Birthdays Cake

CAKING IT: October is a busy month 'round these parts, at least in the birthday sense. It's Rick's birthday, my birthday and Annabelle's birthday.

We really aren't too into making cakes for ourselves, so we like to take our birthdays as an opportunity to make a cake for someone else. 

This week, we made a cake for a teen living in a homeless shelter. Like Annabelle, the girl loves to dabble in the arts. So Annabelle, our resident artist, helped make an art cake for her fellow Libra.

We often look online for ideas, but Annabelle didn't like what she saw. All of the art-themed cakes she was coming across skewed too young for a teen, she figured.

So, we came up with our own plan. We like to start with a conceptual drawing.

 

The birthday girl wanted a chocolate cake, so CJ baked a three-layer one. I made chocolate filling and added some mini chocolate chips for a little bonus surprise. 

Meanwhile, Annabelle made modeling chocolate that would be shaped into brushes, tubes of paint and more. 

Those shapes were then covered with fondant we made. 

We always have some trouble. This time it came in the shape of edible paint brushes. One broke in multiple ways while being attached to the cake. Sigh. We solved that by making it shorter and stronger. In the end, we were the only ones who would ever know that it wasn't the original piece. (Well, if you're reading this, I guess you know, too.)

FYI, on the photo at the top of the post, I Photoshopped the birthday girl's name, for anonymity. 

 

Sporty

GET KRAKEN: This week has been a little bit sports-focused. Which is normal in non-pandemic times, but it's an anomaly now.

Monday night, after two years of being on a waiting list, we had the opportunity to get in on season tickets for the new National Hockey League franchise in Seattle, the Kraken.

We had a Zoom meeting Monday night with a Kraken sales rep and chose our seats. It's super exciting. We were lucky to get in on the deal. We were number 3,200-something out of 15,000 or so who were in the 'first' tier of people wanting season tickets, and there are another 50,000 or so on the second tier waiting list.

We had to do our homework and crunch numbers ahead of time, finding the seats that worked for us and our budget.

We settled for the Red Line plan, and some aisle seats we hope are great. It's kind of weird buying seats like that for a venue you've never set foot in, but #thanksCOVID, it was what it was.

BASEBALL BRUSH: Saturday, we went to the Mariners' stadium. Unfortunately, not for a ballgame, but to pick up a couple of Seat Fleet cut outs. 

The 'Seat Fleet' was a way to represent your fandom in the park when we couldn't actually be in the park.

For around $30, you could have a photo cutout placed in a seat at the field, silently rooting for the home team.

Fortunately, there was free and easy parking just south of the stadium when we went to pick up the first pair.

Signs showed us the way to our familiar faces.

Fortunately, the pick up was well organized and we didn't have to wait too long.

We picked up Rick and Ken, also known as Jay Buhner and Norm Charlton circa 1995, in short order. These were their Halloween costumes that year. The height of Mariners fever, they scored lots of candy that year.

Today, Christian picked up the rest of the kids.

I envy these cut outs and their ballpark time this year. The Ms didn't win enough, as usual, but there are some exciting up and comers on the team. I hope we get to see them in person next year.