Carrot Cake: Yummy or not so yummy...that is the question!

Tuesday was my daddy's birthday! Since I work at the same office as my dad I was able to make him a homemade carrot cake (his favorite) for his birthday. We normally do a big lunch in the office whenever it is someone's birthday, so I thought how great it would be to make the cake for him. Not only because I know that carrot cake is his favorite, but also so that I could make some changes to the recipe and make it so that I could eat it as well! (That is at least the cake part, nothing can make the cream cheese frosting IC friendly...but cream cheese doesn't seem to make me feel horrible, and it was my dad's birthday so I figured I could eat that anyhow-you have to live a little right!?!)
So apparently I forgot to take into consideration the fact that whole wheat flour would be a lot different to work with than regular flour. The cake didn't really raise like I expected it too, nor was it quite sweet enough! (I think my mom actually HATED it!!) It was moist so that is at least one thing right! It was good to me (I have eaten WAY TOO MUCH and can feel my belly & bum growing by the minute!!), and my dad always liked things that were "healthy" for you, so I don't think it bothered him-you could really taste the whole wheat-i-ness of it. My boss actually said he liked it better, because he normally finds carrot cake too sweet!! (What a kind man...I wonder if that means he is making nice because I am going to be asked to work on Saturday or something!?!)

I guess I still need a LOT of practice in the kitchen...but I think that is part of what baking and cooking is all about, learning from mistakes right!?!

I found these pictures in my camera when I went to upload the pictures of the cake. (I didn't get one when it was nice and whole-oh well!!) This was from the weekend we helped Betsy move into her new place in Valdosta. On the way home-after a long day of moving-I got a snap shot of mom, dad, Kevin and I. The one of dad is HI-LAR-I-OUS!!
Another funny (funny now-at the time it was horrible!!) story from that trip that I forgot to share earlier took place on the drive down to Valdosta. Kevin and I drove down Friday night. We left the house around 10PM and stopped to get gas, so we didn't get in until around 2:30ish! The ENTIRE way down-all 4-4 1/2 hours-we were serenaded by a lovely ding-ding-ding or ding-ding-ding-ding-ding or ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding every 1, 3, or 7 minutes at random. (Apparently a fog light was out and there was nothing we could do about it because it was too late to stop somewhere and there wasn't a way to turn it off!!) I have to say that it is a miracle from God alone that we are still alive. I thought for sure that Kevin was going to go mad and drive us into a wall just to get that dinging noise to stop! We tried turning up the radio-but that didn't work, instead it was just a mix of Black Eyed Peas, U2, Aerosmith, or whatever with that horrible DING-DING-DING-DING-DING at random. I think it could have been easier if there was a rhyme or rhythm to it, but it was always at random! But, as you can see, we made it there alive and Kevin got a replacement bulb first thing the next morning!!

Another book from the author of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"

I was looking through some blogs today when I ran across one I had to share. I am not good posting things so I will just include a link here to see a video that will make you laugh (or cringe) if you are an Austen fan!! There is a new book coming out called "Sense and Sensibility and SeaMonsters" by the same author as P&P&Z. I did end up reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" which I wrote about here and ended up getting for my sister for her birthday since she absolutely loves both Austen and Zombies! (seperately normally!!). It was pretty funny! A nice easy read for my weekend beach trip! Might be something to look forward to for my long flight to Munich in September-it comes out the day we leave!

So much more to talk about, but I better go for now, things are good, just busy as usual around here. Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Wedding weekend!

Friday evening was a great rehearsal...(then Saturday was spent running lunch with my friend Amy Camp) and then taking the queen bed up to my parent's house) and Sunday (today) was a beautiful (but very hot!!) wedding day for Lauren and Andrew Alexandersen!

What a great couple!!

Thanks so much to Mom, Kels, Mary, & Kevin for your help today!! (And of course you did great too dad!!) (Oh, and for whatever you did Travis, because I am sure you ended up having to do something!!)

I have ZERO pictures myself but I have included some of the pictures from facebook that a few people have posted already!

It was a great wedding for a great couple...Lauren you are such a doll to work with!!

another two weekends away from home...

"We are staying home this weekend...right!?!" says my hubby to me last night. "Yeah, as far as I know, Why do you ask?" I reply. "Because I am ready for a weekend at home!" says he. (Too bad it turns out he has to work all day on Sunday...good thing we weren't planning on going anywhere after all!!)

Now on to the reason(s) why he is ready to be at home...

We have been busy with....moving my sister to south GA, work, catching a late night viewing of Harry Potter 6!!, taking a long weekend to head to Gulf Shores and visit one of Kevin's high school friends (while catching some rays on the beach!), being sick with a cold, (boo!! I am on a full week with this cold...I am ready to sound like myself again instead of a mix between a prepubescent squeaking boy, nothing but silence or a whisper, and a deep blaring fog horn!!) got our new bed delivered (yes...a different bed, sleep number & I did not turn out to be good friends!!) and work, work, and more work!!!

Oh what fun!! I will be ready for a nice weekend at home as well...but it will be a busy one since Friday night and probably all day Sunday will be full for me with a wedding!!! (I just love weddings, and it has been awhile now since I got to do some wedding coordinating...so I am really excited about this weekend!!!)

