Safeway

Sometimes I think that I am kinda rude at the grocery store. For instance this evening I am at Safeway buying the ingredients I need for a lemon meringue pie. It's my Dad's birthday and I said I would make one for his birthday dinner. So, I am walking through Safeway getting lemons and such and go to check out right behind a normal looking woman about my age maybe a little older. Now, I really don't mean to be rude but I am not there to make friends. In fact I probably won't talk to you unless you are a decent looking guy about my age, even then I may not talk to you. So this woman is looking at magazines and turns to me and says "I Can NOT believe that is Dakota Fanning!" and shows me the cover of the magazine and says " that's Dakota Fanning!" and I say "yep". Shockingly enough Dakota Fanning grew up and is no longer 5 years old. So, then it's this woman's turn to check out and she stops the man half way through her stuff and says "oh, I'm sorry I should have separated my stuff it need to be on two transactions." So, now we all have to wait while they go get someone who can authorize some voids. She looks at me and apologizes and then looks into my basket and says "Are you making a pie?" and I say "yep." and then she says "yum" and licks her lips. Not two seconds later she looks in my basket again and says "a cheesecake?" and I say "um, no". In my basket is a pie plate, 4 lemons, sugar, pie dough and a Odwalla C Monster, yep I would say I am making a cheesecake! At that point I turned to face somewhat away from her so that maybe she would stop talking to me.

Baby Shower Cake

This last weekend I made a baby shower cake for my Friend Jamie. She is having a boy I believe in early december or late november. It was fun to see her and our friend Heather, who I never see! We were all highschool friends, Heather and I have known each other since we were kids when my Mom babysat her and her little sister Shannon.

I have been sick for the past 2 weeks! I feel better now but still have a cough...no worries it's not Swine Flu!

Yesterday I decided that I would stay in bed all day and watch movies, so that I would get better. Yeah, that lasted all of 5 hours and I was bored! So, I went and rented some movies, got some food, nearly killed people in the Trader Joes parking lot. Got home stayed there till 7 pm and then went out to Joann's Fabric and bought some fleece and made a no sew fleece baby blanket. That was fun but only took about 2 hours.

I did blog about the Ballroom Glitz 4, for those of you who don't use Google Reader. Check it out, it's pretty fun!

Ballroom Glitz 4

A few weeks back my parents were in a ballroom dancing competition and took 3rd place! The whole evening started with me meeting up with Aunt Mel and Uncle Jack at the Oregon City McMenimans, where I had some delicious butternut squash soup and some not so good fish and chips. It's really hit and miss with the food at most McMenimans. After catching up with each other and eating our dinners we headed over to the Milwaukie Elks Club. First of all, they really should light up there parking lot more or make it easier to see the sign cause we flew past it and had to turn around. Second, I don't think they have redecorated since 1963, Really guys you could use some new wall paper in the ladies bathroom it's coming off the walls!
When we found Mom and Dad, Dad started pointing out the "competition". I am proud to say that my parents didn't wear his and hers outfits, Feathers (of any sort), pimp hats, leopard print or ruffled dresses. Dad wore a red shirt and black pants and Mom wore a fancy black dress and both looked great! There were 8 couples/teams which I nicknamed of course! Here they are listed out with nicknames placement and how I felt about their dance if I felt anything about it.

T1: Team Feather head, They were wearing black out fits and she wore a headband with a big black feather on it. Fancy! According to Bob and Nancy they were doing a 3 step to a 4 step song...I am not sure what that means but sadly Team Feather head did not place. They did take home a participation metal that I was sure Mr. Feather head was going to throw on the ground because he was so upset with not placing.

T2: Team Mom and Dad....They looked great, better then all the other couples! As I said before they took 3rd place and got a pretty fancy trophy.

T3: Team Mini me, They were both really short and her dress was a little weird but over all nothing to weird about the outfits. They took 1st place, even though their dancing was little choppy. Their trophy was almost as tall as they were!

