stackable cake...

Last week I made a cake for the end of secretaries week for our awesome secretaries Margaret and Michelle. It happened to coinside with my last lesson of this cake course...so I killed to birds with one stone. Well really, satisfied to needs with one cake :) I made my first homemade chocolate cake using Martha's One Bowl Chocolate Cake recipe. While I am not a fan of chocolate cake...it was a HUGE hit. I filled it with starwberry filling. Here are the pictures!

new way of frosting. just pipe it on!!! so easy and even.

crumb coat.

homemade fondant. yummy and pretty! and really easy to work with *surprisingly

both tiers covered. found out the next day I shouldn't have put them in the freezer...

stacked. the long dowel was to keep it from falling over in the car...

since I am not good at freehand artwork...i traced :)

paw print on. now to cover up the cracks...look at the where the red icing is...

decorating in class :)

fully decorated. simple yet fun.

it is totally leaning to the left...whoops!

@ work setting up.

helping to decorate the table.

every friday a different team is in charge of snacks. it is great!!!

what a weekend...

We has our first "busy" weekend of the season :)

It started out Friday night with a massage for me and working late for Jason. Heehee. My massage was dur to by back bring thrown out in February and I'm still trying to rehab it...massage and chiropractic adjustments weekly for 6 weeks is the plan...we're on week 3 and it is doing much better!!! After those events on Friday we headed up to meet my parents and Tony & Kellie for dinner at Linda's Homeplate for dinner. It is a "homecooking" type restaurant and the company of my parents and Tony & Kellie is always nice!!!

Saturday morning was our monthly grocery shopping that I did by myself...the con of Jason working on the weekends. After a long (2.5 hour) nap by both Jason and I were we up and geared up for Kooza ~ Cirque Du Soleil!!!

the Grand Chapiteau

:) First (but NOT the last) Cirque show!!!

so happy :)

view from our seats. they were perfect.

seat 1 and 2 (isle) and we just had to look 'at' the stage not 'up'at the stage..

Then on Sunday Jason's Dad and Penny came down for their first visit since when we moved. We started there visit out to one of my favorite places around town...Multnomah Falls. Jason and I can't wait to spend a day hiking around here soon!!!

so beautiful!!!

The Eeds Family :)

love and smiles:)

looking down on the bridge.

After viewing the waterfall we headed into downtown Portland via my new favorite way to travel. Basically it goes like this. Drive to Lloyd Center off of I-84. Park at lot on corner. Catch MAX train into downtown Portland for free...all while avoiding paying for parking and deal with driving in Portland!!! Mwhahah! I love it! We went to Rok Bottom Brewery for lunch then headed to the waterfront to walk down to the Portland Saturday Market. It was quite the nice day outside and we enjoyed ourselves!

Mt. Hood peaking out from the Portland freeways.

So fun and entertaining!

sunday snapshot..

space...enough said!

still amazing...

i wonder how far these people traveled to get to water...what a concept.

(seemingly) soooooo true...

Granted I know I was not alive in the 1960's....but I can imagine.

all in good time...

It has been quite the week around here...

We ended up getting our first time home buyer tax credit on Monday :) We only had to wait 2 weeks instead of 2 days. Another interesting thing...now we have to wait 1.5 weeks to get 1/3 of the money...like the bank thinks the Feds check is going to bounce!?!?! This will certainly take some of the load off of our lives (and wallets). We'll be paying off some debts, putting some into savings, and spending some on thing/items/projects around the house! Stay tuned!!!

Jason has been working a crazy amount of hours...I've had so many meetings (most of them not-so-fun) which I guess is what makes them memorable. Tonight I had my final class of my Course 3 Wilton Cake Decorating. I made this...

More on this cake later...

This weekend is going to be mighty hectic as well...Friday night dinner with my family.

Saturday Jason will work is typical shift, come home nap and eat, and then we are headed into Portland to see Kooza ~ Cirque du Soleil! This is a makeup adventure for missing our spring break beach trip - which really would have not been too thrilling because there was a major storm that week!

Sunday to Monday Jason's Dad and Penny are coming to visit. I"m not sure exactly what we'll do...

We have some fun plans the next few weekends too! Well, mostly I do. Jason has this little thing called work ;-)

would you like s'more???

Sunday's, as of now, are Jason's and my only weekend day free together. The past few have been spent doing yard work...much like today was. Though today Jason made a run to the store for some propane...we finally broke out the BBQ!!! For some reason breaking out the BBQ made Jason think of s'mores...so that is what we had for dessert! Nothing like a propane s'more!!! I think we need a fire pit :)

all the fixings...

