(I started writing this yesterday afternoon)
Ahhh, a break from baking cake, hee hee hee. Just sent another VAA cake out the door this afternoon, having started Wednesday - the last one as some of you might of heard was supplied by the local grocery chain, and took the rose a little to literally and provided a cake 16"x24" with one single regular sized buttercream rose in the centre, hmmm. I could start my own version of Cake Wrecks - they are compiling :oP So I was hired to do another with the appropriate VAA logo on it - exactly the same as the last. Real easy the second time around you would think. I was trying to make it as uncooler friendly as possible. I hope that sounded right. I used premade pudding for the filling this time as the ones I make from scratch really should be refrigerated. Thank you Hunt's for your supply of chocolate pudding in the warehouse pack. It was far from the chocolate mocha mousse I made from scratch for D's birthday last week. Simpler but at the same time I felt like I was letting my clients down by supplying them with something that wasn't home made in this aspect anyway.
I know I said I would post more from our trip to Jasper, but I just haven't found the time. Two cakes in just as many weeks, and two more to do for this week coming up. Stirling's year end party and graduation for school is on Monday, so I plan to surprise him with a cake when he comes home. Alot of family will be coming to help celebrate - the ones that are local anyhow. We will be picking up Grandma F. from Ryley on Sunday to bring her here to stay so she can attend the festivities. If his cousin comes we will have seven guests there in total and then we will come back to the house for a BBQ,cake and a surprise...
D's birthday party was awesome, maybe a little too awesome :oP Let's just say I can't remember the last time ppl left our place throwing up drunk at 1am. Although I didn't realize this until the next day when we went shopping and found a trail on our driveway. EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW! I was fine with my two double daiquiris; they were perfect and I did not get sick nor did I have a hangover - sorry hun. We did a barbeque - I made my salads that morning and stuck to simple bbq foods - burgers and hot dogs. We had others show up as the evening went on, and fun was had by all, I think :o) D says he had a great time - ickies aside.
We came back from Jasper after three nights - I do love the tent trailer - made those 3 degree nights more bearable. In a regular tent we would have all been freezing. I say I was annoyed when the water pump stopped working and we couldn't just turn the tap on to wash dishes or boil water for coffee. At the same time I was also thankful to the garbage can that became our emergency potty, as I got lost coming back from the bathroom on our first night there coming back from the bathrooms at 2am or whatever gosh awful time it was. Stupid me didn't wear my glasses and couldn't get on the right path back to the trailer - it took me three paths and a lot of convincing myself not to panic at the thoughts of whatever might have been near me on the trail that night....bears, rutting elk...things that could have jumped me in the night...to not scream for D and wake up the whole camp ground :o( At least I finally found my way back - heading back to my starting point each time, but at the same time at one point I ended up two lots over from ours and can't figure out how I managed to wander into area 53 when we were in area 57. Nothing like trying to read little signs with a flashlight when you can't see clearing more than a few inches from your face. I could see the light at the bathrooms, but nothing but blackness for my return. Thank goodness I didn't have to use the garbage can at all, how embarrassing that would have been. I've been going to Jasper for over ten years now to the Whistlers camp ground - I guess there is a first time for everything. I wouldn't even class us as tourists there; this is our home away from home. We are the ones snickering at the "tourists" taking pictures of the wild life - three feet away from a cute bear - my comment - Don't get eaten! Stupid tourist! We drove out to Glacier National Park our first whole day there - we left that Thursday after school; what's a kindergartner going to miss - we hadn't been out there since I was pregnant with Stirling; my how the landscape had changed, kind of makes you sad. We also went on alot of hikes, and drives to enjoy the scenery and beautiful weather we had. Took the kids to Maligne Canyon, those falls always make me want to go for a ride on an inner tube - minus a few deathly drops I'm sure. There wasn't a ton of run off yet, so most of the eroded areas that are usually filled with rushing spring run off were dry. We had such a great time; the kids didn't want to leave either.
Stirling had that Monday off and then went on an all day field trip to McLeod Creek Farm on the Tuesday with school. I spent that week prepping D's fondant figure for the cupcakes and cake for his birthday and big party that was on the Thursday/Friday.
My mom's cake took up most of this week. We were also stranded in the house during more beautiful weather this week. Our neighbourhood is under a renewal and has been since the end of May. We originally were convinced that the extent of the work were just mere bandages to what really needed to be done. Millwoods is notorious for its manhole covers being at least 6" higher than the actual paved road (road sloped towards the cover though). Thursday and Friday they paved the entire road leaving us with our truck parked perpendicular in our driveway to the rest of the vehicles. Also left us stuck at home too - I was able to leave the house last night to return movies (which I forgot, heh heh heh) and get milk from SoF and was able to drive down the street without being jostled every which way; it was wonderful! I have a sound for the way my body feels jarred and bounced about as it had for the past four years - gajung gajung - but it just doesn't do it justice. Ahhh, no more whiplash!
So I was couped up in the house with windows and doors sealed, trying to avoid the tar smell while I prepped and baked a cake for three days. Meanwhile it was beautiful out, it was hot and muggy in here and no fresh air to be found :o(
We were planning to go away camping this weekend for a night, but everything is booked that is close and we don't want to hall all the way out to Jasper for one night.
The Ward 12 BBQ is this afternoon promoting the election and we are thinking of attending. The MP that is running attends our community league meetings and is very supportive in many aspects within our community, especially infrastructure. I've never been one to pay much attention to politicians in past elections other than voting for the tried and true. This election year I feel that this particular MP has the same vision for SCL as we do, its just going to take time and the right people and resources to implement it.
Stirling's last two t-ball games were this week too, Tuesday we got his pictures and Thursday Stirling got a medal with his teammates for the season. He wears it all the time and loves to talk about it - he wants to share it with his class, but there isn't another sharing day for him before the year ends:o) He'll have to share it with his friends when they come to play I suppose. He's a great t-ball player. Great potential for next season.
Now off to do some house cleaning before the next shindig.

