Snowman Cake

The past couple days I have been a little bored.  When I get bored my mind starts a turning =)  

I'm sure you all know by now that I love to cook.  I even took a baking class when I was at BYU-Idaho.  Well,  one of my favorite TV shows is Cake Boss.  So I decided to make a cake!!  A holiday cake!!!  I thought a snowman cake would be fun since we have been getting a lot of snow outside.  And that shouldn't be to hard to make, right?

WRONG!!  

It was a pain in the butt and as most of my projects go, it didn't turn out at all like I thought it would.  I used rice krispy treats for the bottom half of the spheres and the weight of the treats caused it to pull the edges down so it didn't really look like a circle or ball.  I then put cake on top of each rice krispy treats and the cake was extremely crumbly.  When I tried to dirty ice it, the whole thing just started pulling off and falling apart.

I also used fondant for the first time and found out that that stuff is not the easiest to work with.  FYI- never mix fondant and water... one word... disaster!  I tried making a little water based paint to paint the hat and it just turned it to goop.  

As you can probably see in the back ground of the pictures, this whole process also made an enormous mess. 

Before the hat was finished.

Finished with the hat.  I forgot to save some rice krispys for the hat so I just used a huge glob of fondant. I tried mixing in some chocolate cake crumbs into the fondant to turn it a dark color.  Also a very bad idea. (this is what inspired me to use my homemade paint) 

The pure fondant hat was so heavy it started ripping the head backwards and off of the rest of the snowman.

I'm trying to hold the hat and head up in this last picture.

I also wanted to add a pipe but by the time I got to that step it just wasn't worth it.  I don't think the head would have been able to hold it anyways.  

I guess you can say it was a good experience trying to make this but I'm just not quite convinced it was worth it.  Cleaning the mess probably took longer then making the whole thing  :}  And it definitely wouldn't fly in Buddies kitchen

Penn State Game

This past weekend I drove up to State College (which turns out is only a couple hours away) to see the Ranishs and go to a Penn State game for the first time. I have had a life goal to attend a Penn State game when Joe Paterno is coaching on the sideline. The drive was extremely beautiful. The leaves are starting to change into several colors. I was going to stop and take some pictures but just never did...

Denise and Mike Ranish

Susie and Georgie Ranish (Timmy wasn't around when we took pictures)

At Joepa's statue in front of Beaver Stadium

I paparazzied Joepa's house!! I love how it is so modest. The second picture is a "Where's Waldo" of Joepa on the side. Can you find him? (right by the sideline and 48 yard line)

These next pictures are of the "scary road" that was by our house. I don't know if any of you remember that road or not but I thought it would be fun for, those who remembered it, to see what it looks like now. Apparently 15 years does a lot to an old broke down road.

The top picture is of what's left of the "scary road". The bottom two are from the yellow gate looking the other way. Not so scary these days =)

I also stopped the the gymnastics center Katy and I went to. That was VERY weird being back in there. The lobby looked a little different but the gym looked just the same. I was going to take some pictures for mom and Katy but there were a bunch of parents in the lobby and I think they were wondering what I was doing there to begin with so I didn't want to start taking pictures of their little kids and then leave. Maybe next time.

These next pictures were at the game!! The stadium was huge. I now know how they fit over 110,000 people in there. They think everyone's butt is 6 inches wide and a hip to knee span of 8 inches. Although it was great being at the game, that was the most uncomfortable 3 hours of my life. It was so cramped. Next time I go it will be in a box seat!! A new life goal!

Hear is our old house. It looked sooo small compared to how I remembered it growing up. The driveway was also a lot shorter then I remembered. I also asked Mike about the family that lived across the street from us (I think the Bolish's?) He said that they still live there, well the son and daughter. I guess the parents passed away a few years ago.

All in all it was really weird being back there and seeing everything again. It brought back a ton of memories!!

This last picture is just from a trip I took with some of the grad students to work on one of their projects.

