I'm back and I brought cake!

Sorry for the 2 month disappearance! We've been traveling quite a bit since the last time I posted. First I spent Memorial Day weekend in Illinois with my 4 college housemates. As usual we had a great time and relived as many Rolla shenanigans as possible :) The next weekend, Joe and I went to my parents' home in Ohio for a graduation party for Gracie. Which means, GRACE IS GOING TO COLLEGE! When did this happen? She'll be heading to Mississippi State in only a few weeks and I already told her to plan on receiving some fun care packages. Now that I've posted it on the blog, I have to keep my promise :)

Two weekends after Ohio, we headed to St. Louis to celebrate the first birthday of our nephew, Albert. He's running around like a crazy man now and is always entertaining. We had fun playing with him and visiting with Joe's family as well. On the last weekend in June we drove to St. Louis again, and flew from there to San Antonio for the bi-annual Trowbridge Reunion (which I'll probably post about separately later). We spent 4 days hanging out by the Guadalupe River, playing lots of games, swimming, eating and catching up with everyone. It was really fun and relaxing! On the Wednesday before the 4th of July, we flew back to St. Louis from San Antonio, then left the next morning to drive to Wisconsin with Joe's parents. Joe's Grandma had planned a little family reunion up there over the 4th of July weekend, so we didn't want to miss that either! We spent the next few days playing more games, watching the little ones play, eating more good food and catching up again. Lots of good family time that week!

Finally, the Sunday after the 4th of July we drove back to St. Louis and I hopped on a flight to Houston for a week long course on the Basics of Corrosion (don't be too jealous). Now I'm home and happy to be here! Which means it's time to ease back in to blogging. What better to start with than a couple of cakes! These are from back in May. One graduation cake and one birthday cake. I had a couple other graduation cupcake orders but failed to take pictures of those.

First up is the graduation cake I made for our neighbors. Our neighbor gave me a picture of a cake she liked from a local grocery store and I tried my best to copy it exactly. Even down to the plastic graduation cap that I was able to find at the cake supply store. Funny story: I was at the grocery store buying cake supplies and I went through self checkout. The lady running self-check was especially chatty and asked what I was making since she saw I was buying baking ingredients. I picked up the same flyer from the checkout stand that our neighbor had given me with the cake picture on it, pointed to the picture and said, "this one". :) I thought it was funny. Anyway, here's the cake. The yellow writing looks extra shaky and I'm not sure why, I don't think it looked that bad in person, but maybe it did.

Next is a birthday cake that I made for the husband of a friend of a friend. She requested a Wisconsin Badgers football themed cake and after looking at several inspiration pictures she sent, we came up with the following design. The football on top is awful and that's my fault. But I was really happy with the rest of the cake! Especially the Badger mascot that I painted onto some modeling chocolate. I really liked the "vintage" version of the Wisconsin mascot that I'd seen in several inspiration pictures and knew I wanted to incorporate it into the cake somehow. There is a long skewer held between the front part of the badger and an extra piece of modeling chocolate behind it that allows it to stand up on top of the cake. Here it is!

Well, that's it for tonight! As usual, I have plenty of other things to post about, I've just fallen off the wagon I guess. Hopefully posting will be less sporadic after this. We'll be home for the next few weeks as far as I know and I've got several projects in the works. Until next time, have a good night!