Alex turns 8 years old...

It's only been a week since her birthday, but I guess I've gotten behind a bit on my postings. And what a week it's been. I started a digital photography class, Kyle, Alex and Tim started Karate, and Sara has started gymnastics. Tim also had a trip to Olympia in the mix, and we have been playing with our new Wii purchase. All kinds of stuff going on! But, on to Alex's 8th birthday...

I've been trying to do a better job of not overdoing the whole birthday thing. Instead I've been putting the energy into cake making and this time I had sooo much fun! I actually tried using fondant and it turned out amazing. Alex LOVED her cake! Just an at-home party with a bunch of her girlfriends. In fact, Tim and Kyle were even gone on a Boy Scout camping trip. She had a The Dog theme (you know, the close up, big dog nose pictures?) and we did lots of fun stuff with it. We had Dig In The Dirt milkshakes, made dog collars out of Fruit by the Foot roll-ups and Necco wafers as dog tags, and had a dog bone pinata. Then she had a sleep-over with her friends and Sara. It was a lot of fun, and only a little bit insane with all those pre-teen girls in the house, lol! The best part was her reaction to the gift that Tim and I gave her, an American Girl doll named Ivy. Check out the video for yourself:

Technology is amazing, isn't it?

So today I'm looking at some of my favorite sites and I click on a couple of links to view some stuff. I came across this link to a site that lets you post a play list of songs on your own site. Hence the music you now hear when you get to my blog. I just type in any song I want, and I can link it to my very own play list and play it here. Who would've thought it possible, say even 5 years ago?! Anyway, just wanted to pass it along in case anyone out there reading this has the urge to do the same...just scroll down to the bottom of my page and check it out for yourself.

May I have the envelope, please?

So I entered my Great Aunt Betty's Cheesecake recipe into the Great Alaska Cheesecake Co.'s contest at the fair this year. I did, however, make a slight alteration. I added some of my mother-in-law's Huckleberry Sauce to the top of it. Boy, did it look amazing! It was really hard to take the whole thing to the fairgrounds and give it to them to eat. After all the judges had checked out the nine entries in the contest, they tallied all the results and announced the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. And I won 3rd place! I received a beautiful ribbon and a $25 prize for my efforts. First place was an AMAZING Coconut Key Lime concoction that was TO DIE FOR! And second place went to a lady who made a Spicy Smoked Salmon cheesecake. It sounds weird, but it actually was quite good...as an APPETIZER! Anyway, I am quite happy with my 3rd place finish. Now to plan what I'm entering in next year...

Alaska State Fair...

We went to the second-to-last day of the fair this year, just too much else going on to go any earlier. The weather wasn't all that great, in fact, it was downright COLD! But we stayed pretty warm by looking at all the displays of quilts and photos, eating yummy food like burritos and cream puffs, and riding the rides like the Hurricane, Gravitron, and the good old-fashioned Carousel. The kids even played the balloon dart game and won some little stuffed animals. We also checked out all the animals and the enormous vegetables. Before we knew it, it was 6 pm and we had to head home to grab my entry for the cheesecake contest. I brought Alex back with me, so she could get her face painted by her Girl Scout Troop Leader who worked one of the booths. Alex and I practically RAN to get it into the Hoskins Bldg in time for the judging, and we got there with a few minutes to spare. We got to watch while the judges did there thing and then they tallied all the results. Stay tuned for the results...

Doing our fall chores...

We were going to spend this past weekend camping for only the second time this year, but duty called and we decided we needed to get a few fall chores finished up before the weather changes. To what, different than the cool and rainy weather we've been having, I don't know, but we had to get 'em done. So we got all the supplies to stain the back deck and front porch, and we hoped for at least dry weather on Saturday. Well, it couldn't have been a nicer day (made me wish we HAD gone camping). It was sunny and warm, and we got the decks all cleared and washed, ready for staining. I did most of that work, while Tim vacuumed and cleaned out the rigs, and then washed and polished them. So, we have freshly stained decks, and clean & shiny vehicles, all ready for fall and winter weather. All in all, it was a productive day.