Ahhh, a break from baking cake, hee hee hee. Just sent another VAA cake out the door this afternoon, having started Wednesday - the last one as some of you might of heard was supplied by the local grocery chain, and took the rose a little to literally and provided a cake 16"x24" with one single regular sized buttercream rose in the centre, hmmm. I could start my own version of Cake Wrecks - they are compiling :oP So I was hired to do another with the appropriate VAA logo on it - exactly the same as the last. Real easy the second time around you would think. I was trying to make it as uncooler friendly as possible. I hope that sounded right. I used premade pudding for the filling this time as the ones I make from scratch really should be refrigerated. Thank you Hunt's for your supply of chocolate pudding in the warehouse pack.

This pic was taken in the summer of 2004. I had to scan it - was still before we had a digital camera - but the zoom capabilities were way better. New scanner not so good. :o(
Glacial ice just amazes me; a five year old cannot even begin to grasp the age of this ice. It's however a shame to see how much has melted since the last time we were here in 2004 before we had Stirling. What a majestic site!

These were two shots that were most similar the newest being taken further back - the old one doesn't show the ice and snow between the two peaks as well as the new either.

More to come on our camping trip to Jasper to come.

For over a week that consisted of mainly sorting, folding, pricing and repacking all of the kids stuff for the "Outgrown It" sale, held yesterday, was quite time consuming. Especially, when I really didn't end up selling much - much like everyone else. Turnout was almost non-existent. With all the advertising we did even through the schools, you'd think we would have been swamped like similar sales. I did sell somethings but not nearly what I had expected; all of us voted for a Goodwill box be brought outside the hall doors so we could just shovel our things into it at the end of the day. Our League President didn't quite take me as seriously and he should have (he smiled and kept saying "yeah,we should", but nothing happened). NONE of us wanted to take the stuff home especially when we all thought this would be the event of the year for our community league. We did however recruit another for our E&P committee, yippee! The more minds with blossoming ideas, for the future of our community, the better! In all of this D was away on a business trip, having just returned late Wednesday night from his second, in just as many weeks.
Two trips to the bottle depot while D was in Toronto, and I figure I have at least two more to go! Yes - secretly I am a hoarder :oP You've all seen the show. You guys all think we are this clean family but secretly I'm lazy and hide my bottles in my garage until I take them in. Snicker :oP Except now my garage is only half full ha ha!
We took our truck into get the hitch installed on it for the day when D was back on Thursday. I don't think I mentioned this before - but we bought a tent trailer. It's going to make for a summer filled of wonder and peace if a little girl will sleep silently in it. That's the plan - we figure at worst it will have paid for itself in two summers. It's a 2006 Flagstaff, only used a couple times. Sleeps 8 comfortably if we needed to. Lots of room for us and our dog Kayley. D went and picked up the trailer Friday early afternoon and its been sitting in our drive way since. Taunting us and calling us to the land of Away from here. If I hadn't been working my butt off for the sale I would have said yeah lets go and we would have been packed up and gone Friday afternoon in a heartbeat.
I've already done the minutes for next weeks year end dinner for the Parent Advisory that I am on. We had some last minute motions to carry out over emails which became interesting to say the least. In the end I think the decision was fair and justifiable. We raised money during the school year for the school; buses were needed to take the kids to the year end T&F Day at Foote Field - so we approved the monies towards the busing. Some people on the committee were willing to pay for half of a fee - at the same time we raised the money for it - so why wouldn't we use it. We still are leftover with money in the budget for next year. It's all good. :o)
