Of Sloths and Star Wars

BIRTHDAY DREAMING: Because I'm hopelessly behind on this blog, I have yet to include our last two cake projects. They are quite different from one another!

Regular readers know one of our favorite non profits is Birthday Dreams, an organization that provides birthday parties complete with decorations, gifts and custom cakes for kiddos celebrating their birthday in a homeless shelter. 

We recently saw a post for an 18-year-old asking for a sloth-themed cake. Given that CJ and Annabelle are teens of or about that age, we are partial to fulfilling teenagers' requests, and we also tend to pick cakes we're afraid no one else will take on. So, we signed up for the sloth cake. 

We'd actually done a sloth cake once before, complete free-form on our parts. This time, I did the Google and found a great tutorial for a super cute sloth cake. 

We decided to give it a go!

It was actually a very straightforward process. Bake and stack the cake layers, add a little Rice Krispies treat (arms and legs in this case), craft claws from modeling chocolate, and make the facial features from fondant.

The trickiest part was covering the sloth in 'fur.' We used buttercream and a 'grass' icing tip but ... the icing bag kept exploding as we squeezed it hard to express the frosting fur. So frustrating!

We eventually got it done, however. The sign the sloth is holding was a graham cracker covered in fondant with letters cut from a sugar sheet. We were super happy with how the whole thing turned out.

More recently, we saw an ask from a soon to be 9-year-old boy. He wanted a Mandalorian cake. That's the first time we'd seen that on the Birthday Dreams' board and felt compelled to take that on, being the big Star Wars fans that we are.

We did the Google and saw cool Mandalorian-themed cakes featured on Sunday Sweets on the Cake Wrecks site (one of our favorite pages ever, by the way).

It was pretty straightforward.

THIS IS THE WAY ...

When we saw a request for a Mandalorian cake on the Birthday Dreams site, we just *had* to sign up.

CJ helped with the baking, The bottom tier was a 3-layer vanilla cake and buttercream icing, which Annabelle later airbrushed dark blue.

Annabelle sculpted Grogu ("Baby Yoda") from fondant and candy melt. Here's his head drying on the spaghetti pot.

The top tier of the cake was actually an enormous Rice Krispies treat covered in buttercream that Annabelle airbrushed to look like a sunset on Arvala-7 (the planet where the Mandalorian met 'Baby Yoda'). Here's the top tier pre-painting, and before Annabelle applied the sun and the Mandalorian.

We put the birthday boy's name on the cake board, in a Mandalorian font. It's not shown here for anonymity's sake. 

We were happy we had the perfect candles to top it with in our stockpile of cake decorations. 

We hope the 9 year old liked his custom cake. 

To Boldly Go

OVERDUE: I have had this blog draft sitting in my draft folder for weeks now. "Blog post" is on the to do list every day, but it seems to get bumped every darn day.

This is not going to be my best blog post ever, but it's going to get me over the hump and out of the draft folder, and I hope to get back on track.

Nearly two weeks ago, we started our day by watching Captain James T. Kirk rocket to space. I never thought I'd get to say or see that in my lifetime.

Of course, it wasn't really the Star Trek legend Captain on the flight, it was actor William Shatner, who is synonymous with that role he made famous. 

https://youtu.be/uEhdlIor-do

While his crewmates (two space tourists who plunked down a quarter million apiece, and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin's vice president of mission and flight operations) did somersaults in micro gravity, Shatner was glued to the Blue Origin capsule's window.

The flight lasted just over 10 minutes, and reached a maximum altitude of nearly 66 miles (106 km), 4 miles higher than the widely recognized boundary of space.

"This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today," Blue Origin wrote in a Twitter video description. "Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee."

This was the voyage of the RSS First Step today. Its mission: encounter Earth from incredible views at apogee pic.twitter.com/Gzsnkv97K9

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 13, 2021

https://publish.twitter.com/?hideConversation=on&query=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fblueorigin%2Fstatus%2F1448385762345488395&widget=Tweet

You can click on the link after the word apogee or this link to see the video from when they were experiencing micogravity - https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1448385762345488395?s=20 

Speaking of Blue Origin, they announced plans today to build their own space station. That's ambitious! Jeff Bezos' vision is  an orbiting mixed-use business park in space. 

MEANWHILE, AT NASA: More recently, we stumbled upon a time lapse video of the stacking of the Orion spacecraft on top of the fully assembled Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on 21 October 2021, in preparation for the uncrewed Artemis I launch.

During the Artemis I mission, the European Service Module will take the spacecraft more than 64 000 km beyond the Moon in a test flight to demonstrate its capabilities. Can't wait to see that! The Artemis 1 uncrewed mission is targeting for liftoff in February of 2022 (rescheduled from November 2021). If all goes well, Artemis I will help pave the way for future crewed moon missions for the first time since 1972. It's been a long damn time since we were on the moon. I'll never forget watching those moon missions as a kid, and I hope CJ and Annabelle will have the same thrill before they're too much older.

You can read more about the Orion mission on the European Space Agency's page: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Orion

Down South

LOST IN TIME: I am so hopelessly behind, I don't know where to start to try to play catch up ...

 Hmm ... How about Vegas?

A couple of weeks ago, Annabelle, Christian and I took a trip down south. First stop: Vegas, to see Rick and Rachel and the Doberman.

It was our first time meeting Miss Marzipan! She's not quite a year old yet. She is sweet and adorable.