T4: Team Purple People Eater, They were probably my second favorite couple. She was wearing this long ruffly purple and black dress that would have been suitable for any 1988 prom. Their dance was fun and cute but they didn't place.

T5: Team Plane Jane, They were very plain, she wore this nice gray dress but it was kinda like Meg Ryan in the last scene in You've Got Mail. Cute dress Meg, but really that's the dress you chose to meet up with the love of you life? I think I would have chosen a fancier dress. They took home 2ND place and really all she did was kick her legs up.

T6: Team SVU, This couple was a little strange, they had only been dancing for a year or something and apparently met at the gym! The guy at first glance looked like a small version of Christopher Meloni from Law and Order SVU. She was a typical looking soccer mom. They according to Bob did very well for only dancing for a year. They didn't place.

T7: Team Red and Black, She was wearing a black dress with a red flower in her hair and a red feather boa. He was dressed a little like Wayne Newton with hair just like Wayne Newton, a red shirt and black vest and a big red pimp hat with leopard print around it. They fell at the end of their dance and were good sports about. They also didn't place but took home the participation metal.

T8: Team Taylor Swift, the woman looked like a older Taylor Swift, She was crazy tall and had this huge smile! There dance was cute but it didn't seem like they danced a lot. They also didn't place. She actually knew my Aunt Mel and Uncle Jack way back when I was a baby or not even born and hasn't seen them since! She was a little emotional when she saw them.

We had a great night cheering on Mom and Dad! Congratulations Mom and Dad on your big win, you did great!

Here is a picture of them and there trophy. If you have a facebook page you can go to the this link and watch the video of them dancing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1243533897166

Operation: National Guard base tour

Yesterday was the best day ever! My Starbucks manager Amy and I got to take a tour of the National Guard base where all our Ait Force buddies work. The day started out with Buzz coming and picking us up at Starbucks and taking us to watch the jets take off. He and Mike drove us down to the end of the runway to watch. After that they took us over to there shop, I believe they are called the Life Support guys. They put together all the survival kits and stuff. While we were there we got to get in the pretend F-15 training jet, where we took a bunch of pictures. I got to hang in the pretend parachute, we ran out of time so Amy didn't get to do that part. We were then escorted to a presentation by Chris and Neil, explaining what the flight gear was used for. We learned all about the fancy $140,000 helmets, poopy suits, night vision googles. Neil even took our picture through the nigh vision goggles! No one else thought it was as cool as we did.
Mike stayed with us almost the whole time, They kept telling us we were VIP! We got a tour of the hush house, I didn't really get what it was for, but it was cool to watch the engine start up. I think it was for trouble shooting engine problems...but once again not too sure.
After Lunch was when we got to go up in the fuel tanker to refuel jets in the air. Only the coolest thing ever! We all loaded into the giant plane and Amy and I volunteered to sit in the cockpit for take off. The chair I was sitting in was basically a folding chair that was half bolted to the ground. The seat belt was hard to explain but I would have felt just as safe if they had told me to just hold onto the seat. I have a picture of the seat belt....it was sketchy! The pilots were super cool, they chatted with us and answered all our questions. Once we were in the air we were allowed to walk around the plane. One guy somehow cracked his head open, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. When you went into the back of the plane there was a area where you could lay down and look our a window and watch the jets fly up. You could actually see the pilot in the jet! All that was between you was some plexi glass! After we landed the pilots let us take their pictures and sit in the pilot seats. Pat and Mike came back to get us and took us to another area of their shop and we were able to put on flight gear! It was super cool! Right before we left they took us to there bar where we all had a beer and then we went home! It was by far one of the coolest things ever! If you know me even a little bit you probably know how much I love beening VIP, I just love being more important then someone else and that is how we were treated the whole time. It was so much fun to walk around with an escort and then we had this creepy photographer around. Amy and I said he was like paparazzi. At first I thought I was imagining it, but Amy said later that it felt like he was taking pictures of only us. Seriously We had so much fun!

