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1/25/11

Tiffani's Cake Class

This month Tiffani took a Cake Class at Michael's. She was excited about taking it until the first class... There were nine students plus the teacher in a little room and the person who sat next to her smelled like she just finished smoking before coming in. So she didn't have the most pleasant experience. All that aside, she did go back for the last 3 classes and did learn some things and did enjoy it. Although if she takes the next class she will go to JoAnn's because we've heard that their classroom is much bigger!

The first class they practiced making little stars and then decorated a cookie with the stars. Tiff did Bri's name and a few others but she wouldn't let me take pictures until we got home so I only got the one. They also learned how to make frosting.


Tiffani didn't want any pictures, again, but I took one from behind while she was working. :) That little table she's at, they put 4 people at to spread out and decorate! This night there was only 3. This 2nd class they learned how to frost a cake and then decorate with lines and dots (& elongated shapes).


I got a picture of Tiffani with her completed cake. I told her Grandma wanted to see it & her so she agreed since it was for Grandma! (A. Avy, will you make sure Grandma sees it, please.)


The 3rd class they had to bring 6 cupcakes. Then frost and decorate them with the flowers they learned - drop flower, rosettes, shells, pompom flowers and leaves. I loved her top middle cupcake - if it had been blue frosting it would've looked like cookie monster. :) And the leaves on the bottom right are amazing.


A close up of the leaves.


Before her last class we got out her left over frosting and practiced making the flowers that she had learned. I need more practice but it was fun to do!


The last class they had to bring a cake that was frosted and then they learned how to make the ribbon rose and then wrote on the cake and decorated it. Kinda ran out of time allowed in the classroom so she didn't get any leaves put around her roses. The cake looked pretty good. No pictures till we got home - mostly because I forgot the camera and couldn't sneak any pictures in of her making the roses.

1/23/11

New and improved cabinets

I guess, technically, it's not new cabinets - just improved. Les has been busy in shop building pull out drawers to increase the space and accessibility in the lower cabinets. He's got one done (2 drawers) and 3 (6 drawers) more to go.

This is not actually the first one he did, but I didn't get a before picture before he started. But all four of the lower cabinets have two doors into it, but the center part was in the way to put one drawer across the whole space. So first that had to be cut out.

He first attached the right door to the center board with a corner piece and then made a straight cut at the top and bottom of the center board to cut it out. We couldn't just get rid of the center piece because there would have been a gap between the doors then. So this was his best solution. Works for me! :) He also had to raise the side support up to get over the lip on the edge of the cabinet.

Here's a close up of the corner strip on the door.

The doors closed.

Now I have two full size shelves/drawers that pull out. I am so excited about this! :) Let me tell you!! I had to get the 9x13 out this morning and instead of getting down on my hands and knees, move the front stuff out of the way and "wrangle" it out of the back corner, I just pulled out the drawer, lifted the stack, got the one I wanted and pushed the drawer back in. Ahh the simple things in life!

Waiting on some more wood and time for the next set to be built. Only 3 more cabinets to go...

Thanks, Les!

1/7/11

New Year's Eve

Awhile ago I joined this group called groupons. They send you daily coupons to your email that are at greatly discounted prices to businesses in your area. I've bought a few of them. Most are a 50% savings. One to a cupcake place in Eagle that you buy the "groupon" for $8 and you get a coupon to get $16 in cupcakes - basically 6 cupcakes for the price of 3. We'd been wanting to go there and check out a cupcake cake store & just hadn't made it to Eagle to do that. So now we have another excuse to go - gotta use the coupon by June. We also bought some to a place called Smashburger. Wow! Those were good hamburgers!! And the french fries were great, too. That was another 50% savings deal - pay $5 get a $10 coupon. Oh and that was a popular one. They had 2,500 of those for sale. In the 24 hours it was available to buy they sold over 2,200 of them!

But the best deal, turned out ok, but wasn't as good as it seemed... We bought a package deal for the Steelheads hockey game on New Year's Eve. The deal was 4 tickets for a luxury suite for $25 each (regular $65 each!). Brianna ended up at a friends house and Grandpa Ron was in Washington, so we asked Grandma J to go with us. This great deal that was suppose to include chips, cheese, salsa & popcorn was very enticing to alot of people and the rooms that were available to us were crowded and we weren't able to sit and watch the game. Stood the entire time. The snacks were on a table in 2 of the 3 rooms and to be shared with everyone and no refills. We asked about getting more chairs but were told they'd brought in all they could. So we went to the least crowded room, pulled the curtain back and looked through several panels of glass to the game. When some others that were standing watching the game left, we went and stood in their spots and were at least able to see the game better. Now, overall we did have a good time, but it was frustrating! And I'm very thankful that we didn't pay $65 for each of those "luxury seats" we got! (And I think the worst part was sitting in the parking garage for an hour (not kidding!) waiting to get out after the game! Though we were entertained by a couple of teenagers in the car behind us. They got out and danced around to their music, dove into the car through open windows, and climbed in/out of the sun roof window.)

This was after the 1st period ended. This team of little hockey players got to play until 1 of them made a goal. Pretty cute.

This picture kind shows where we were. The far left is where we pulled the curtain back to watch through the windows. There were 6 bar height chairs up against the opening there. There was the couple on the end, then Les, Tiffani & Grandma J standing and then 4 other people in the chairs. We could've pulled up the table chairs, but then your looking at the shelf to set your drinks/snacks on & can't see the game!

Then there was the drive home... Didn't realize everything closed down on New Year's Eve. Tried to find a place to eat and nothing was open! So we took Grandma J back to Tracy's house to get her car (minus a headlight...) and Tiffani drove her home to spend the night out there. Les and I went to Winco and got sour cream and came home to eat leftover taco bake while watching Dick Clark's New Year's Eve. (Exciting, I know.) We warned Tiffani to take it easy with the missing headlight, beings it was New Year's Eve and after 11pm, the cops were going to be out in full force. Sure enough, she got pulled over in Middleton for the headlight!! Grandma J said she handled herself just fine. :) So she brought in the New Year driving the back roads to New Plymouth. Tiffani didn't say anything to us about it, but Grandma J had texted Les. So I sent her a text asking how the drive was, her reply was "Fine, eventful..."