It's about time for another post

I know, I know...it's been awhile. I have a good excuse though. My computer has pretty much been with the Geek Squad since I got home. Right now I am illegally using a computer at DHR during my training. So, no fun pictures or anything. Once I get my computer back I might have a few cute pictures to post. Overall I've been very busy since I got home but not much too blog about. I just started back with DHR yesterday, not sure how I feel about it yet. I had a blast at the district youth retreat this weekend. I was super tired when I came home but it was well worth it. It was amazing to have the opportunity to get to know some new fun people and get to know other friends even better. I am loving being back and being a part of my church. I just love my church. I'm not exactly sure what the next few years look like for me but I'm excited to see how God continues to grow and stretch me. Hopefully once my computer is back I'll be a little better at posting.

My first time...

...to make a tiered cake. I wasn't really happy with how it turned out but it had more to do with the icing than it did the stacking of the cakes. I figured that I should practice making a tiered cake before I tried to do one for a real event. Well...the stacking part of it turned out alright. My icing just wasn't quite right. It would have been fine if I was covering them in fondant but my buttercream was just too thin and didn't smooth right. So, here is a picture (for aunt patty). Don't worry, I'm still learning and getting better every time I do it so don't be afraid if I'm doing your cake in the near future. I promise It will look better than this. Oh, and yes, that is a cardboard C on top. Heather and I were playing around with designs for her wedding cake(no, I'm not doing hers)and she decided that it needed a C on top too late to make one out of fondant so she improvised. I think Heather might have a talent for making letters out of cardboard. What do you think?

You know you're getting old when...

Publish Post

...after a long day in Manhattan all I wanted to do was put my feet up. Wow, I walked alot today. My feet are screaming at me right now but I was loving all the walking around earlier today. Before today I had never seen the Brooklyn Bridge so I decided to make a little trip today to walk across it. Before I got the bridge I made a little detour to Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery so that I could compare thier cupcakes to Magnolia's. If you aren't familiar with the Manhattan cupcake scene, it is quite fierce competition. Well, For what it's worth...Sugar Sweet Sunshine is FAR superior to Magnolia's.

I have only heard great things about A Chorus Line so I decided to go see it today. A bonus is that Mario Lopez (A.K.A. A.C. Slater from Saved By The Bell) is in it right now. The show was great. I did not love the movie but the stage show was way better.

And here he is...Mario Lopez! He was very nice. As he was signing my playbill I told him I enjoyed the show and thanked him. He then looked up into my eyes and smiled his cute little smile and said it was his pleasure. In the picture he was on the phone with someone who was coming to pick him up.

I tried to get a picture with him too late so here is me with his back. Yeah, I'm being a little silly but it was fun. Two teenage boys got pictures with him that were standing in front of me but it was too late by the time I handed them my camera to take a picture of me. They were funny. They tried to push me up there with him and encouraged me to be just as pushy as everyone else but I refrained. Why is it that I always seem to make friends with gay guys in whatever line I am in? Anyway, they were nice enough to take this picture for me. And another way to know you are getting old... when the teenage heart throbs from your childhood are making comebacks on broadway.

I love weddings!

So, here it is...my first wedding cake. It's not a big one but I guess you have to start somewhere, right? I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here are the new Mr. And Mrs. Zernhelt cutting the cake. It was funfetti because it's thier favorite kind of cake. Thier wedding turned out great, despite the rain. Thankfully it held off until after the ceremony which was beautiful. The wedding was at 5 but the bride and groom did not leave until 10. A boring Southern Baptist wedding in Alabama just can't compare.

Tim and Brittany Harrision are two of my favorite people. It was great to get to hang out with them at the reception. This was one of the most fun weddings I've ever been to. I think it had to do with the fact that people actually danced. We danced all night long. It was great. It rained but I think that only helped to make it better.

Jim and Kendra are two more of my favorite people. They moved to Philadelphia a couple of months ago to plant a church there. It was great to catch up with them!

A little Randomness

I can't seem to post very regularly so I apologize for the randomness of my recent posts. I have been staying very busy with lots of different activities. My birthday was great. I got to hang out with lots of great people! Thanks to every one for all the birthday cards, phone calls, and comments. They helped to make this birthday one of the best!

