Beggars

Trojan Horse cake

The prototype horse went well. He is stuffed with M&Ms. The horses are made with brownie mix. I baked two of the same horses to make it a "doublewide". Chocolate frosting fills the gaps. The pony is dusted with cocoa and cinnamon. His tail and mane are chocolate licorice. Overbake the brownies a bit, you want the legs to be hard enough to stand on. But the middle must be soft enough to scoop out and remain edible! Let it cool in the pan a few minutes, then loosen from the sides and dump it out carefully. Make sure it doesn't stick fast to the surface it's cooling on. Cool thoroughly, even let it dry out a bit. Then scoop out the middle. You can see that this half of the horse has also been sawed horizontally to make it flat. It will have to lay flat against the other half of the horse. Oh, stuff with Peeps or an army of your choosing *before* putting the two halves together.
The finished product, complete with one lone Peep soldier riding the horse.
The cake was met with some skepticism.

Canstruction

This free art exhibit in lower Manhattan will only be on display until Nov 20th. The sculptures are made of stacked cans of food and in some cases, boxes.

Food art

Just working on some prototypes for Thanksgiving day...

Playing in leaves

Trip to Philadelphia

Gianna and I went on an overnight trip to Philly to see the historic sites and (mainly) to eat.

Eating that whole piece of shoo fly pie herself at Reading Terminal Market

Art museum steps...she wanted to do it again.

Eastern State Penitentiary

Trunk or Treat

Kitchen--nearly done

The backsplash and some painting are the only things left to accomplish.

Buccaneer Bruno

Belize

We just got back from an 8-day trip to Belize, 4 days in the jungle and 4 days at the beach. Here is the album link to see all the photos:

Belize

Kitchen remodeling

Before: microwave mounted too low, tile floor cracking, broken cabinets circa 1975.

Before: black-hole pantry, refrigerator too big for galley kitchen

During: nasty old insulation, drywall on top of old drywall, tiles and cement backer-board being removed.

During: Dan replaced all the drywall, I ripped up the floor, it is ready for cabinets and new flooring

During: replaced drywall where roof was leaking, look at that nice wallpaper that was hiding under the trim.

VBS

snack time

music

hula hoop champion

Nittany Lion

Poppy Capsules

Flowers today

This is an open pollinated snapdragon I grew from seed this year. Every plant is a different color--very cool!

My Eastern Prickly Pear (Opuntia humifusa) started blooming today. It's covered in buds, so I'm hopeful for a dazzling display in the coming days. 

Hot Dog Squirt

This intrepid principal made good on his promise to dress like a hot dog and be squirted with ketchup and mustard by students if the kids read 200,000 pages for Read Across America month. Gianna was the top of her class with 5,000 pages and won the honors of squirting.

Vietnam trip 2014

2008

2014

For more photos of our recent trip to Vietnam, check out these Picasa albums:

Vietnam orphanage visit 2014

Vietnam trip 2014

Beano and me

Spring!

Pirate Gianna

Today the beach came to us