We also spent hours petting her big brother Pretzel.

He is so good at getting comfortable, as you can see in this photo.

On Saturday morning, we borrowed one of R&R's cars and drove through the desert, destination: Inglewood, CA. The attraction there was The Forum, where Annabelle's favorite band was playing.

It was our first COVID era concert, and we were a little nervous. We loaded up on Nozin (an anaseptic applied in one's nose), wore the best American made N95 masks money could buy, went into the venue at the last second (no warm up bands for us) and left swiftly as the last chord was fading. 

It was a great show.

We had great seats and a great time.

Before the show, we were miraculously able to catch a bus right from our B&B to the Forum. Afterward ... Not so much. We walked the two miles back. It was a nice stroll, and the weather was great.

On Sunday morning, before leaving Inglewood, we hit their #2 tourist attraction.

Randy's Donuts! World famous since 1952, according to them.

The shop has been featured in a ton of movies and TV shows, and there was a long line when we were there.

Check out the rising sun through the donut hole. 

Donuts on board, we made the four hour drive back to Vegas. 

Spectacles seen asking the way included many alien jerky billboards. The question is, is the jerky made by aliens or from aliens?

We also passed the tour bus of Franklin Graham, one of Billy Graham's sons who is keeping the family business going.

We were able to celebrate Rick's birthday with him a couple of days early. Check out the cool kicks we bought him (along with co-sponsor Aunt Renee).

While we were in the Silver State having big fun, CJ was home, working like a dog and taking care of the dogs. He navigated himself to and from work for the Mariners' final homestand, took care of the dogs and himself (food, laundry, plus the first week of a new-to-him school). He did a great job.

All's Fair

 

BACK AT IT: Attending the Washington State Fair has been a family tradition since we moved to Seattle some 14 or so years ago. We've only missed it twice in all those years, I believe. Once was because our schedule just didn't permit attendance (we were in the midst of a NY/Europe trip!). The other time was last year, when the fair was closed because of COVID. Of course, COVID is still very much around, but now we're vaccinated and know more about how it's spread, and attending the fair on an iffy weather day in the middle of the week when there was sparse attendance, and sticking to outdoors only attractions seemed like a safe venture.

We got there around 11, when the 'thrill' rides aren't open yet, so we started off slow, with a stroll through a fairgrounds garden.

There, we encountered Big Foot, a creepy corn cob guy and some laundry, among other things.

There were signs letting people know they needed to mask up. I'd say about 80 percent of people were in compliance, which means 20 percent of people are selfish a$$es.

As always, we ogled the fair food offerings. However, we didn't partake of a single thing!

I always enjoy looking at the over-the-top art on the carnival attractions. 

The kids had the obligatory slide rides.

And the obligatory swing rides. ...

CJ caught a tiger by the tail.

The kids' twirl on the 'Tornado' was more like a calm breeze. Neither one of them wanted to spin the part in the center that would make them corkscrew.
                                   

They took a trip on a hang glider of sorts.

And, of course, they had to ride the classic Scrambler.

They took a trip on the Classic Coaster.

CJ and Annabelle are in the last car. You can see the "I" and heart symbol on CJ's shirt.

They soared on the Seadragon (CJ's shirt stands out, again).

Christian's one and only ride was the Zipper. Below, he and CJ await their turn.

We were just about to leave the fair when we spied a new ride, with its super flashy façade. I suggested the kids take a whirl.

Holy cow - it was more than they bargained for. It went so fast!

Afterward, Annabelle told me there was a sign in front of the ride suggesting people watch the attraction before deciding to hop on. That's good advice. 

We left the fairgrounds in Puyallup a little after 2p.m., because we had to be in Tacoma at 3, for CJ's orientation at University of Washington Tacoma. While he spent two hours taking a tour and meeting people, Christian, Annabelle and I hung out at Beer Star, a tap room a couple of miles away. They had lots of outdoor seating, and a big fire pit, where Annabelle could warm her hands. 

All in all, a big fun day. We were glad to be back at the fair.

A Change in the Air

FALLING: And just like that, summer seems to be in the rearview mirror. The trees are turning, the nights are longer, and a couple of mornings ago, I could see my breath when I took the dogs out.

That said, there are a couple of signs of summer persisting, including our sunflowers, which continue to impress.

It's interesting how their blooms open one half at a time.

Some of our sunflowers are done for the season, though. Annabelle put our first bloomer out of its misery recently.

A couple of days ago, the kids harvested the hops. There were hundreds and hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of them.

Meanwhile, out back we have a little project going on. 

We're building an 8-by-12-foot shed in the northeast corner of the lot.

It's going to replace the awful eyesore in the front yard, at the end of our driveway. The rusty old metal shed isn't just ugly, it's hazardous. The floor is rotten, and stepping inside is perilous. I can't wait to demo it!

LAST GASP: Last Wednesday, we went to the ballpark for what might be our last game this season (well, except for CJ, who works every home game).

The Ms were playing the Red Sox. It was an important game, as those two teams are battling for a wildcard slot. Unfortunately, the Mariners came out on the short end. It was a tie game, 3-3, into the 10th inning, when the wheels fell off for the home team.

Sadly, the best part of the outing was the food. The local favorite burger chain Dick's had their food truck out front of the park, so we had to indulge.

And inside, we finally tried the Old Bay fries from the crab shack concession stand. They were super tasty!

Oh, and we finally got an up close look at the stadium's newest statue - Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez!