Spring Fair 2016

Friday night was the Spring Fair at the Rossmoyne Elementary school.  I picked up Baylor from COF and we picked up Kartikey to take along with us. I know his parents work off hours and I wanted him to be able to enjoy the fair as well.  And I love him and Baylor being together.  We had bought some tickets at school but not enough so I spent another $20 on tickets because of course they love the big ticket items like the bounce houses. 

Baylor's buddy at school is Mr Alex who was tending to one of the games.  Mr. Alex is also working at the Summer Camp and Baylor is excited to be able to see him over the summer as well.   

Of course the boys loved the playground, running around with all their friends they collected as we walked around. 

Baylor was the only one to climb into the tree and then could not get himself down!  I love Trevor's pose, the leg up kills me!  

These kids, the are so camera ready all the time.  

The blow up obstacle course was their favorite.  One of them always had to be the winner!  

I had volunteered to tend to the class game and while I was there Ryder was my first guest.  It was a bean bag toss game and his mom was across the way at the football toss I did last year. 

There was a DJ spinning some tunes and I had the boys show off their moves.  Baylor likes to play the air guitar when he can.  

While I did my stand, the boys of course got hungry.  Heather kindly offered to walk them over to get something to eat and they choose Rita's in red something.  

All the games gave out yellow tickets the kids could turn in for prizes.  Super valuable and super expensive prizes but we did not have to do any fund raisers this year so I will take the finger lights and slap bracelets. 

We took Kartikey home and of course they wanted to play. So I sat on his porch talking to his dad until he left and his uncle who was there until his mom came home from work.  I was amazed when they got this far up the wall but then did not know what to do. They figured it out of course and of they played in the grass until it was time to go home.  

He wore his finger lights to get the mail as it was dusk.  Goof ball. 

Round Up

3-16

We made a trip to Oak Grove to see if they have any east coast strawberries (not any labeled as such but at least showing product of the USA and seconds to boot) Baylor loves going here because of the ice cream.  He choose Irish Mint Cookie which was delicious.

3-17

If you light the candle they will come (and hopefully stop to smell the pink lilies of the valley. Thank you for the plants Grandma)

3-18

White cake with strawberry filling and whipped cream cheese frosting. 

3-19

I think I need an intervention: I have been to Aldi three times this week!  

3-20

My lopsided contribution to the Spring Fair tonight.  Yellow cake with Chocolate frosting and sprinkles. 

The Cake in Five Photos

So I fell into making a cake for one of the ladies at COF for her choir group dinner.  We talked about what she wanted, white cake, strawberry filling, whipped cream frosting and how big: half a sheet, and when: May 18th.  I made the two cakes, made the strawberry gel and sliced the strawberries on Tuesday and got up a bit early in the morning to make the frosting and assemble the cake.  Thankfully I am an early riser and this is not a issue,  Me running the mixer at 4:20 in the morning could be an issue because other people are sleeping. Thankfully everyone slept through it and I happily frosted away.  I mixed up the gel with the strawberries, made a frosting dam and filled up the layer.  

Somehow I managed to slide the second cake on top of the first and centered it the first time. 

Frosted all over, it is a soft frosting and I was hoping it would not start sliding off the cake before I got it to school and they could get it in the fridge.  (that never happened, but it could have) 

All pretty with the pretty strawberries on top and the fresh, fruity, slightly unpretty strawberries in the filling.  

I had to wake up Gloria to help me slide it into the box because it was so heavy.  And since it was taller than my cake box, I used corn skewers (shorter and thicker) to keep the top of the box off the top of the cake.  It made it safely to COF and into their fridge.  I had a small square cake made for the teachers at COF for them to enjoy as well.  

My Budding Chef

Tuesday I worked from home because I had to make a cake for someone for Wednesday and there was no way I was going to try to squeeze that into the evenings.  Thankfully, with laptops, I could do my job from the beach if I had WiFi.  But since I was going to be home, I lit the candle for my family and hoped they would stop by to smell the pink lilies of the valley flowers.   

When I went out to my car to get my laptop I saw a bird had hit the car right at my window.  They have the entire roof of the car and they hit at my window. Hopefully it will rain and go away later this week. 

I baked the cakes and between puttering around the house, I worked.  I had to pick up Baylor before 5 and needed some pretty strawberries for the cake so I ran into Aldi before going to COF.  The car next to me had one of my favorite bumper stickers, Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons... for you are crunchy and good with ketchup. 

On the nightly mail race I noticed Grandma's alliums are blooming. (along with all the weeds I have yet to remove) 

Baylor was the chef for dinner tonight and made our own fried rice.  I had everything prepped and ready for him.  I think he enjoyed it very much.  

It was delicious. 

