Cake flowers

Here are the flowers that I made last week in my flowers and cake class.

The one on the top left is the Wilton rose which came out awesome. My teacher even said it was really good. the one on the top right is a fondant flower. These were awesome. I missed the first class but she let me make it up and showed me how to do them. Technically the 3 different parts should be 3 different colors but I had red so I used red. I plan to make these for my final cake next week so I will post and you can see what they should really look like. Now for the last one. It is supposed to be a daffodil. I got the hang of it after a bit but the problem is you obviously need all the petals to be even and you need 6. These take practice. After the previous class where we made apple blossoms and primroses, or attempted to make because those were a complete bomb, I was glad to kind of get the hang of the daffodil.

More Waterton Lakes

Right before we left Waterton we rented a surrey and biked around the park. Jeff and I found out how out of shape we are. We were only on this thing for 20 minutes before we turned it back in. It was not easy pedaling around town, up and down and against wind. It isn't going to detour me from wanting a bike though:) The kids loved this part of the trip.

Going down to the border

A mama bear with her 4 babies.

Bighorn sheep on the side of the road just outside the townsite.

A rock bed at the beginning of our hike.

Red Rock Canyon waterfall

We went to the town of Waterton Lakes the first weekend in June. The reason for this impromptu trip was because our visa expired on June 6th. Jeff just received some paperwork the week before so we decided that the most expeditious way to take care of the visas was to go to the border. Luckily Waterton is 30 minutes from an immigration crossing so we made a weekend of it. The town was beautiful. A very quaint town untouched by commericalism. The only corporate restaurant was a Subway. We stayed in the Bear Mountain Motel which was built in the 60's and not really updated since then and it was great! We went to immigration the morning after we got in and renewed our visas (without too much issue) and then went on a hike to Red Rock Canyon in the afternoon. The hike wasn't bad at all. The only problem we encountered was muddy patches due to melting snow. The kids liked the falls once we got there. The kids had the most fun throwing rocks into the river at the end of our hike. We saw a lot of different kinds of animals, most notably bears! We also saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats (near a playground in the townsite) and some deer.

The Death Star

Getting started. Yes, the instruction booklet is coil bound.

Lauren thought it lost it's novelty after awhile.

Putting on the last piece!

The Death Star took the whole weekend to complete but it was a great project. Luke was constantly wanting us to play with him, which actually meant put the Death Star together and quit taking breaks.

Walking in our neighborhood

We have some amazing pathways right in our neighborhood. One we have to drive to since it is on the other side of our neighborhood but it is a fantastic walk. The kids and I went on this walk the other day. It takes us along the Bow River. The second picture you see is of the kiddos in the 'Whomping Willow.' (Those of you who are Harry Potter fans will get the reference). We went on another walk a few days later, at the kids' insistence, and this will become at least a bi-weekly event which is awesome.

My cake decorating exploits

I just finished up a fondant and gum paste class. We didn't learn how to cover a cake with fondant until the last class AFTER Luke's birthday but my instructor told me how to go about it. The Lego's could have looked a little better but I think I did a pretty good job for not having true instruction beforehand. The second picture is on a fondant covered cake plate and then some of the flowers that I made. These flowers were so easy! Well except for the carnation, that was a pain and I don't like how it turned out. I am awesome at roses though:) I do have a picture of my finished cake but I don't really like the colors on it so I don't want to post it. It has a ruffled part and has the Calla Lilies on top. I am supposed to start the icing flowers class next week so we shall see how that goes, but I think that anytime I put flowers on a cake I am going to use fondant.