How to make an acoustic guitar cake!

Gather your supplies:

Two cake mixes, chocolate frosting, white frosting, black icing, food coloring, gum drops for pegs, and that new fangled glaze from Duncan Hines!

My hubby's Epiphone was our model. Joy drew the best pattern so we used hers. : ) She's the artist in the family.

When the cake cooled we put the pattern on top of it and cut around it.

We baked another cake to be the neck and put our neck pattern on it and cut it out.

Frosting it was fun. We used chocolate frosting for the sides and around the edges. She and Andrew wanted it to have a sunburst pattern so they mixed up food coloring into vanilla frosting until they had a brown that they liked.

I heated up the glaze and used it for the shiny parts of the guitar. (you can tell I'm not a guitarist because I don't know what they are called) : )

We didn't frost the hole in the guitar, it was chocolate cake, so we left it and frosted around it.

We mixed up some gray frosting and added some more details. And used white icing for the fingering dots. We also added and 'E' for Epiphone! : )

The top of the neck said 'Bryan' because there was no way that I could squeeze in the 'Epiphone' and he was the birthday guy! White gum drops were our pegs.

The hardest part of all was doing the strings!

Ta Da! Here is our finished product! : )

It took forever but Joy and Andrew and I had a good time doing it and Bryan loved it!

~Becky

The terribly expensive "T word"

So, it has been a very memorable 2 and a half months around here.

My hubby was out of work for 3 weeks with a back injury and he missed two weeks of pay. Then when we thought we dodged the broken transmission bullet, we found out we hadn't. -Just delayed the inevitable. In fact, we even had to throw in a radiator for good measure. Blah!

Now, we can officially tremble along with other people when they say they "hope it isn't the transmission."

I told the kids that a new transmission means that we have to live with one of them when we get old. ; )

But, seriously, I hope when we look back on this time we remember that God has been faithful and that He somehow He really does "meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19

We'll be the people with the t-shirt to prove it. : )

~Becky

When I saw a recipe for Reese's cupcakes...

I knew I had to make them!!!

And then I remembered that I was having a birthday! whoo-hoo! So I did!

And they did not disappoint! Yum! -I need to find another excuse to make them again soon.

I'm sure mine were better than this recipe because I didn't bother with the low fat yogurt or the seltzer water

(just followed the devil's food cake recipe on box)

because as I told Andrew 'Either go home or go big!'

LOL! -You know you are really tired when your sayings come out backwards

or maybe that is what happens when you turn 42! ; )

~Becky

From Joy and Andrew on my birthday

Cute and yummy! : )

~Becky

Remembering 9/11 with the Rays...

.....and beating the pants of the Boston Red Sox!

Fun, fun, fun!

~Becky

20 years and celebrating

For our anniversary we went on a cruise!

Just kidding!

But our celebration did include:

a boat, a tropical paradise and a hotel. : )

We went to Honeymoon Island (how appropriate!)

and caught a ferry which took us to Caladesi Island State Park. Since thunderstorms were in the forecast for the entire day, there were only about 8 or 10 of us willing to risk the trip.We'd never done this before (since the ferry ride is pricey for a family of six) so it was a whole new adventure.

We went for a 20 minute ride and then the ferry worked its way through a maze of mangrove lined shores

until we came upon the dock and disembarked.

From there it was a 10 minute walk on a boardwalk

until we reached this beautiful beach

and knew that it had been worth the trip! And

it got SUNNY!

It was like a deserted island paradise!!!

~Except for those 8 other folks we'd ridden over with, which made my hubby think of Giligan's Island! ; )

The island had gopher turtles and rattlesnakes.

Thankfully, we only saw this guy who wanted to cross the sidewalk in front of us.

We had fun shelling, playing in the water and picnicking and then we caught the ferry back.

There were some dolphins that accompanied us part way!

Then we headed to our hotel room in St. Pete which happened to be filled with Boston Red Sox fans. I'd say Boston's got some loyal fans since they are willing to fly down here and watch them play the Rays!

That evening we walked to dinner at an Italian restaurant. (we tried taking pictures of ourselves, good thing hubby has long arms!) : )

We stayed up late watching the Rays beat the Red Sox in extra innings.

Here's my hubby's slightly subtle way of gloating the next morning as we passed all those Sox fans in the hallway. lol

Then my hubby got a call from a friend who had four FREE tickets to the final game of the series that he couldn't use! Whoo-hoo! So, it was off to pick up some kiddos and go to the game!

(pictures to come)

And that was our weekend!

Lots of things I would change about the wedding but not one thing would I change about our marriage!!!! : )

God gave me the best man ever and I'm so thankful!

~Becky

Labor day weekend fun

It is already a blur! : )

On Friday night:

Zac worked at Starbucks and had a great night. He's getting the hang of making all those complicated drinks. yay! My BFF and her hubby and kids took Andrew and Nathan to a minor league game because they knew the father of one of the players. Then they went to Crabby Bills for appetizers and a walk on the beach. (I'd say they had the most fun out of all of us) My hubby hung out with his BFF then had his transmission give out on the way home and needed a tow. I hung out with Joy having a Waltons -fest because I love the Waltons and because she had the flu. She taught me how to make duct tape wallets and then we went to rescue Dad who was stranded in a not-so-great part of town.

On Saturday:

We found out that we didn't actually need a new transmission and we only had to spend $42 on a part for Carlos to fix it. He doesn't do transmissions so if we needed a new one it was going to be $1800 not including labor!!! UGHHH! -And so there was great rejoicing... : )

Nathan and I picked up his BFF in Spring Hill which is an hour away, for one last sleep over. His friend's family is moving to VA this week. It was sad to loose such an awesome, godly family that has meant so much to us. We had him and a couple other friends over for one last get together and dinner.

On Sunday:

We went to church and that evening we headed to the BEACH with 2 other families! (because we never go on a holiday -too crazy) Thanks to what "Lee" was doing in TX, our gulf beach had big WAVES! Sooo much fun. My hubby hung out in the sand not wanting to risk any injury to his back. -Smart man! I got pummeled more times than I can remember...lol.Then we headed to get our traditional slurpees! (can't go to the beach without having those on the way home) Zac had to miss all the fun and go to work. We had more boys sleeping over that night and playing video games until who knows when. Zac got off at 10:00 and joined in the fun. Hubby and I fed them all and went for a quick date alone! : )

Monday:

The boys and their buddies played more video games and surprisingly enough did not have their eyes fall out. ; ) I made oatmeal cookie pancakes that were a big hit. (Thanks Rachel Ray)

We were pretty lazy all the rest of the day, until we BBQ'd burgers. Hubby and I took a walk to a near-by pond, but it was beastly hot. We are trying to figure out how to celebrate our 20th anniversary next week (whoo-hoo!) and we are getting ready to have my brother in law come back to stay with us again. (much sooner than we expected) This time his stay will be for 6 mo.

That's all the news and fun happening here!

~Becky

Retirement

My dad is retiring from the U.S. Postal Service in

T-minus 27 work days! : ) Whoo-hoo!!!

And I get to go to San Diego and celebrate with him! Hooray! (thanks, Dad!)

-My hubby said I could go on one condition:

That I bring him a carne asada burrito from Alberto's. And not just any one, but the one on the corner of College Ave and El Cajon Blvd. -because he's not at all picky about his Mexican food.

Ha ha. ; )

~Becky