We even have the pincher things to make the chopsticks easy for him to use.  

Virginia is for Visiting Friends

Friday after I picked up Baylor we filled the van up and our bellies and headed south down 15 to Leesburg, VA.  The Garmin gave us an ETA of 7:06, which is always to me the time to beat if I can.  We were not six miles into the trip and we hit the lights in Dillsburg and lost eight minutes already.  

Baylor watched a movie in the back seat under the cover of a blanket so it was a quiet drive down, just me, NPR, and the sky.  Finally some sky after two weeks of rain.  

I love this bridge because not only is it a pretty color, it is really close to our destination!  

We arrived just on time, we made it almost on the time from when we started. It was out first visit to the new house so we had a grand tour right off, bottom to top. It is lovely and just as easy to get to as her father's house! The evening was a nice quite evening chatting and catching up after the boys went to bed.  We even started in on the pimento queso dip I brought. Baylor started out under Lucas' bed but ended up in the spare room waiting for me to arrive.  He was out while I brushed my teeth, across the top of the bed all over the pillows.  Thankfully he is easy to rearrange and we both slept in.  I never even heard Julie leaving early for the airport for her trip to Buffalo for the weekend with some girl friends.  Tara and sat talking for most of the morning but then we decided to set up her stuff she had aside to join in the neighborhood yard sale going on.  It was a lovely, but chilly morning.  The boys occupied themselves pretty well.  Mr. Lucas is very into construction and worked very diligently on repairing a backhoe that was missing its hoe.  After we closed down shop, she made about $30.00, we took a walk around to hit a few other sales.  Baylor found a Mega Piranha movie marked down to $.50 and I found some free glassware in the free box.  At another sale he was interested in a zombie-strike Nerf gun that kept jamming so the boy sold it for $1.00 instead of $2.00.  Two good deals for him.  I bought a tall narrow dresser for $5.00 and while we were driving around I bought a small nightstand for $5.00. Not sure where the night stand will go or the dresser really but they were such good deals!

We had a quick pizza and chicken nugget lunch and then headed to the Lego show at one of the local high schools.  It was different from the show in April and a lot more expensive than the Lego vendor at the flea market.  But he enjoyed it and since we had some Meme money, he was able to pick out a few characters that caught his eye. The set ups were very impressive but they were charging $8.00 for the mini-figs that come in the series packets that are $4.00 in every store you find them in. 

It is always a good idea to have your photo done with two bucket heads and a Jawa, while wearing your sunglasses. 

The center tables had people showing their different collections of various Lego sets or just this and that. 

This army set up caught his eye and he asked me to send a photo of it to Landon, who asked his dad if they could come to the show!  There was another room that had more set and vendors but the center tables were one giant connected machine made up of many smaller machines all moving marbles around. It was amazing.  

The least expensive mini-figs were a build your own from bins with legs, bodies, heads/hair/hats, and accessories.  

Trying to steer him away from the $35.00 mini-fig by explaining we can buy 16 mini-figs at the flea market for the same amount of money.  

After making his selections we headed to the free play area with many pools of Legos and Duplos.  Tara and I sat talking while the boys played on the cafeteria floor. 

Stormtroppers have to eat too.  

His orange rock monster. 

Yellow Jacket or Hornet, I cannot remember. 

His DIY man with cowboy pants, a mummy body, a skeleton head with black hair and a scorpion. 

And some funny faces. 

We went to Kobe for some Japanese teppanyaki.  On the way we saw a rainbow and I think we see a rainbow every time we are with them or at least on the way home or back from their home.  That is a sure thing for Baylor although Lucas was a bit unsure about the fire, until there was fire and he wanted more. 

And we had a lot of fire!  Firey flattop. 

Firey rice 

Yummy fried rice 

Firey onion

And a soy sauce onion volcano, something new and fun. 

Baylor was game to try catching the shrimp being thrown towards his mouth. After about 5 tires, he caught one, and actually ate it.  Tara caught one too, for the first time, and my phone flaked out and I missed it!  

Shrimp all over the floor!  But a great memory! 

And more silly faces, because we are silly. 

Back at the house he just crashed with me on the couch while I talked to Tara, adult time, which is nice because it does not happen very often. 

We had a quite Sunday morning, drinking coffee, talking, eating.  Julie came home early in the morning as she was able to catch an earlier flight.   We heading home about 2 and made it home around 4:00.  It was another beautiful day with me and NPR. 

And Baylor asleep in the back. He had his blanket tent and ended up falling asleep for most of the drive.  

While I love visiting my friends, my people, Baylor is always happy to get home.  When he woke up in the driveway he told the house he was so happy to see it he might kiss the driveway. Now, to find a place for the new furniture....