This year's wedding cake

Again, my blog is the site for showing the most recent wedding cake. This one was a fairly simple one with fondant and ribbon. It was for another daughter of Dale's old boss. Her floral designer did the flowers for the top. You may or may not be able to catch it in these pictures, but the flowers had peacock feathers tucked in there. The flowers were really pretty.

In addition to the wedding cake, they asked me to make a groom's cake - a silver cake with the Detroit Lions logo on it. Here was the use for the edible spray paint referred to a few blogs ago! So, here are the pictures. Enjoy!

Another Informative Week

Oh, how I love weeks in which I learn new things! It happens most weeks, but sometimes it's more fun than others to record what I learned.

1. Snowboarding is not a sport I should take up at this advanced stage of my life.



2. If you feed ants Cream of Wheat cereal, they will eat it, go back to their hill, and then they'll blow up! (This came first from one of Daniel's classmates and was 'confirmed' by several internet users so I'm sure it's true.)


3. There is no bureaucracy quite like the Federal Government. Common sense is not allowed within government entities.


4. Even if the weather outside looks like this:


It is still really smart to wear sunscreen. (This picture doesn't really do it justice, you can get the idea if you look at my hairline!)


5. Chuck Norris turned 70 years old today!! Does he look 70 to you??? He doesn't to me. And who knew he could be the source of so many jokes!

The Family Historian

I read my friend's blog today in which she expressed a debate about whether or not she should include something in her blog. She said that ultimately the family historian in her won out, and she decided to include it. There are no similarities in our stories, but I liked the sentiment. The family historian in me decided I should share.

My entrepreneurial son has continued to operate his Saturdough business, though he does it just once a month during the school year. This week he decided to offer a half wheat/half white sandwich bread. He independently sent out an email out and set up his website. Hours later, I read it. It was quintessential Daniel, if not entirely politically correct. But it made me laugh. I'm glad I have Daniel to make me laugh. And so, for posterity's sake, here's his description of this week's bread. I hope it makes you laugh.

Half-rican American (Integrated) Sandwich Bread.

After a civil war which left the counter barren and covered in dust, and after Martin Luther Yeast Jr. made his historic speech, the white flour and the wheat flour have decided to join together in this loaf of sandwich bread. Just for you. Don't you feel special now?

Food graffiti

Did you know you can buy edible "spray paint" in multiple colors? I guess I'd seen 'air brushed' cakes in grocery store bakeries, but I didn't realize you could just buy an aerosol can of food coloring. I bought some this week. Daniel saw it and said, "Cool! We can vandalize our food now!" I can't wait to display some things we create soon!

This is my life...

A snapshot in time of my last 48 hours:

• Prepared breakfast, lunch, and dinner for family
• Joined my sister-in-law to hear Leigh Ann Tuohy give a speech at UVU (She's the mother portrayed in the movie The Blind Side after she took in a homeless youth who became an NFL star.)
• Hit a cardboard form tube of roughly 24" x 36" doing 70 mph on the interstate - very frightening
  
• Tutored math from 4th grade skills to Algebra II
• Attended horseback riding lessons
• Read a book club book
  
• Emailed back and forth with water users in rural Utah
• Planned details of a wedding cake I'm doing in 3 weeks
  
• Did a standing long jump with 9 year old Cub Scouts
• Planned a fun ski day with my sisters and nieces
  
• Took some ice cream to a friend for her birthday, but was met in the driveway by her husband with a gun - he was searching for a possible intruder

There were lots of other small things to fill in the gaps, but I do love the diversity of my life......

This one takes the cake!

Conversation with Daniel upon returning home from school recently:

Daniel: I don't know why, but I suddenly have this strong desire to make a cake.

Cheryl: Whatever. As your mom, I'm never going to tell you 'no' to making a cake. You figure it out.

An hour or so later he was busily making a yellow cake from scratch while I was tutoring math. "Keep up the good work, son."

Next time I checked, he was in the middle of a masterpiece. It's always grandiose with Daniel - there's not much middle ground. So, here is the final product. And it tasted as good as it looked. As a cake-baking mother I am beaming with pride! As the baker, Daniel says he already knows how to improve it, and he'll be trying again soon. Can't wait!

Have you ever wanted to go to Kanosh? Yes!!

We recently went to my mom's to help her move into her new house (Hooray!). On our way home, traveling north on I-15, Dale said, "Have you ever wanted to just get off the interstate and go see what Kanosh is like?" I replied, "Yes! I think about it every time we drive up and down this same route." I added that I've always wanted to take the Lamb's Canyon exit on the way to Parley's Summit. The point is that we drive the same route over and over, but we rarely get off that route to see what else is out there. With that conversation as the impetus, we've decided to "go see Kanosh" and other places like it throughout this year.

As luck would have it, the next weekend was a three day weekend and the perfect opportunity to begin our quest. So, on a snowy Monday morning, we loaded up the kids and headed west!

The plan was to start our day at Lehi Bakery (home of the legendary square donuts). Obviously we did not know that Lehi Bakery is closed every Monday!

That's okay, Smith's in Saratoga Springs sells donut holes - crisis averted!

The drive took us past Eagle Mountain to Cedar Fort and Fairfield (cool old school building).

Through Faust and on to Vernon. Dale remembered stopping at small convenience store/diner 25 years ago on the way to fight a forest fire. Wow, it's still there!

What a great place -- convenience store snacks and everything to field dress a deer all in one place. But that's not all, there's still a diner there too.

Sadly, we're still full from the donut holes! The nice ladies there let Cheyenne pet the search and rescue dogs, and they direct us to a nearby quarry to collect Vernon wonder stones. The kids loved it.


Next we toured the big towns of Eureka, Genola, and Goshen as we we approached our lunch destination of Santaquin. We'd heard good things about the scones at The Family Tree restaurant. Good things - but we were not aware the scones are about 18" long and 4-5" wide. We'd go again, but we'd probably order half as much food.

For a half day tour, a good time was had by all, and small town Utah is a little less mysterious. We can't wait for our next excursion -- we welcome recommendations!