party time

The last two days have been super-fun! Yesterday, the lovely Linda took Molly, Beth and me out to lunch to celebrate the new jobs and enjoy the weather. We went downtown and ate outside, which lent itself to awesome music by a band on the sidewalk. After work, Matt and I met up with Alyssa, Andrea, Meganne and Max for margaritas. Let's say El Ranchero makes a damn good margarita. The 6 of us split one pitcher and all felt really happy afterwards, which took us to the cake decorating for today...I have completed my maiden voyage into cake decorating for someone other than Matt. Alyssa and I came home, made icing and spent the next 5 hours decorating the cake and laughing, lots of laughing (yes, we were up until midnight). First we made a triple batch of icing only realizing when we ran out that we hadn't mixed the proportions right (still tasted good and worked well). The margaritas appear to have inhibited our ability to multiply by any number other than 2. We used 3 times the amount of butter and Crisco, but only 2 times the amount of vanilla, powdered sugar, and milk. I totally blame it on the margaritas.

Then came the coloring...that was fun. First we tried to mix up the black, blue, peach, mauve and brown. Let's just say I only did the brown and that's the only one that had to be made twice. The first batch didn't get dark enough brown so I thought it would be a good idea to add some black. Well, the black was blue-based and the brown ended up looking like poo, runny poo. Now here's where you know that my husband loves 2 things completely: me and icing. He took a spoon, sat in the living room and ate between three-quarters to a full cup of poo-colored icing, telling me the whole time how good it was (this was the first batch). So on the second attempt, the brown turned out much better.

Today was the shower and I was a wreck until about 1:30 when I decided I had time to watch So I Married an Axe Murderer and take a small nap. I completed small parts of both and was ready to go. I wrapped the presents, picked up the flowers, packed the cake (that was too tall to put the carrying lid on), put the "Thank You" notes in the car, and drove to OC. It was super. We had about 18-20 people and lots of fun times and presents. The best part...the couple LOVED their cake. Lots of fun was had by all.