This is a birthday cake for the mom of the little boy I babysit. Her birthday is the same as mine. Thankfully I had some help with this cake. If you look closely you can see that the design is outlined with tiny little white pearl like sprinkles. Jenny Schepens helped me put them on. Without her help I would have been up all night.

This is the glass plate that inspired the cake design.

The night of my birthday the girls from my small group decided to have a girls night. At about 10pm Anna had the bright idea to go to the beach the next day. As you can tell from the picture everybody agreed. We got up bright and early, made a pit stop at target(that took a little longer than expected) and then headed down to the Jersey shore. I am pretty sure a good time was had by all. Joy, the one in the blue, is getting married this weekend so it was a great way to spend our last weekend with her before she moves off to be married! Speaking of moving...I'm sure going to miss these girls when I move:(

Katie made me a birthday lunch along with this FABULOUS cake! It was funfetti, my favorite! We also had tacos...another favorite. I'm going to miss her too:(

More cakes

I did this cake for my friend Canada's birthday last Sunday.

This was for a friend's mom's birthday yesterday.

A Hooding

Since the hooding ceremony is all about the hood we thought that we should get a good picture of them. This is Abby, Joe, Jesse, and me.

Apparently something was funny.

Here is another group shot. This time with Kot instead of Jesse. We never did manage to get everybody together for a big group picture. Those dern missions students...they're just too social.

I don't wanna grow up...

The children's zoo was lots of fun, Mostly for the fun picture opportunities that it provided...

They had a birds next so we could see what it feels like to be a bird.
Brittany makes a pretty butterfly...don't ya think?
She also is pretty good at swimming like a turtle. Unfortunately my batteries died so we missed out on several good pictures. Oh well, maybe we will do those next time we go.

Da Bronx Zoo

Thursday my friend, Brittany and I spent the day at the most amazing zoo I've ever seen. I pictured the Bronx zoo to be pretty sad. I mean, how much of a zoo can you have in NYC. Well, a whole lot of one apparently. Usually the zoo kind of makes me sad for the animals but I loved everything about this one. Most of the animals were free roaming and the ones that weren't had so much room that they did not even realize that they were caged in.

I think this guy was the grandpa of the group. At one point one of the females came over and sat on the rock above him eating. He just reached up without even looking and grabbed the limb that she was eating off of. That is what you see in front of him. She just looked at him but did not do anything. He looked up as if to say, "what are you going to do about it?" It was hilarious. I think we could have stayed in there all day watching them.
This one liked to pose for us. I think he thought we were the ones in the zoo for him to watch.
I took this from the "Skyfari" which is like the sky buckets at six flags. You can see the city in the background. It is amazing that all of this land is in the middle of the Bronx.
Another favorite part was the sea lions. We timed it so we could see them eat. They did some fun tricks and we found out that they liked yellow shirts. There were some school children there who had on bright yellow shirts and they would follow them around the whole pool. Brittany and I decided that next time we need to wear yellow shirts as well.
They also had a butterfly garden. It was basically a garden in a green house with tons of butterflies everywhere. It was beautiful...I could have stayed in there for a good part of the day if it wasn't so hot.

We took some fun pictures in the children's zoo that I will put in my next post.

My Newest Cake Creation

This is a practice run for my friend's wedding cake. The wedding is in June so I am just practicing now. This is my first test run. The couple will see it tonight and we'll see if that is what they want to go with or try something else. Of course it did not turn out quite like I had in my head but I don't think it looks bad for a practice run. I have a few things in my head that I would do differently next time...but that's what practice is for.

This is thier invitation where I got the inspiration for the design of the cake.

Well Crap

I got my days mixed up so I will not be able to attend the New Kids on the Block concert at the Today show...but, I'll be watching it as I babysit. Oh well...It's kind of nice to know that I could drive down there if I didn't have to work...or maybe its just more frustrating. I'm not sure.

Even when everybody else forgets.....