I ran out and finally solved our printer issues (thanks to D's agreeance) - bye bye Brother! Hello HP - aren't they the same company? :oP It even has an auto sheet feeder and it does double sided pages - I feel so ohhh aaaaaahhhhh. I don't know, I feel spoiled using some fancy shmancy machine now :oP Our Brother machine hasn't been working for months and had become not an All-In 1 but a two in one. The only functions that hadn't ceased to work were outgoing faxes (as it didn't require the printer heads to work)and scanning stuff to file(which as you know doesn't require printing either). I have been using our Canon (photo printer) only in absolute instances where I had to print something. See, another technological advancement in our home, yey. Now all I need is a new PC or I'm going to download Sims 3 (wink wink nudge nudge, hun) to my Blackberry - speaking of crackberry I came up with a new BB slang-term that I thought some might like (watch someone else already came up with it years ago). I referred to myself as a 'crackberrian' like a librarian. My nose has been stuck in this thing since I got it; with motions being discussed and trying to discuss our plans for the 30th Anniversary Celebrations we are planning for early October it makes it so easier than turning on my PC every time I need to check (or minimize my game). I can look at my BB and trash the stuff I don't want to read until I want and I can respond to the here and now if I need to, very handy. Now if only I could stop leaving it places - it's going to disappear on me I know it.
We were back at t-ball last Tuesday and skipped out on Thursday to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox with the kids finally. It was an interesting caper - we loved it, D was not impressed by the smoking farmer and the subtle "cus" term that was utilized instead of stating the actual swear. I think there are Dreamworks and Pixar movies with worse references. Anyhow....now I want to see Date Night and Whip It next, both were funny ads at the beginning. We stayed up rather late and got most of the seedlings planted in the vegetable garden Friday night. Yahoo - I just have a few rows of lettuces to plant and if I have any room left I'll plant some other seeds.
What are the chances of a mango seed growing in Alberta soil? Any takers on this weeks complex conundrum? The kids and I had one for dessert while D was in Calgary and now have this giant orange seed-looking mango seed. I wonder if I plant it would it grow or would it be a complete waste of time?
Five hours of garage sale yesterday - starting setup up at 9am - which I found difficult as we didn't get to bed until 1am and Madison and Stirling were both up twice. I barely made it out of bed just before 8am to have a shower load up the truck and get to the hall; albeit almost and hour late (for setup), but I still managed to set up and have time to run back home to grab a few things before it began at 10am. Now to plan for a garage sale of our own - I have many none baby items that could be way of the doe doe here too. However, I now have much more of that baby stuff to work into said sale than anticipated.
D and Stirling are canoeing today leaving Madison and I to a girls day that will mostly consist of running around I couldn't do yesterday. I have a few things I need to get to ensure the sustainability of our garden. I still only have one lady signed up for my Gum Paste & Fondant class that is supposed to begin Wednesday, so if by some miracle I get some signing up this weekend I will have to cancel it, seeing if I can shuffle her into the evening class. The timing just isn't right - I thought I might pick up some more stay-at-home types like me looking for a break, but I guess not. I'm still waiting for my marketing stuff to arrive from Wilton, so maybe I can promote it better outside of Michael's as their marketing isn't doing me any good. I also made another batch of mini brownies making one the previous week as well - I promised another to D as Stirling ate most of the last batch before he returned from his trip to Calgary leaving dad with roughly 2 or three to sample. Bad Stirling :o( D thinks they are so great he wants to use them for his lunch and learn presentations or when he needs to send a thank you to a client. See many opportunities are arising in this little business of mine yahoo! Now to start stocking up on packaging - there are so many ideas in my head right now - you will never see a cupcake-cake from me though as Cake Wrecks would say "CCC - PITOoEE!"