Cousin Day and Signal Bay

We made a quick trip to the Candland house for a fun cousin get-together.  We headed out to Signal Bay, a small water park that's perfect for 2-8 year olds, but even the older kids had a good time.  William ran off with his buddy, Ryan and I rarely saw him the rest of the time.  He loved being big enough to go with the older kids to the lazy river and rope crossing pool.  I had to keep my eye on Charlotte every second.  I mean the girl is fearless!  She kept wanting to go under water, not understanding that she cannot breathe down there.  She LOVED the water slides!  She kept me on my toes going from one slide to the next.  I had to be there at the bottom to make sure she could get back on her feet.  I didn't need to help her at all getting on and going down.  Her enthusiasm was so fun to watch!  It was a great, although short, trip.

Cake Class: Session 2

I finished the second session of the Wilton cake decorating class at Michaels.  For the last day of class we were to decorate a cake using the new techniques we had learned all month.  Unfortunately my cake didn't turn out as good as it did for the first session.  I had prepared, the night before, lots of delicate blossom flowers for the bottom border of my cake as well as some roses and primroses for the top.  Let me tell you, working with icing is tricky!  Having the right consistency is crucial!  My icing for the cake was too wet and it didn't crust the way it should (it was also a humid day) so I couldn't smooth it out with a sheet of parchment paper like the pros do.  I also didn't pay enough attention to where I was storing my pre-piped flowers and Charlotte got her hands on a lot of them leaving me no time to replace them.  I had to improvise in class.  Fortunately, I had a bunch of different flowers I had practiced making so I wasn't completely without.  I wasn't really that satisfied with my cake, but it was good enough.  And to make matters worse, my cake carrier failed on the way out of the store and a whole side got smashed!  So here's the picture of my doomed cake.  At least it was delicious!

Notice the smash on the right!

Freedom Festival

The Navy base here held a Freedom Festival for all military personnel and their families.  It was great!  It was a little on the toasty side, being 95+ degrees, but we all had a good time.  There was a barbeque, inflatables, a rock wall, and a few craft centers for kids.  William loved the inflatable obstacle course and Sean rang the bell on the rock wall.  Charlotte loved the bounce house for a while, but then she was happy just running around on the grass and playing on the playground.  Then when it got dark, there was a fireworks show.  This was the first year they held such an event.  I hope it becomes a regular thing.