2009 March

Don’t look if you’re afraid of Clowns

March 29, 2009 By Jen 1 Comment

I made another vanilla layer cake for my class Monday evening and knew we had to make a clown cake. I purchased half a dozen creepy plastic clown heads and went to class ready to make another ugly creation.

First we practiced the roses. Mine actually looked like roses this week! The we learned how to do the boarder on the cake which was pretty easy to do. Then we had to take food coloring and stripe it down the insides of our frosting bags so our clowns would supposedly look airbrushed. I think my teacher confused the word “airbrushed” with “ugly”.

I made blobs look like clowns and stuck their plastic faces on top of my blobs. I was done ahead of the rest of the class so I decided to add lines around the sides of my cake to make it look like a drum. Then I didn’t want my roses to go to waste, so I stuck those on top as well. My teacher came by and said “wow…thats…overdone. Hehe”. It was in the overly-nice and snide way and I could tell she was horrified and ashamed that I was her student.

Bob took the cake to work today. No word yet on if he was made fun of or not.

Filed Under: Fun

Accident Update

March 27, 2009 By Bob Leave a Comment

Mom is back home with us now. She was discharged today. She’s sore in a bunch of spots and headaches come and go, but should hopefully improve from here on out. We’ll be keeping an eye on her. Mom is looking at a couple weeks to get back to full health.

Jen is doing ok as well. Her neck is still sore and hard to turn all the way to the left or right (kind of like a kink in the neck from sleeping.) Her nose is still sore as well, but she should be ok.

Hopefully everyone keeps improving from here, and Mom can enjoy a little bit of her stay.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers again. Bob

Filed Under: Family

Accident

March 26, 2009 By Bob 3 Comments

Today we were in a pretty nasty accident after picking my Mom up from the airport. My Mom and Jen were both injured, with my Mom’s being more serious.

We were driving along the highway E-470 when the conditions got really bad. There was a whiteout and the second car in front of us slammed on his brakes coming to a complete stop. Even though we were only going roughly 20mph, the car in front of us slid into the car that had stopped, and we ended up sliding into him.

At this point we pulled off to the side of the road as much as we could without going in the snow banks. The guy in front of us was talking to the person he hit, and a random insurance truck guy pulled off to the side of the road up ahead.

I got out and gave my insurance info to the guy ahead of me (who was still talking to the state farm insurance guy in the truck up ahead.) That’s when things got bad. My mom had gotten out to come tell me something and was standing in front of our car. Just then another car that must have been going too fast to begin with slammed into the back/side of our car. My mom was in front of our car still, and presumably was hit by it, hitting the back of her head on our windshield and tossed to the ground.

I ran back and first saw Jen, who had hit her head while buckled in inside of the car (which shows how fast the car behind us must have been moving.) She had a bloody nose, but was otherwise ok. I noticed my mom wasn’t in the car and went looking. I found her unconcious laying on the ground. Couldn’t tell if she was breathing at first, so Jen and I started CPR. She started to come around, and a fireman (happened to be the driver of the car we hit) checked her out and helped us move her into someone’s car. It was freezing and the wind was blowing 30mph, so basically if we stayed there we were out of luck.

After maybe 10 terrifying minutes the ambulance arrived. Mom was fairly lucid by this point and knew what was going on.

At the end of the day she did have a gash on her head, and was sore on one side… but otherwise seems to be ok. She does have a very small bleed in her head, but the doctors expect it to be fine. They are keeping her for the night and doing another CAT scan tomorrow to make sure its not getting worse. Jen has a bunch of bruises and a cut on her head, but is fine otherwise. I’m ok… but have some new images that will always haunt me.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers. Bob & Jen

Filed Under: Family

Take a hike!

March 23, 2009 By Jen Leave a Comment

Mother nature decided to give us a near-70 degree day on Saturday so we took our oldest furry son to Golden Gate Canyon State Park. 13,000 acres of foothills, trees and streams. We got a park map and decided we’d try going on a hike since I remembered not to wear my Crocs.

The trails were labeled for beginners, moderate hikers, and extreme difficulty for experienced hikers. I have been told to take a hike before, so I wasn’t a beginner. But we certainly weren’t ready to scale mountains and rocks, so we opted for a moderate trail called Horseshoe, which is about a 4 mile loop.

As soon as we started on the trail there was a sign warning us about bears and mountain lions. If we came across one, we were supposed to speak to the animal softly, avoid eye contact, and slowly back away. I started planning what I would do; “Hi pretty kitty! Nice kitty. Here, eat Coda!” then I’d run away and hope Coda was able to escape. [Editor (Bob) note: Coda and I knew the plan was to outrun Jen, so he wasn't worried.]

The hike was actually pretty easy except for the whole altitude thing. Coda had fun pulling Bob uphill and drinking from the crystal clear streams. He also met a Jack Russel Terrier, Cocker Spaniel, and two Golden Retrievers along the way and said hello to them.

By the end of our hike he was a muddy mess and very happy about it. He even shook some mud off onto Bob. I think he was mostly happy that we didn’t have to sacrifice him to a bear or mountain lion.

Filed Under: Adventure, Fun, Outdoors, Pets

Cake is for men!

March 17, 2009 By Jen 2 Comments

I joined a Wilton cake decorating class which is once a week for 4 weeks. The first week we didn’t actually make anything. The teacher showed us how to mix the frosting and gave us a list of items we would need for class. Then the teacher told us to make a round layer cake, frost it in light blue and bring it to our 2nd class. Making this cake wasn’t exactly… a piece of cake.

Sunday afternoon I found myself with a cake mix, a new frosting recipe I couldn’t get to the right thickness, and several mini-meltdowns after Bob asked if the cake was supposed to be crooked. My family unintentionally put pressure on me as a kid by calling me “Mini Martha Stewart” and I always thought I was pretty good at baking and crafts. Then Ella, my Wilton instructor came along and proved otherwise.

When I unveiled my not-so-smooth cake she immediately attacked it with a spray water bottle so she could soften the frosting and make it even. Then she tested my colored frosting and decided that needed water as well. So far, things weren’t going great. The girl that sits next to me, Amanda, told me she was frustrated with her cake and was on the verge of tears as well. phew I wasn’t alone!

By the end of the night I had a mandatory pastel rainbow cake with two kinda-sorta-flowers on top. Bob was excited to bring cake to work the next day until he saw it. “What can we do to make it more manly?”. Thus, I carefully wrote BEER on the pastel rainbow cake to make it more masculine. I’m thinking of submitting it to www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com where someone writes a blog about all of the bad cakes out there.