Negril, Jamaica

R & I took our first extended vacation together in March and I'm just now feeling confident in my ability to select the *best* photos to post here. Every moment of the entire vacation was amazing, and the pictures turned out so incredible it was a tough choice. Here are just a few. I highly recommend taking a trip to Negril if you ever have the chance. The food, the people, the sunsets, everything exceeded my expectations.

Bake Sale Today!

Last night my mom & I decorated our latest batches of baked stuffs for her office Bake Sale today. Mom took the Wilton Beginner Decorator Course last month and came away with some amazing SKILLZ! I'm so impressed. Especially after I actually tried my hand at some of the techniques and decided I have no natural ability to pipe, and an attention span of about forty-one seconds. My dark-chocolate-white-chocolate-bird-nest-cupcakes turned out pretty cute, depsite my initial reaction ("DAH - FAIL! AGAIN!") to the concave shape of the cakes when they came out of the oven. I won't be using that recipe for cupcakes again (from the Cupcake Deck - chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream). While they taste amazing, and the batter is so good it's worth making just to eat it out of the bowl, in three attempts they just never rose. Mom said it's because I used the wisk attachment to my mixer; I should be using the paddle? (Anyone? Anyone?)

We loved my little baby three-tiered cake! My mom's was a 6", mine was 4".

In the pics below, you'll see that my mom had the ingenious idea of using a wine bottle for a rose-pic-holder (to the shock and awe of all her dry, un-fun Wilton classmates), and that her cake (on the lower right) is REALLY FABULOUS while my cake (lower left) is REALLY LAME. Luckily she let me use one of her early practice roses as a topper. The leaves I piped around it totally ruined it. I shudder at their sliminess. My dot edge isn't too terrible, but it's nothing like her shell edge.


I bet all of my mom's co-workers detest her this morning for bringing in such lovely creations. ;) Jealousies. (Evil laugh.)

Ignoring the April Snowstorm

And pretending it's still sunny & 60 like it was on Saturday. The dogs received a much-deserved field trip to the beach this weekend and I still have warm-fuzzies from the joy it brought us all. Evidence:

Maya in heaven - look at that amazing stick!

Isn't that the most painfully sweet Westie face you've ever seen? I can't believe I got it on film because it never lasts more than 0.2 seconds. It is followed almost instantaneously by sloppy kisses and wet dog tongue up one's left nostril. Love from Nory, take it or leave it.

Breezie on the prowl.

PS ~ I'm getting the hang of this cheap digital camera while my Canon is in the shop. Or, at least in a box ready to go to the shop while I muster the courage to send it away.

Bakesale!

I love any excuse to bake things and give them away. So my mom's invitation to join her in making stuff for her company's fundraiser next week inspired me to no end. These are the cupcakes I made at Valentine's Day. Cocoa-spice with chocolate buttercream. AWFUL! Tough, hard cakes with t00-sweet frosting. FAIL in every sense of the word. But, I am not deterred. I'm anxious to retry for the bakesale. Wish me luck!