I'll still love NKOTB(That's New Kids on The Block for all you old folks..ha ha)! That's the promise that my cousin Kristie and I made to eachother as we drove away from the Civic Center in Birmingham after the concert of the year(maybe our life up to that point). I'm not sure if she remembers it or not but I sure do. Ok, so I am just as guilty of forgetting about them as everybody else is. I no longer sleep on NKOTB sheets or have the curtains. But, I might have the dolls packed up somewhere and I am pretty sure I still have a hot pink hat somewhere with thier name on it. It's been a long time since I thought about them. Well, there was that summer at shocco where we watched all thier videos and marveled at the fact that we still remembered every word and even some of the dance steps.
Anyway, they are going to be on the Today show on Thursday and I just happen to be off on that day. Am I just crazy enough to make the trip down there before dawn in order to get a look at thier new moves? I'm not sure yet but I must admit I am seriously considering it after watching this video http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20199413,00.html.
So, If I do decide to brave the today show crowds I will let you know! Stay tuned. Don't be too dissapointed if I don't get to go though. I do have to close the night before so I will get no sleep. Ugh...is it worth it though? Yes, I know...I'm a little crazy but I have fun!

Random update

I went to Birmingham a couple of weekends ago for Melissa's wedding but I did not take a lot of pictures at the wedding. I guess I was too busy being a bridesmaid. Anyway the few I did take were of the cute kids. How photogenic is Eli? He loves his Miss Ree. I got to see all the other Safe Harbor kids too but I don't have pictures with them. (Shana, did you ever retrieve yours?)

Introducing Micah Joy Waller. This was the first time I got to meet her. She is cute as can me. She even cooperated with me for some precious pictures. I got some cute smiles(even if it was just gas).

Last night we had the bi-annual AGSM Baci ceremony at Dr. Bailey's house. This is kind of our unoffical graduation. Above is the cake I baked for the event. It's been awhile since I have had time to decorate so I was rather excited to get back into decorating!

This is Dr. Bailey explaining the meaning behind the Baci ceremony. It is basically a blessing ceremony that they do in Laos where Dr. Bailey was a missionary. I don't have a picture of him blessing me because it was rather crowded but if I come accross one I will post it. Being here at ATS has really taught me the power of blessing people. I hope it is something that I carry with me from now on.

Do I really deserve a Master's Degree?

Ok, so maybe the title is a little harsh on myself but it is how I am feeling at the moment. I am in the middle of trying to study for my comps which are on Tuesday. This is basically the biggest test that I have ever had to take. At least that is how I feel right now. How I do on this test determines if I get to graduate or not. It will consist of 4 essays that I will have about 2 hours per essay to write. I basically have to explain everything that I have learned in the past 4 semesters. Let me tell ya, its a lot of info. Sadly, I must not have been paying very close attention in some of my classes because I'm having a hard time remembering everything. First of all, I do not study very well. And secondly, I am feeling very ADD and overwhelmed. I am not even sure where to begin and how to go about studying for this. I have gotten some great encouragement and advice from friends who have already taken it but the main problem is I just can't focus. Anyway...there is my rant for today. With all of that said, please pray for me between now and Tuesday the 15th at 4:00 when it will all be over with. Pray that I can focus and that I can somehow organize it all in my head in a logical manner so that I will be able to spit it back out coherently on Tuesday.

Just a few more pictures

Chris loves being silly and the characters at the Disney store on 5th Avenue gave provided much amusement.
Gotta have the classic Time Square shot!

And the three of us in Time Square!

The Millers Last Day in NYC

I think Chris would have spent the entire day in the Museum of Natural History. I was pretty relieved at lunch when Lacy suggested that he just pick out a few things that he wanted to see the most. Chris has always been fasicnated by the giant squid so he was pretty excited to be this close to one(well a statue of one anyway)
I think Lacy's favorite part was the dinosour fossils. They were pretty awesome!
Central park is one of my favorite parts of the city so I always enjoy showing it to people. We got an added bonus when we realized that this is the exact part that they filmed part of Enchated in.
Chris found his long lost relatives in FAO Swartz.
The girls had to stop in at Tiffany's to look at the rings.

The Millers in NYC Day 3

I think Chris and Lacy can pretty much have fun where ever they are. This is Chris being the NBC peacock at the NBC store in Rockefeller center.
In the time that I thought we would walk around all of Time Square we actually only got as far as the Toy's R Us.
When in the Time Square Toys R Us you have to ride the cartoon ferris wheel!
We ate dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner where the servers sing. Cherry the waitress was "Hopelessly Devoted" to Chris. She sang the entire song to Chris.
We ended the day by going to The Little Mermaid. It's Disney's newest broadway musical. It was a lot of fun and the actors were wonderful. Especially the little boy who played flounder. His voice was AMAZING.