Around Town

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.

Building Blocks

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!

Busy Week

CAREFUL CUTTING: As you can tell from this portrait of Kirby, our lawn was overdue for a mowing, so the kids and I got on it first thing Thursday morning.

While cutting our eastern side yard, CJ stopped in his tracks. I asked him what was up and he said he thought he saw a bee fly into the foliage of a dandelion and he didn't want to run over it. 

Good job, CJ!

Without hesitation, Annabelle went over and brushed the leaves with her bare hands and out flew a bee. They repeated this process a few times. 

I love that they are such devoted protectors of the bees! 

You can see our hive in the the background of the photo below, behind Annabelle.

HEAD OF THE CLASS:  On Wednesday night, we headed to the Seattle Pacific University campus. The kids had been invited to speak to a class full of future teachers. The topic was inclusion and equity in education. They (and three other students) each talked about times they saw good and bad examples of each in school settings. 

IN APPRECIATION: Another big project we've had this week has involved appreciating faculty and staff at the kids' former learning center. Tuesday, we were in charge of hosting a luncheon for them. We were expecting a couple dozen guests, and had decided on a garden party theme.

We rolled some napkins into roses for the occasion.

And we baked three kinds of cupcakes (vegan, gluten free, and 'regular').

We hauled half of our house to the school on Tuesday morning. This was less than half of the pile. 
Would you believe we even brought all of our plates and silverware? I wanted to serve the lunch on real plates, with real silverware, instead of paper or plastic. Not only does it feel fancier, it's better for the environment.

We got to school at about 10, and hauled our carload of stuff into school to the room we were assigned to hold the event in. Once in the room, the first thing I wanted to do was set up the folding tables that are "always" stashed in a cupboard in that room. Except for that day. There wasn't a table to be seen! 

I come to find out someone had taken ALL of the tables out of that room. Hmm. How to do a sit-down lunch and a big salad bar with no tables? That wasn't going to happen. So we had to scrounge tables from elsewhere in the school, and that set us back about 40 minutes in our two hour set up time. Needless to say, things got a little hectic.

Once we had tables, we covered them in grass-print table cloths, and decorated them with huge floral arrangements (that another mom generously brought). We put out our rose napkins and also lined the middle of the tables with about 30 tomato, peppers and herb plants the kids and I had started from seeds weeks ago. The plants' pots all had little 'adopt me' signs stuck in them. 

We'd asked the community for donations for the salad bar, and boy did they deliver. It was amazing the amount and quality of the ingredients. Lots of lettuce, three kinds of meat, three cheeses, tomatoes, peas, mushrooms, olives, garbanzo beans, corn, croutons, sprouts, bacon bits, cottage cheese, potato salad and more. They all had a hearty lunch, and I even had take out containers so they could load up another meal for later. 

We even put together a 'Garden Party' playlist of music (songs about flowers, mostly). 

All in all, it was a nice event, if I do say so myself.

Clean up was kind of a bear, even with some great help. The kids and I and our dirty dishes managed to be back in our car by about 2:30. Of course, none of us had eaten any lunch, so we scrounged from a couple of leftover bags of stuff we had donated. 

Nothing like a fist full of bacon bits for lunch, right CJ?

Checking In

ON THE INSIDE: A couple of days ago, we opened the hive to take a peek. 

Boy, have our bees been busy!  Below is what the top of the racks looked like. The bees are even putting comb on top, and you could see some honey (right side of photo)!

 It's cool to see their new constructs.

And man, of man, there are so many more bees now than there were when we first picked up our hive! And many more are to come, based on the larva cells we could see. 

Spy the holes covered in gold below? That's capped brood (future bees - in metamorphosis stage between pupa and adult bee). 

They're so crowded in there, I don't see how they do their work! I certainly wouldn't enjoy such cramped working conditions.

Look at these four bees in the center of the photo below. It looks like some sort of teamwork, doesn't it? They're drawing new comb, which means they're building the actual honeycomb by exuding wax from their wax glands, chewing it up and then depositing it. 

 See the little button like formations below? Those are future drone bees. 

And note the bright yellow 'plug' in the comb below. That's pollen - the bee's pantry, if you will. 

CJ and Christian were the beekeepers for this visit. I questioned their clothing choice. Shorts seemed like a bad idea to me. ... 

And sure enough, bees started crawling all over Christian's legs. I admire his self control to not start freaking out, and I appreciate the fact the bees didn't sting him. They were just going about their business.

This coming weekend we'll take another peek. Can't wait to see the changes between now and then.

Magical

UNICORNY:  If you're a regular reader, you know we love Birthday Dreams. They're a local (to us) nonprofit that provides birthday parties (decorations, presents, cake and all) to homeless kids. 

We've baked a number of cakes for their cause over the past year.

This week, however, was about celebrating Birthday Dreams' birthday. They've been doing what they do for 10 years. They hosted a community celebration to mark the occasion. Christian and Annabelle were attending Bee's Ultimate (Frisbee) game and couldn't join in the fun, but CJ and I attended the party. 

There were a number of carnival games (darts at balloons, bean bag toss - that type of thing). There were also a number of "Minute to Win It" inspired games, including one where you had to try to make a cookie move from your forehead down to your mouth.

It's way harder than you'd think. CJ was super close, but didn't manage to make it. He did, however, eat the cookie anyway. :)

One of the other games he played was stacking as many pennies as possible with one hand in one minute. It's harder than you'd think it would be. 

Oh, and did I mention that Saturday was also May the Fourth/Star Wars day? So there were Star Wars characters and props at the party. 

Anyway, back to the cake. ;) CJ and Annabelle's unicorn efforts did not go unnoticed. They won first place in the youth category, and 'cutest' cake overall.

 Here's CJ going up to accept one of their awards.

All in all, a fun day, and a worthwhile endeavor. CJ and Annabelle learned a number of new techniques while completing this cake project. 

Placeholder

FOR NOW: Busy, BUSY weekend and Monday. We're still alive and kicking, but this placeholder is going to have to do for now. It's a happy photo of CJ and Annabelle's unicorn cake for Birthday Dreams' 10th anniversary party.  

They worked so hard on this cake, and were rewarded by being awarded first place in the youth category, as well as 'cutest cake' across the pro, amateur and youth categories. 

There's so much more to this story, and our weekend, but I'm absolutely wiped out and tomorrow is a BIG day, so this will have to do for now. Apologies, and we'll be back soon! 

Work in Progress

SHORT SUMMARY: This post is going to be a short one. The kids are on a hard deadline for a big cake project for Birthday Dreams' 10th anniversary.

Birthday Dreams is a local nonprofit dedicated to bringing joy, hope and dignity to homeless children with the gift of a birthday party. They are celebrating a decade of awesome service this weekend, complete with a cake competition. The kids and I have donated a number of custom cakes to the organization over the past year-plus. CJ and Annabelle didn't want to pass up the opportunity to be involved in this big party. 

Basically, at this point, the entire house is lightly dusted in powdered sugar and our kitchen is coated in butter and batter.

 Body parts.

Can you guess what the cake is going to be?