Birthdays are for FRUIT CAKES

I love celebrating birthdays, but too often find myself struggling over what to give as a gift.  My husband tells me I just over think things, I like to think I just put a lot of thought into it.

Finding it hard to top our Hawaiian celebration (I mean who can top Hula girl decorated water bottles, and an office decorated like Hawaii complete with leis and pink flamingo's?) just meant I had to really think outside of the box for Dr. Calls Birthday this year.  Dr. Call has been on a serious health and fitness kick, so I knew the challenge was to celebrate without ruining his hard work and Viola....the "FRUIT CAKE" was born. 

The base of the cake is constructed from some watermelon that I carved and the remaining fruit was just attached using toothpicks. It was served with yogurt fruit dip too (not pictured).  It was a hit!  Dr. Call loved his gift.  Now the wheels are spinning, I am thinking next time, chocolate dipped berries, more layers, kiwis, peaches, oh the possibilities!

What a SWEET day

Today I took the kids to Sweets Candy Factory for a free tour. What a blast. My nephew Ethan summed the whole experience up best when he said, "I'm in a real live candy land!" It was surreal. Chocolate piped above our heads (the smell was incredible, I bet I gained 10 lbs. just entering that room.) We were able to see the workers "Panning" candy, and were able to taste candy at all of the tour stop spots. Landon's favorite part of was of course the "WALL OF CANDY." If we could have made it out without stopping at the candy warehouse after the tour, it would have been completely free, but like they say, "we were like kids in a candy store." You can't go to a candy store and not buy some candy made fresh that day can you? I certainly can't. So, $20 dollars later and with our stylish candy making hats (which were free with the tour) in hand we left Sweets. Aahhh, the bliss of a fun summer field trip complete with sugar coma.

Summer at last?

Memorial Day has always signified the start of summer to me. I love summer, to be outside in the summer sun, blue skies, with the cool grass between my toes. Summer has been so long in coming this year. I was nervous that we all might be making snowmen in parkas instead of eating grilled burgers.



This past Memorial Day will be one I will long remember. All of the kids got together with their families and the adults helped paint the deck. I in my nievity thought we would be done lickity split, with 7 adults, we should be able to crank it out! Some 9 hours later, we finally put away the brushes. I have to say, it sure was fun though. Cranking up the radio, slapping stain (hopefully more was on the deck than each other)and stopping for some delicious corn and burgers.

Here are some pictures of the start "hopefully" of our summer fun.