'roasting' the s'mores...

first s'more of the season :)

jason :-)

reject marshmellow...cool picture

On a randomly related side note...I made my own Marshmellow Fondant to cover my finale cake with this coming Thursday. Stay tuned to see if it worked... 

sunday snapshot...

what a great frame and reflection!!

oh Iowa...

it is so interesting how one thing...can affect the whole world.

ouch!!!

just a hop, skip, and a jump...

Picture this. It is Friday. I have had a hellacious week. On said Friday I got directly from school to get a massage and chiroparactic adjustment. After which I am feeling very good. Some of my friends from work are at happy hour at a place called Puffin Cafe  on the river. It is a sunny evening. I got to happy hour, get a beer, joke with good friends...etc. etc. On my way home I call Robyn because I was "it" in our game of phone tag from that week :) I pull up to my house and go to check the mail...

Keep in mind I am doing this while on the phone and trying to concentrate on what Robyn is saying and not dropping the mail. I quickly glace through the mail and see this...

I am literally flooded with emotion. I basically forget that Robyn is on the phone with me (sorry Robyn) and scream JASON!!! Who pokes his head out of the house and says "Is it the check?" To which I respond "YES!!!" and start to hop, skip, jump, frolic, run across the street. I most certainly did NOT take time to look for oncoming traffic...thankfully there was none. Then I get confused...

There are 2 letters to each of us. At some point (keep in mind I am still on the phone) I thought I saw Jason's name on both letters and was disappointed because I thought they were duplicate copies of his drivers licence. (Seriously...to much emotions equals not enough thinking). I get into the house and am ripping open the letters, trying to read them, while talk to Robyn - poor Robyn...she should have just hung up on me.

I am reading the letter and getting even more confused. At one point I remember thinking maybe I did the paperwork wrong and this is a letter telling me I have to do it all again. Then I thought maybe the royally messed up and sent us two checks!!! and remember having a mini conversation in my head about if it would be required to return one of them...

Though the two letters really threw me off...thank you federal government.

So by now you may be wondering what this lovely letter said...

Yes, I added some color to help you see what I find most humerous about the letter, the IRS would not waste money on colored ink - just money on send two letters to first time home buyers stating that our money will be here within 2 weeks :)

The purple smilie face lets you know I am VERY happy that this is not a $8,000 bill.

The red is hilarious because while they sent you two letters, they wanted to make it clear you'd only be getting one refund :(

The green is just funny because I haven't even seen the money and already they've taken $1 away from me...

And the yellow is the all important deadline. 2 weeks. Sweet!!!

And incase you're worried about this getting stolen out of our mail box...our mail box locks. And poor Robyn, I did eventually get off the phone with her. Thankfully she understands me and my ways and just rolled with it. I love having best friends like that!!!

100th post...and (almost) 6 months in...

We have officially owned our house for 6 months and 4 days. We've lived here for 5 months and 16 days. Not that we're counting :)

In honor of that...

July 10th, 2009

The day we looked at the house and subsequently put the offer in the next day!

 7 days before the wedding :)

October 8, 2009

The day after we got the keys.

Jason had already hacked the bushes before I could get a picture...

April 11, 2010 (before)

Today.

April 11, 2010 (after)

Today again. Planting to hopefully start soon!!!

And if you think these are crazy...wait until I have the time to put the inside pictures in order!!!

ants lead to...digging and poison!!!

Okay, we've been having this problem letely. ANTS!!! I hate them. Really hate them and have never really had to deal with them until now. We've had them coming mainly in our kitchen but in the bathrooms too??? What in the world. We've tried liquid poison, flaky and granual poison, home remedies to battle them inside...you name it!

Well this weekend was the first sunny one in a while and we headed outside to do some yardwork and we found a colony amazingly huge universe of ants all over the front landscaping. I mean on the bushes, house, dirt, etc and so on. The solution. RIP IT ALL OUT!!! And today, we did just that! The pictures explain it pretty well :)

don't know why it is blurry...

notice the long balde grass growing in the middle left. the bushes were scraggly and the ants everywhere!!!

after. we'll be planting after the ants are gone!

blahhhh!!!!

we took the top level off to attempt to completely annihilate the ants from all sides (up, down, and all around)!!! we found a fair share of slugs too...

if this doesn't work we're calling an exterminator!

90+ gallons of yard waste (and possibly some ants)

circle up! we don't want those critters to escape.

we also pumped poison into the bin...better safe than sorry!!!

Loki really wanted to be involved...

AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF...

THE ICE CREAM MAN!!!!!!!

i heard him coming as we were about to shut the garage door :)

after 3+ hours of working a reeces peanut butter cup ice cream bar was exactly what i needed!!!