Halloween Weekend

The only Halloween activity we really participate in is pumpkin carving and this last weekend we had the opportunity to do that with our good friends Dan & LaRena. They came over Saturday morning from where they live near Pullman and spent the weekend with us. We had breakfast and chatted for awhile to catch up on life.

After breakfast we carved our pumpkins. I really need to get out of my face carving rut. I always pick the same pattern. Next year I vow to make something more challenging.

We had an early dinner and headed to the Americans Hockey game against Spokane. It was FUN! The game was really good - didn't even need fights to make it exciting. And the Americans won - 3 to 1. Great fun.

Sunday morning was our first service (well technically Saturday night was) in our new church building!! It was very exciting. The building is still under construction and there is a lot of work to do but it was so amazing to know that this will be permanent. No more storing stuff in a trailer - it can stay where we need it ALL WEEK LONG! Coming from being so mobile it is such a blessing.

Amazing!

Wouldn't every photographer - anyone with a camera for that matter - dream of a picture like this? I would also dream of being in that kayak!!! Happy Friday.

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Cake Decorating Week 3: Cupcakes

This week was probably my favorite yet of cake decorating. And since next week we have to decorate an entire cake again it will probably remain my favorite.

Cupcakes are so much fun to decorate because each one is it's own individual template so you just have to think about making a single cupcake look nice before moving on to the next. Cakes require more planning.

We learned flower techniques and used a lot of different frosting tips. Our teacher goes really fast while showing us the different techniques so my favorite part of class is when we get to practice because it's more relaxing. We learned how to do shaggy mums and pom pom flowers and then got to practice.

Here are the results. I'm sure they tasted good as well but I'm trying to refrain!

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we headed to Walla Walla to go to the pumpkin patch with some friends. One of our friends has relatives who have a pumpkin patch and farm down there so we were able to pick our pumpkins straight out of the field - and we didn't have any competition to find the best ones! They had some neat old trucks out that were perfect for pictures. The main attraction for the kids was a hay bale pyramid complete with slide. Now that makes for some fun. I wonder how often they have to change out the hay bales because they keep falling apart.

It was a fun day - started out a bit chilly but the sun came out in the afternoon and it was really nice. We got lunch at a local drive-in and ate lunch at Pioneer Park. After lunch we walked around a bit with our dogs. Pioneer Park in Walla Walla is really cool. They have a large gazebo in the middle (where a wedding was going on) as well as a large pond and bird aviary. It was really neat to see all the birds.

Now we have plenty of pumpkins and fall decor for our house. The one downside to the day is that I FORGOT my camera. Boo! So here are some cell phone pics that will have to do.

Cake Decorating Week 2

Well I reached Week 2 of cake decorating. This time we got to practice frosting a real cake. Which means making a real cake! Which I let Chris do for me while I was at women's retreat. Thanks honey!

At class we practiced cutting our cake, filling the cake, and finally frosting & decorating the cake. Now the mystery is this: my cake and two other girls sitting next to me (on the same side of the class) were not able to smooth out our frosting because it did not dry! To smooth you use parchment paper and a spatula to make your frosting look nice. Almost like fondant if you smooth it enough.

So we waited and waited but had to start decorating our cakes while skipping that part. We did the best we could and it didn't turn out to bad. And it must have tasted good too - just ask my co-workers!

Here it is: Week 2 Cupcake Cake

Women's Retreat

Well the culmination of months of planning and work (as my lack of blogging attested to) came together this past weekend at our Women's Retreat. 2nd annual by the way!

It was a wonderful time. The weather was gorgeous but a bit chilly. It was so nice being outside in the trees, by a river, and in a very comfortable lodge.

This year we had a couple of new additions both of which were great. Friday evening after our main session we played a huge group game of Bunko. It was great fun! We played two rounds and had a great time meeting new people and moving at a fast pace.

Saturday morning we had our first ever women's panel. We asked several women from our church to be on the panel and they answered questions they received ahead of time from other women attending retreat. There were some great questions asked and we received such good advice and wisdom. This event will definitely be back next year.

Overall it was a great weekend and so nice to relax and get to know women better as well as deepen relationships with good friends. Hard to come back to the work week but it will be great to start thinking and planning for next year.

Cake Decorating

I started a cake decorating class tonight with two friends. We are taking it at Michael's and although this is only the first week of class I already have some strong opinions about the class and how it will go as the weeks progress (it's only 4 weeks).

1. I am a perfectionist - therefore I cramped my hand trying to make my frosting stars look perfect and uniform in size! Practice, practice, practice.

2. Can you say expensive? The only thing provided is our lesson book - we buy the decorating kit (makes sense), pay for the class and provide all of our ingredients - which includes making the frosting and all the cakes plus miscellaneous supplies. The list for next week is half a page long!

3. FUN! It is really fun. Tonight we just practiced using different icing tips to see what they did and how to control our hand movements. By the end I was ready to learn how to make shapes and write better.

Here is a picture of my practice cookies from this week. I didn't have time to make cookies for practice so I bought pumpkin ones. They look a bit funny with pink & blue frosting but we didn't have orange. I took it on my phone so it is not the greatest quality.

Week 2: A real cake to decorate! (which I have to make by the way)

Off the Radar

Wow it's October already? Where has fall gone? Really it feels like it has just started this week here where we live - cool weather and rain. It's been nice wearing sweatshirts and not having to have our ceiling fan on constantly in our bedroom to cool us off!

I have been busy getting ready for our church's 2nd annual women's retreat coming up in two weeks! Hence the lack of blogging. Instead I've been working on the program and prayer journey/prayer walk feature of retreat. We did one lasts year and it was really well met so I am excited for this year's participants.

Unfortunately I have just gotten over my annual fall cold as well. Last week while sick I did not feel like doing anything - so I didn't! Must have been my body's way of telling me to slow down.

Chris' work is slowing down and he is excited for his upcoming winter break! He has several projects to work on including cleaning up his car so we can sell it and going through more baseball cards in order to sell those. Got to save up for that house down payment!

I think that's about it! Can't wait until I can share stories and pictures of the women's retreat with you.