Graduation Cake

One of our good friends, Chewy (aka Chris), just graduated from UTD and is going into the construction business. I gladly made a cake for his big day. The bottom cake is chocolate with cream cheese filling and covered in butter cream. The top cake is a vanilla cake with raspberry and lemon cream cheese fillings and covered in butter cream. The tools, small hard hat, and diploma are made out of white chocolate. The large hard hat is sculpted rice crispy treats covered in fondant.

I. Love. Camp. Gladiator!...

...This is something you can hear 35 crazy Dallasites shouting as we do jumping jacks outside at 5:30AM in the middle of DECEMBER! This morning it was 32 degrees! BRRRRR!

Confession, I haven't really worked out since I left my job at Life Time Fitness a year and a half ago. I've done the occasional spinning class but absolutly nothing consistant. Chase has tried his best to motivate me but I can be stuborn and have fought back everytime he encouraged me to get up and work out.

Have you ever seen the tv show American Gladiator? It was on years ago and started back up maybe 2 or 3 seasons ago? Anyway, the winner of season 2, Ally, goes to Watermark and has started doing boot camps. She offers a few different times and places and they normally run for 4 weeks. When I first heard about it, 4 weeks seemed really intimidating. For December she is doing a 2 weeker, due to the holidays, which seemed a lot more doable. I can do anything for 2 weeks right? Yes. I. Can!

Click HERE to see her website. We (Chase and I plus our good friends Chewy and Lindsay) get up at 4:40AM, out the door at 5, arrive at Watermarks parking lot at 5:15 to strech, and begin at 5:30. It's an hour of intense short sprints or drills that build endurance, tone, and improve cardio. Honestly, I can't believe I'm doing this. I've NEVER been athletic nor wanted to be. We started on Monday and I've already noticed a big difference in my endurance and I am SO sore the next day...which I'm told is a good thing. There is a 71 year old woman doing it with us and if she can do it, I have NO excuse not to push through.

Tea Time!

Mom's best friend, Pam, is in town for a visit so mom took us to tea at the Chocolate Angel. We had a great time! Here are a few pics.
Above we have cheese with pimento sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, a Gruyere and ham croissant, curry chicken salad in a philo dough mini bowl, a cranberry scone, and mixed fruit with poppy seed yogurt dressing. Oh, and English black tea of course!

Above we have a delicious dark chocolate mouse (in the mini cup), a sugar cookie, dark chocolate brownie, and a strawberry.

Above: Grace, Pam, Mom, Me

Root Beer Tasting

Something we've been wanting to do for a while is have a root beer tasting contest. We LOVE root beer! There are so many brands of root beer and we wanted to see which brand we liked best. Honestly, I thought they were all similar. Boy was I wrong! They were all distinctively different.

Chris and Lindsay came over to help us figure out the winner. We had a great time! Great to hang out with friends!

Here are the cast of characters....Parkers (the cheap brand), A&W, IBC, Stewarts, Hansens, Mug, and Barqs. Let's see what happens...



Yep, Chris is smelling the root beer. He was very methodical in his approach.












And the winner is????.....More like winnerS. After much agony and full tummies, we came to different conclusions.





Lindsay's by-far winner is.....

Chase's not-so-clear winner is....
And Chris and my VERY clear winner is.....
There you have it folks. I was really hoping that I would like the cheap brand the best...but alas, I like the most expensive! Stewart's was $6 for 4!!!!!

On a side note, Hansens was the EXTREMELY clear LOSER!!!! Yuck! Blah! Spat!!!! It was HORRIBLE! But I guess that's what you can expect from a diet soda.

Friends in High Places

I recently read one of my friends blog about Sammy, who happens to be a mutual friend. I met Sammy the same time I met Chase, on a Campus Crusade for Christ summer project in New Jersey. He has a heart for challenging our generation to do more. Click HERE to hear his story. Thanks for sharing your heart Sammy!

Apple Pie season

Last year around this time, we were staying with our friends, the Motl's, because Chase was still drilling in Arkadelphia. Lori decided to make a homemade apple pie which we all devoured in one sitting. We liked it so much, we made another one the next day. I fell in love with homemade apple pies that day... But it does need to be completely homemade, crust and all. I know I know, Chase now calls me "a food elitist". I was at the grocery store and saw some beautiful apples and immediately thought of the fall, the Motl's, and apple pie....yum.

Lindsay came over and help me make it because peeling, coring, and slicing apples takes FOREVER! Here's how it turned out!

Weekend Pics

My friend, Danielle, is a great photographer and posted a bunch of pics on her blog. Click HERE to see our wonderful time visiting LA. Thanks Danielle, miss you already!!!!

Hollywood and Rodeo Dr.

Chase went to school with James, Joel, David at George Mason University. They were all involved in Crusade and became great friends. Over the last 2 1/2 years they all married wonderful women who have become my friends as well. Actually James and Danielle were on the same summer project as Chase and I so I've known Danielle as long as I've known Chase!
Joel and Amy moved out to Fullerton a year ago so Joel could go to seminary and work at a church. James and Danielle moved to Burbank in May so James could pursue his dream of making movies. David (who lives in DC with his bride Arielle) called Chase a couple months ago and said they were going to visit James and Joel in LA over Labor Day weekend....and the rest is history...Chase was on that like white-on-rice.

It was so neat to see our husbands reunite...they were like little boys again. They ate together, played games together, swam in the ocean together, fought together... We (the wives) looked at each other on many occasions and laughed at our hubbies.

Friday we went to Laguna Beach, Saturday we did Hollywood, Rodeo Rd, Malibu, and Third St. Promenade at Sana Monica. Sunday we went miniature golfing and hung out. What a weekend. Our camera battery died Saturday afternoon so I'll have to wait until Danielle posts her wonderful beach pictures to get the pics I'm missing.

Got to love the LA smog! The city is in the background of this photo...although you can barley see it through the smog.

James ran through the water trying NOT to get wet....so, Chase wanted to see if he could beat him. He did a pretty good job if I say so myself. Below are the results.

Griffith Park

Our Labor Day weekend began Thursday night as we flew to LA for a little reunion with some friends. James and Danielle picked us up from the airport and immediatly took us to Griffith Park to see LA at night. The picture below was our first impression of LA....lots and lots of lights! The place is HUGE! Jupiter was shinning bright that night so we were able to see its stripes through a telescope the park had set up. Thursday night was just the start of a great weekend to come...