Happy Anniversary To Mom and Dad!

That's right...33 years. Mom and Dad have been married for 33 long, meaningful, wonderful years (from all they tell me, anyway). This Friday (August 10th) we celebrated their anniversary.

It wouldn't have been THAT big of a deal, if I hadn't decided to make a wedding cake for them. And the only reason I decided to do that was because Mom and Dad never had a wedding cake. (When they were married, they were very poor college-students-to-be who could barely afford a wedding! So they didn't have a reception, and therefore, no wedding cake.) I had always dreamed of making a wedding cake for them, and now was my perfect opportunity. So I read tons of things on-line, bought what I needed, and depended on beginner's luck and Beka's help for all the rest.

I made everything I needed the day before...marshmallow fondant, five layers of cake, and a giant bowl of icing. Beka and I decided last minute that we wouldn't use the tiers and cake platforms I had bought. Our bottom and middle layers were too small and too much the same size for that!

I got up early Friday morning to make the cake. I colored the fondant and started making roses. Now, for anyone who's never made fondant roses, you should see what kind of work that is! You do it one petal at a time. Beka got up and frosted and assembled the cake. I went on making roses.

We spent a long time on that cake. We sprinkled the white icing with coconut, put on all my roses, and then spent another half-hour coming up with things to improve our cake. It didn't look quite like we'd hoped, but it was still nice by the time we were done.

The finished wedding cake. Photo by me.

Mom and Dad went out for Chinese food for a celebration lunch, while the rest of us settled for ham sandwiches at home. They were gone forever...or so it seemed to all of us waiting to devour the cake. When they finally did return two hours later, we sat down for the real celebration.

Mom cut the cake, while I stood by ready with the camera. Dad was surprised when we told him he and Mom were supposed to feed each other cake, but, after slight protest, he consented! We all laughed...it was so funny to see Mom and Dad doing newly wed things after they'd been married for 33 years!

Mom and Dad feeding each other cake. Photo by me.

We all enjoyed cake and ice cream. The conversation wasn't very weddingish or anniversaryish. Matthew and Dad discussed the calf-pen they are going to build. In between times, Dad dug a large cavern under the top layers of my cake. I hadn't thought about the fact that he couldn't eat the chocolate cake, and put the white layers on the bottom! That didn't matter to him, he just ate white cake until the remaining half-cake fell over and he could get at the bottom layers with more ease.

That was all the celebration. We put everything away, and went back to normal, except that we ate leftover cake at the next three meals. I learned a lot in the process of making the cake, number 1 being: never attempt to make a wedding cake again! But despite all that we'd had a lot of fun, and the cake did taste very good.

Seeing as it's been 33 years since the wedding, we had a lot of fun joking Mom and Dad about their delayed cake. It was suggested that they wanted to make sure they would be happy together before they went to all the expense of a cake!

Happily ever after... Mom and Dad with their cake. Photo by me.

The Weekly Bible Verse

Job 19:25: As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth.

Bits and Pieces

Our garden has finally begun winding down for the year. We have started digging the potatoes, and are now all done the reds. We have eight rows of white potatoes to go. Beka and I do all the digging, which is very exhausting work. We have so far managed to do two rows a day. But besides the potatoes, the only things left in the garden now are beets, onions, and tomatoes. Mom is planning her 'fall garden', but that is only a small row of radishes, lettuce, and spinach. We eat all the fall garden stuff ourselves.

Our 'new' house, with the walls all redone. Doesn't our bay window look nice? Photo by Mom.

A Word About The Weather

It is still extremely hot. We've had 100-degree temperatures already, but I guess we have to make allowances for the fact that August is our hottest month. We really, really need rain. We have very low chances for the next couple days, but I doubt we'll get enough to make any difference.

A Word Of Wisdom

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. ~Leo Aikman