DONE DEAL: It occurs to me that while I published some work-in-progress photos of our mermaid-inspired cake for Birthday Dreams, I never posted photos of the finished product.
Above is a frontal view of the two-tiered cake (chocolate brownie on the bottom with chocolate crunch filling, custom confetti on the top tier, with four-berry filling). The blank white spot on the front is where the birthday girl's name went.
And here's the backside of the cake.
The seaweed and shells and coral were made out of home made modeling chocolate. The mermaid scales were marshmallow fondant. We used a combo of brown sugar and coconut sugar for the "sand."
This was a fun one, and we sure hope the birthday girl loves it!
DOWNTOWN: Yesterday afternoon, I had the opportunity to be part of a focus group for a potential future video game. My appointment with Fieldwork Seattle was on the 26th floor of a tower on Pike Street. I had a nice view while I waited.
Fortunately for the kids, who were along with me because we'd just finished up appointments for them at the dentist, GameWorks was only a block away from where I'd be for a couple of hours. So they enjoyed a pizza lunch and 1.5 hours plus of video gaming.
RIDING HIGH: A couple of nights ago, a photo of a 'high bike' popped up in our local "Buy Nothing" group. I commented, "We'd have fun with that!" I didn't even really ask for it. But ... we got it.
I had to pick it up Tuesday morning. Imagine how thrilled I was when I found out our SUV had a dead battery. That meant we had to try to get the big bike in the Honda Fit. Fortunately, I brought some ropes and we didn't have to go far.
Christian wasted little time in pumping up its tires and hopping on for a test drive.
Somehow, Google magically made a collage of three photos I took of his maiden voyage.
CLASSY: Today was the very first day one could sign up for classes at CJ's college of choice, South Seattle. So, of course, we were on top of it and had an appointment for 8 a.m. on the first day of sign ups! That guarantees all the class options are still open.
We met with a friendly and competent admissions counselor. She asked CJ a number of questions about his aspirations. He shared that at this point he's interested in library science, and so she helped him chart his course.
As of now, he's officially signed up for three classes (worth a total of 15 credits) this fall. The classes are Japanese, a history course (Renaissance) and a humanities class (film studies with a historical bent). I think he'll really enjoy all three of them.
Above, CJ signs on the dotted line for the classes. Below, he tries to get an ID card to no avail (technical difficulties). We'll give the card a go another day.
WORK IN PROGRESS: So, it's been a whole week or so since the kids made a cake. They're overdue.
We recently perused the Birthday Dreams' website in search of a fun cake project that fits our timing and skill set. The kids picked a mermaid-themed cake for a local 18 year old.
Today, CJ baked a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake, and Annabelle worked on modeling chocolate accents.
Below, CJ adds an extra touch - some mini chocolate chips in the mocha chocolate filling.
The top tier of the cake is a custom vanilla confetti cake with 'dazzleberry' filling. Yummy!
