Cake Decorating Week

It has been a week of making and decorating cakes! Our swim team had an end of season banquet on Thursday, and I decorated a cake for the team, as seen below. That was lots of fun to do with the lane lines and wave-like border. Everything on this cake was done with decorater's icing, which is just Crisco, powdered sugar and almond extract. Easy to work with, requires no refrigeration, and firms up nicely to keep the cake sealed and fresh.

I was also commissioned to make a cake for a wedding shower my mom is throwing for a friend's daughter. The theme of the shower and the engagement has been much like a fairytale, so I went with a fairytale theme, indirectly. This cake, unlike the top one, used fondant for all of the decorations and covering the cake. Usually fondant tastes awful, and while it makes a smooth and beautiful cake, everyone takes it off because it doesn't taste good. I found a recipe online to make your own fondant using marshmallows and powdered sugar, and it tastes just like marshmallows....much better. Anyways, before you cover the cake with fondant, you first ice it smooth with the decorater's icing, and then roll out the fondant and put it over the cake. All of the decorations were made from fondant or gum paste, which is similar, but hardens like a rock. This was probably the most involved cake I have ever made, but I think it turned out almost exactly as I had planned, so I was happy with it!

One thing that did happen after making both of these cakes, is that my kitchen was COVERED in sugar and grease, so it gave me an excuse to give the kitchen a good scrubbing tonight after it was all done!

Twins turn 50!

Dennis, Mike, Kevin, Chris, Leah

Micael Joseph, Nicholas & Eric (Cousins)

Everyone waiting for dinner :)

Birthday Boy Kevin

Birthday Boy Mike

Dennis' twin brothers, Mike & Kevin just celebrated their 50th birthdays, and since Kevin happened to be in town, we invited them and some other family that live nearby for a little cookout. It turned out to be a beautiful day, after the heatwave last week, we enjoyed an afternoon in the mid-80's. Eric got to reunite and hang out with some of his cousins, and they had a great time swimming, kayaking, playing Star Wars, and swinging on the long swing! Everyone else enjoyed catching up with each other and just hanging out.

Summer Carnival

I think Eric is now officially too big for this ride :) He was being a good sport though to ride with his siblings!

Believe it or not, Bay and Leah loved the ferris wheel! They kept screaming, "Higher! Higher!" Crazy kids.

Well, it is that time of year again...time for the local volunteer fire department's carnival! The kids got a double dose of it this summer. Friday night their grandparents took them, and then Saturday night, Dennis & I and our family friend, Russ, took them as well! Needless to say, they had a great time. Eric's new favorite ride is the Tilt-a-whirl, and as long as an adult could go, it is also Bay's favorite ride!!! They still enjoyed some of the kiddie rides too, but mostly Leah had a blast ringing the bell on the train, riding the carousel, etc... They ended the night with a couple of pulls on the Lucky 7 (pull a string, get a prize). The thing that is so fun about this carnival is that we always see tons of people there that we know...families from Dennis' office, swim team, home school, church...everyone, it seems, makes a stop at the fireman's carnival!

Around the house we've been taking it easy the past couple of weeks...but not too easy! The garden is coming in in bushels (literally!)...we've frozen corn, canned green beans, frozen tomatoes, eaten tomatoes till they come out our ears, pickling cucumbers, and then getting ready to do it all again as the next round of veggies ripen. I have just about finished teaching swim lessons, but the weather is so hot and humid that it seems we have plenty of swimming left in us for the summer! I'll close with one more cute shot of Leah at the carnival. There are additional pictures on our webshots album.

Swim Meet & Friends

Leah playing with toys between events

Bay swimming his 25 Freestyle all by himself!

Bay & friend Nelle...very silly

Eric & friend Nathan visiting for the week

We had some friends visit from California this week, and the kids got to catch up with their good friends as well during the day. We had a cook-out for them one night with a bunch of families over for swimming and combined birthday party and visiting...it was lots of fun...the kids got to play all together, and the grown-ups got to catch up (now that i think of it, did we ever get to actually talk to each other???) I think we counted 18 children and 8 adults!

As for the rest of our summer, we have 1 more week of swim team, and then we will get a break from that before school starts. I am getting ready to teach some swim lessons in our pool, which is exciting...one of my favorite things to do.

The garden is overflowing and ready to become a lot of work with harvesting and canning pretty soon, the tomatoes are loading down the cages and the corn has tassled. If we can just take care of that pesky groundhog who is taking bites out of everything!!!

Swim Meet News!


We had a swim meet this week and Bay has really been practicing hard to get ready to swim all by himself! All weekend at home and at practice this week he has really gotten the hang of swimming and doesn't need any sort of flotation to help him out at all anymore. He was chasing Eric around our pool this weekend, and at practice was jumping off the starting block and swimming the whole length of the pool, in addition to going off the diving board and swimming to the side! We are so proud of him and what a fish he has become, so we were excited when he told his coaches that he wanted to swim in the next meet all by himself.

Unfortunately, our next meet was not at our home pool, and the strange pool intimidated him a little, we think. Anyways, one of his coaches told him she'd get in with him, but wouldn't hold onto him, and he thought that would be just fine. As you can see in the video, after he dove in, he stopped on the lane line to make sure she was with him, and then swam the whole 25 meters, only stopping one time to rest! It is so amazing how much he has learned in swimming this summer!

Eric, also did a great job at the meet. He continues to take time off of his strokes, and although butterfly is certainly his best stroke (lots of 1st place ribbons in that), he is working to improve all of them. He was very excited that his freestyle relay won their race at this past meet...they've been very close many times, but hadn't yet won the realy until now.

Enjoy the video and pics!

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a super fun July 4th celebration here! It all started in the morning with a bike parade at the end of our street. The kids (and me) had fun decorating the bikes and wagon the day before, and then several other kids age 15 months to 12 yrs joined us the last 2/10 of a mile of our street to show off their National Pride! A kind neighbor at the end of the street provided refreshments for everyone. When we got to the end and were having refreshements, Eric said to me, "Mommy, when are we going to have the parade?" I think he had something more in mind! This was just the first year we did anything like this, and we think that perhaps next year we'll let the bigger kids start much further down the street and meet up with the younger ones closer to the end.

Later in the day we relaxed in the pool, and then had some friends over at Heather's parents' house for a cookout. We all piled onto the sailboat and went out to watch the fireworks from the water. It was a first time seeing the fireworks from the water for our friends Grace & Elliott, and I think they had a great time!

Overnight Sailing Trip

We just enjoyed a great weekend sailing trip with Heather's parents. We took the sailboat out for the weekend...a first for the kids. The weather looked perfect...windy and sunny...so we seized the opportunity and went! We sailed a bit on Saturday afternoon before cruising into a quiet nook in Mill Creek off of Solomon's Island to anchor for the night. We cooked dinner on the boat, then hit the bunks for the night. We awoke to 10 knot winds and sailed all the way out of the creek to the Chesapeake Bay. The winds were excellent and we made it across the Bay to Hooper Island Lighthouse and back home before dinnertime! The kids had a great time...they settled in and adjusted to the relaxed atmosphere of the boat today and were actually all just sitting around for a large portion of the day, doing nothing...amazing!!!!

Enjoy the video of a bit of our sail and more pictures to follow at the bottom of the page!

Bay in the jumpseat

Eric and Bay with Hooper Island Light in the background

Silly shot of Dennis & Heather...I think the salt air has gotten to us :)