Sparklers

We bought sparklers this year and had fun lighting them. But here's the deal, I think they've changed. When I was little, they looked like a REALLY skinny corn dog. Now, they have all sorts of paper wrapped around it. They also shoot away from you. When I was little, they sparked in all directions and I had to use pliers to hold the end. True story.

So yeah

I'm in Montana right now. Not a place I ever planned on checking off my list of places to visit, but I'm here. I'm trying not to get my hopes up for Yellowstone. I've only recently gotten into "nature."

When I tell people I'm going to Yellowstone, the next thing out of their mouths is, "Are you going to the grand Tetons." To which I reply, "I think." I have no idea what a Teton is. I'm assuming it's the biggest and best Teton - since it's "grand." I've purposely stayed away from any pictures or websites about the Grand Tetons - I want to form a picture in my head and then see how accurately my imagination has captured the true essence of the Teton. Teton sounds like teeter (As in teeter-totter) so I'm hoping it's a really big rock that looks like a teeter-totter. But I imagine that's not what it will be. I'll report back.

Mochi's 4th of July

Mochi got to go "swimming" in Auntie Lisa's pool. He wasn't thrilled about it and tried to get out as soon as he was near the edge. BTW - these are our new favorite floaty. They are AWESOME!

Later that night, Mochi was a little tired. He was pretty un-fazed by the fireworks. Or he's deaf. One of the 2.

His excitement level grew to an all time high when he got his glow necklace. His excitement was palpable.

My gmail is broken

And I can't complain to anyone. Why? Because it's a free service. You get what you pay for. Nothing. It's been broken since Saturday. The page loads just fine, but as soon as I click a message, it's an infinite loop of loading. If you know how to fix it, please let me know. Thankfully, I synched the gmail with my apple client, so at least I can read and respond. But it's driving me nuts.

Update: Works now.

Reunion!

I went to grad school at UW and made lots of friends! One of my friends, Blake, has family nearby and is often in town. He was in town this past weekend and we met up for some World Cup action and a little bit of Fro Yo.

Our other friend, Big John, has been in the area for a year or 2 and was able to meet up with us as well. It was one big engineering reunion!

Here we are at fro yo, posing with our biodegradable cups (sugar cane) and spoons (potato).

The Yogurt store has a white baby grand and we heard rumors that playing said piano can get you 10% off. Pretty sure my rendition of heart and soul and or the first 8 seconds of Titanic would not warrant me the discount.

I asked the guy behind the counter if he could play. His response, "not well." So I asked him to play. He busts out this awesome little diddy. So I asked what it was. His response, "Well, I wrote it." Seriously?! If that's playing "not well," he would have been horrified to watch Blake and I bust out a song that may or may not have involved using our knuckles.

All in all a very successful reunion. Let's go DAWGS!

Mammoth Calves

So I have really big calves. Not small cows, but the muscle in the lower part of your leg.

When I was little, I started out in gymnastics and then progressed to ballet. They say the muscles grow long and lean in ballet....but somehow mine managed to grow short and wide. Nuts!

I've started taking ballet again and the calves have returned! They are currently 14.5" in circumference. Remember I'm all of 5' nothin'. Nick's are 15.5" but he's 6'2".

Don't get me wrong, I've learned to embrace the muscle. But there are times when it's rough. Like this weekend, when I was trying on boots. The calf volume is proportional to the foot size. The larger the foot, the larger the calf volume. My calves are not proportionate to my size 7 feet. I can't wear most boots. I tried to force them on and ended up needing help to get them removes. Blast!

But hey, they helped propel me up hills during the Nike Women's half....so they're good for something!

How to make the flag cake

The Flag Cake

I'll probably not make this cake again because it was such a pain. But here's how to make it if someone out there wants to be patriotic.

1. Pick your favorite red velvet cake recipe. I used 2, 8" pans. The cake was a little on the tall side, so perhaps 9" pans would work better.

2. Find a white cake recipe that you like. I found an awesome one by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Search her website for "White Velvet Cake" and you'll find the recipe. You'll need to bake this cake 2 different way - one with no food coloring and the other with a small bottle of blue.

3. Make some delicious frosting. I like cream cheese/whipped cream frosting AKA best frosting ever.

Here you can see the evidence, 6 - 8" cakes. Technically, I have 2 red/white/blue cakes and could probably have just frosted them and been done. But I like a challenge. Nick actually thought that all I was going for was a stacked red, white and blue. Little did he know.

4. First things first. Get a cake leveler - this is a fancy wilton leveler, but I used one from ikea and it worked like a charm!

Level all the cakes (cut off the tops). Then cut the reds and whites in half.

5. Now we need to make the bottom half of the cake (the easier half). Alternate between the red and white layers, putting frosting between each layer. Piece of cake! Badum ching! Set this to the side and do it again. That's right, now you have TWO red/white layer cakes.

6. Now you need to cut a hole in one of your red/white layer cakes. I used a large circular cookie cutter as my template. You are trying to get a red and white core. The hardest part about all this was removing the core. I was trying to keep the toroid (doughnut in laymans terms) intact. In the end, I broke the toroid into 2 halves and removed the core.

The red and white core!!!

7. Now you need to do the same thing with the 2 blue layers. This should be easier since they aren't all frosted together. I found it to be quite simple.

8. Now it's the easy part! Assembly! Put your fully intact red and white layer cake on the bottom. Frost. Then put 1 toroidal blue layer on, slip in the red and white core and add the 2nd blue layer.

Ta da!

Then continue to frost. I needed 1.5 batches of frosting to cover this beasty.

Things I'd do differently:

1. 9" instead of 8" - don't get me wrong, 8" looked great, but 9" might be more manageable.

2. You need frosting between the 2 blue layers AND between the blue and the red/white core. When it came time to slice, we had to put some of the slices back together.

And the real question you're all wondering? What did you do with the red and white toroid and blue core? I made another cake with it! It's technically a flag cake as well. So this recipe actually makes 1, 7" cake and 1, 3.5" cake.

We don't waste anything in this house and are still eating the tops of the cakes that were cut off to make them nice and level.

Again, I'm not the creative genius behind the cake. Check out 17 and Baking.

And if anyone has any ideas for a cake like this - i.e. put a random design inside a cake - let me know. It's kinda fun.