Here is the link to my pictures from the tour!

Untitled Album

Idaho

I was finally able to take some time off from work last week to go visit my sister and her family in Idaho. I was really nervous that my car was going to explode or breakdown or something. So, Friday I took off and managed to get to her house in just over 6 hours. Not one car problem! When I got there both the boys were pretty excited to see me, we had lunch and then they napped. The rest of my time there was spent just hanging out with Brooke, Eric and the Boys, One of the days Brooke and I left all the guys at home and drove to Moscow to have lunch and shop a little. Jack and I played MarioKart on there Wii, which was fun but I was jsut as good as Jack and he is almost 5 years old. For being as young as he is, he did pretty good. As for me, I am 29 and was trying to beat him for 11th place! I am much better with MarioKart at my house on the Game cube. The last day I was there we went to the water park and spent a couple of hours playing.
My ride home took about 7 hours but I did stop more. I really had a lot fun playing with the boys and talking with Brooke. I never get to see them unless they come out here but even then I have to share them with everyone else.
Here are some pictures from the weekend, we didn't take a very many!

Could it be any hotter?

This weekend was Katee Gaskills wedding, the only wedding cake I had this year. My Mom and I went to pick up the cake from Lewis and Clark (cause they let me use the kitchen), we packed up the cake and headed off to Lebanon. Before we even got to I-5 problems started. When we turned from Terwilliger to Barbur the middle cake slide right into the side of the car. I stopped when we were on I-5 to fix the problem only to notice the next problem of the silver beads melting. It seriously looked like mercury! All I could think was that we weren't even to Lake Oswego yet and we still had an hour and half of driving, by the time I got there the silver would have run all the way down the cake! Silver stripes! So, my Mom and I decided we were going to have to stop and get some toothpicks and napkins to help absorb the silver and toothpicks to help with the bead part. So, the drive was pretty uneventful, Mom and I kept turning around to see if the cakes were getting worse. We had the air on high, the whole way. By the time we got to the wedding I was shaking I was so cold! When we got there everything was gorgeous! Katee looked great, Sandra looked great! So, now we have to stack the cake, usually not hard and even this time wasn't hard. Most cakes I stack are still really cold, this cake was room temp by the time we got there. When I put the dowels in the cake was kinda soft. We noticed that in all the trees were Yellow Jacket catcher things, so we were a little concerned about the yellow jackets. So, I get the cake all stacked and the ribbon on, the cake looks great! We didn't even need to worry about the silver, some of the beads were drippy but I decided that had I tried to fix it, it would have made matters worse. So, now it came time to put the topper on, from the begining I told Katee that if the topper was too big or heavy I wasn't going to put it on the cake because it could fall off and ruin the cake or something. This topper as you can see in the picture isn't too big and doesn't weigh very much. So, I decide because of the softness of the cake to put dowels in under it to hold it up. I do this and then when I put the topper on I realize it's front heavy. Since the bride is jumping on the grooms back it is front heavy, so when I stuck it on the cake I felt like it was going to
roll down the front. So, I went and found Sandra (Maid of Honor) told her of the problems and we went back took pictures had the photographer take pictures and then removed the topper and put it back in it's box. Also there were bugs trying to get on the table, but no worries they were under the Orange over lay. Man the problems of having a wedding outside in 90 + degree weather! Turns out everything was fine, the cake didn't melt and fall apart, everyone loved it!

Here's the picture!

Guess Who?

I don't know if you recognized this handsome gentleman...It's Murphy! He got a bit of a hair cut the other day, I didn't want them to go so short but according to the girl on the phone his face was matted and they had to shave it. I told her that would be fine but make the rest of him match so he didn't look goofy. I was happy they plucked the hair out if his ears, hopefully this will help with his ear infections. Even though he looks a little bit like a deer in headlights Tori and I still love Mr. Man. We also still think he's the cutest dog ever!