Home Update/ Office

Picture of the outside of the house. The second picture is of the desk I bought today. (I hadn't read moms comment on the other post to know that she was going to bring one out for me...) After I got the desk set up I was looking around for my ball (I use an exercise ball for my desk chair) and realized I couldn't find it. So I called Katy to have her check the trunk of the blue car which Clay drove out here with a bunch of my stuff to see if it was still in there and sure enough it was... Oh well. I guess I can keep using my box of movies for the next week and a half.

This first picture is of my office from the doorway. The second is looking in the opposite direction and the third is of the desk I have been using. I supposedly will be sharing the office with another grad student but she hasn't shown up yet. I might get it all to myself!!

I also went to get a parking pass for my Jeep today and they gave me a "faculty/staff" parking pass! How cool is that!! I get to park in the forbidden spots now. I will also be getting a faculty email or something like that so the students from my lab can get a hold of me. Its all still kind of weirding me out =}

Frostburg Housing

I was talking with TJ today and he said I needed to update my blog now that I am out here at school and "actually have something to update". So I thought I would snap a few pictures as I am relaxing in front of my Rockies game and do a quick update. Since it is dark out I don't have any pictures of the outside of the house yet.

It is definitely an old school house. Wood window frames and doors that barely fit together and creak really bad as you open and close them. It has a basement (as I found out today) but i didn't get any pictures of that because it freaked me out when I discovered it. It seriously looks like a basement straight from some horror movie, probably will never venture down there again! I have also discovered today that the house has a swampy smell, or something like that. An old house smell...

Anyways, these first two are of the down stairs laundry area/bathroom. The only shower is downstairs.

This is a little storage area off of the kitchen

Some shots of the kitchen. It actually is pretty roomy but doesn't have many cabnits

Looking in from the front door

This first picture is the room to the right as you come in the front door. It will eventually become our tv room. The second picture is looking from the tv room back into the room with the table that you saw from the front door.

The top of the stairs looking down the hall. My room is on the right. Right behind me is the upstairs bathroom.

Upstairs bathroom

This is looking into my room. It is still messing because I am trying to find places for everything to go and I still don't have a desk or anything.

The first picture the door is directly to my left. It also is a picture of my make-shift bed. Mom and Dad will be bringing a MUCH NEEDED bed over labor day weekend!! The second picture is looking from my bed over to the closet area. It is the dumbest closet design ever.

Yard Work

To start i thought I would show you how my garden has grown! Despite the fact that the "topsy turvy" looks a lot bigger, it wasn't doing very well for a while and it has JUST started flowering. No fruit yet.

Before After

I always get overzealous when planting my gardens, thinking that I have plenty of room to put a bunch of plants. As you can see in the first picture it looks like there is plenty of room. Well in the second picture you can see how it has bloomed. My only fatality has been my peper plant. For some reason all of the leaves just fell off of it one day... My strawberries did fairly well. I picked enough to make about 2 small peanut butter jars full of freezer jam. It was actually pretty good. Jack loved it!

Before After

As you all know, I have been working in the yard the past few weeks. My week long project turned into a 2 1/2 week project. But, at least I love doing this stuff. Its like christmas morning for me when I get to do a project!

I forgot to get any before pictures because I was so excited to get out there and get started, but mom took a few shortly after I started so I'll use those for some "before and after" shots.

Before After

Before After

Before After

Before
After The green stuff in the second picture is suppose to grow new grass. Most of the lawn could use that stuff...

The rest of these are just some random shots of the finished project and some of the work in progress.

The pond, part of which was for dads fathers day present!

This last picture is of us about to haul away the last of the mulch I pulled up. (found in the second to last picture) Katy actually saved the day with that. She helped me load and unload that trailer a couple times. I probably would be 6 feet under right now if she wasn't helping me. That was a lot of work. Probably the hardest part of the whole project.