan in hand. We had a gingerbread house decorating contest. The boys vs the girls. It was so much fun. I think our house was the best but the judging (Braden) favored the boys house.

It was a lot of fun. It was cheap (less than $10 for each kit) and it was a fun and messy way to spend the evening.