That's it for now...just didn't want you to think I had fallen of the edge of the world or something!!

Karaoke...fireworks...and other news...

So the surprise that my mom was picking me up for lunch for on my birthday was actually a karaoke party with my office and family! It was a blast!!!
She picked me up (and blindfolded me) and took me the long way over to the karaoke place so that everyone from the office could get over there to surprise me!
My good friend Mary Cowan (who works down the road) got to come as well, and Kelli too! Even dad joined in the fun-to see a picture of him and my boss David singing you can view my sister's blog here. Travis, Kelsey's husband, didn't join in on the karaoke fun, but he did join us for lunch back at the office afterwards! Too bad Kevin couldn't get off work to come as well!!

In other news...

We had a fabulous 4th with our family & friends. We went down to the pool, had a cookout and Kevin even got to live out the good 'ol days with his best friend Tim while they shot off a million bottle rockets and did a little fireworks show for us. You can go here to see some more pictures of the day of fun & us watching the fireworks. Somehow we didn't end up with any pictures of the actual fireworks!! It was so much fun and I loved every minute of the entire day!
I also got my birthday present from my mother-in-law Barbara. She painted a picture of a photo Kevin took of some elephants on our trip to South Africa last year. I love it!!
She also made a birthday cake and I ate some...it's my birthday so I was living on the wild side. (It had butter and cream cheese in it, but I just drank a ton of water and God blessed me because I didn't really do bad at all this week!! And don't worry I didn't even think about eating the blueberry and strawberry filled flag cake!)

It has been a very full week that is for sure! Over the weekend we bought a king size bed (and all the linens to go with a king size bed-but really I would love to make a beautiful quilt for the bed-but I don't know if I will ever be brave enough to take on a project that big!!) and on Monday we bought a fridge! (We did this so that Betsy could buy ours for cheap since they are renting right now and don't know how long they will be there.) Currently I have two refridgerators in my kitchen and all the pieces to my queen size bed stuffed in the office. The house is a crowded mess!! Someday I will have to get around to getting everything organized, but for now I will just have to live with it because we will be rushing home from work tonight to load up the fridge in the truck and drive down to South GA and help Betsy move everything into the new place. (As well as doing some more quick sewing for my neighbor!-Which I was up until almost 2:30AM on Sunday night finishing up sewing for her as well! A thousand thanks need to go to my dear husband who stayed up and helped me as well! I tend to take on too much-it reminded me of my college days when I would be writing a ten page paper through the night when it was due the next morning!)

It's official!! I am 28!!!

It is past 9:36AM, which means I am officially 28 years old! It has been crazy busy around here, as usual, but it seems to have been even busier than normal!! We got a new fridge and bed, I have been sewing like crazy for my neighbor into the wee hours of the night, a dear dear family friend Frank Kaleb Jansen (a brilliant man of God and an unofficial grandpa to us Binkley girls) has passed away and another friend gave birth to her first little bundle of joy! I think I have a few pictures from all the fun we had on the fourth, but my sister already posted some so you could just check those out here. Mom is picking me up from work in about an hour for a birthday surprise! I am so excited, because I LOVE surprises!!!

Weekend trip

Well, It has been a week again since I posted anything. I really do mean to post more often, it just doesn't seem to get done! It has been a very full seven days! I celebrated my friend Amy's 28th birthday on Friday night(sadly I don't have any pictures of that!), drove up to North Carolina with Kevin for a wedding on Saturday, did some fun driving around in the north Georgia mountains on the way home on Sunday and then I have stayed crazy busy with work and some sewing all week. (It is sewing for work, not fun, but the fabrics are great so it has still been fun to work on!)

I can't believe Friday is here already, but I am sooooo glad that it is! Especially since tomorrow is a very special day...July 4th!! I love this time of year!! (I think I may be a bit partial since I was born July 8th!) I love the fun that is in the air during this holiday, the sparklers (which I love so much we used at our wedding-they used them at the wedding this weekend too and I just loved it!!) the watermelon seed spitting contests, the yummy smells from the cookouts and all the red, white and blue everywhere!! I have a ton to say, but since I always ramble on I thought I would just post some pictures and let them do the talking about our fabulous weekend trip and my tribute to our wonderful holiday that I painted last night!

(Somehow I didn't end up with a picture of the bride and groom together, or a shot of the Cowan family-I really am horrible at this whole picture taking thing!!)(This has got to be THE most comfortable chair I have ever sat in (w/o cushions) I LOVED it, but we were in the corvette-so there was no chance I could take it home with me!)Tallulah Gorge-we will have to come back in the fall when the weather is not so hot and do some hiking here!(This was a really cool little covered bridge near Helen. Kevin saw a sign for it and we turned off the main road and found it! I love covered bridges-maybe it's because I am from Indiana and they even have a special festival every year celebrating all the neat old covered bridges! The new bridge that the road uses now was over a deep (or at least deeper) part of the creek and people were jumping off into the water, it looked like a blast-but I didn't have a swimsuit!)

And last, but not least, my patriotic toes that I painted last night!!