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!!