The Road to Nome

Here's a newspaper article related to my "day job". I did a bunch of the mapping for this project.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/1111745.html

Here's the project website with one of my lovely maps...

http://www.dowlhkm.com/projects/westernalaskaaccess/default.htm



P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICIA MAY!!!

Birthday Bash!

I spent all day yesterday constructing Alicia's Little Mermaid cake. Alicia helped out some. She spread some of the "water" frosting on there. And she put all the figurines on the cake.

Initially she wasn't all that fond of the cake as it was under construction. But once it was complete, I was happy to see that she really liked it.

The large square base of the cake is chocolate cake, Alicia's favorite. The levels holding the castle, Ariel, and Prince Eric are all strawberry. And the level holding Eric's dog is white butter cake. Something for everyone! And then some.... The castle was made from rolled out pieces of gumpaste. The shells and some of the flowers are marzipan.

I completed the cake just before midnight last night. The party started at 10am this morning. We had it at an indoor waterpark in Anchorage called H2Oasis. We invited 10 little friends, and all but one of them showed up. That's a new record in birthday party turnout!

We had deliberately planned the party for 10am on Sunday morning in hopes of avoiding big crowds of kids. That plan paid off as we had the entire waterpark basically to ourselves for the first hour of the party. It was great.

Alicia enjoyed playing with her friends. Some were from her preschool class, some we know from church, and some are from our dance class. It was a good mix.

She received lots of cute, mermaid-themed gifts and girly toys.

Unfortunately, on our way home from Anchorage, Alicia was complaining that her stomach was hurting. We thought it might just be that she ate too much cake or candy. But as it turns out, I think she has the same stomach ailment that both Tess and Stephen have had recently. Stephen is actually still just getting over it.

At any rate, Alicia treated us to some strawberry scented propulsion vomit when we were still about 15 minutes from the house. We rapidly pulled over to the side of the road. Stephen and I jumped out and used damp pool towels to swab up the mess. We whipped off her coat and her party dress and wrapped her in a fleece jacket. The stench was a little unpleasant. But we made it home and immediately fumigated the van after we'd laid her down in her bed.

She has continued to throw up and have diarrhea all afternoon. It's not been fun... She is finally sleeping now and will hopefully sleep through the night.

Maybe tomorrow she'll feel well enough to enjoy her new birthday gifts.

Winter Weekend Update

We had a couple of birthday party engagements this weekend. We made the cake for one of them, with the assistance of the birthday girl and her mom. I also made a cake for a new client's 3 year old's birthday.

After the first party today, which was in Eagle River, we drove to Anchorage for the 2nd party. Tess and her girlfriends got dropped off at the mall. Then it turned out that I was able to just drop Alicia off at the birthday party. So I had 3 HOURS to spend as I pleased! Wahoo! That was great!

The weather's been pleasant lately. Comfortable winter weather... Temps in the 20's. Not too much snow, but enough to keep things clean and white.

The fire is currently crackling in the woodstove. Stephen's channel surfing. Little Bit is snoozing in front of the stove. Alicia is snoozing in our bed, as she dumped a bottle of water in her bed, soaking straight through to the mattress. Tess is hanging out with friends in Eagle River. There's no school tomorrow, due to MLK, Jr. Day.

Both Stephen and I have to work. So Alicia will be staying home with Sissy.

January Update

It's not actually snowing here. But I needed some photos. These are from a few weeks back.

The whole pile of firewood has since been relocated to underneath the deck. And for the most part, Stephen's back is still intact.

We're drifting along... counting the seconds as our daylight hours increase in small increments each day.

Tess and I will be headed east at the end of the month. I will be doing a training class in the DC area on Feb 2-4. We'll be flying into Columbus on Saturday, Jan 30 to visit folks there for that weekend. Also, Tess will be checking out one or two local colleges. After the training, we'll drive down to Chapel Hill and visit some campuses in that area. We fly out of RDU on Saturday, Feb 6th.

Alicia will be turning 5 on January 27th. We'll have her birthday party the weekend before at the local indoor waterpark called H2Oasis. She wants an Ariel, the Little Mermaid cake. So we'll be sure to make that happen.

I recently acquired a bookcase for free off craigslist. We've converted it to a wardrobe for Alicia's dress-up clothes. It works great!

Brunette Baker

Guess who's gone brunette.....

A new hair color for the new decade. I spent 40 years as a blonde. I'm going to see how the other half lives... Or if you're looking at the offspring pool in my family, how the other three-quarters lives. :o)

Actually, it still freaks me out when I glance in a mirror. I feel like I'm being stalked by some dark-haired stranger.

Today, Alicia helped me make a baby shower cake for a client. She was very adept at fondant patting and little fondant ball placement. Her specialty is cake scrap consumption. But that task is completed so rapidly, it's hard to get a photograph before it's over.

The cake included my first attempt at "quilting" the fondant. I didn't think this would be quite so tricky. But I was mistaken! I ended up creating my own diamond quilt cutter from a pre-existing cookie cutter so I could achieve even diamonds. This took about an hour with a Christmas tree cookie cutter and a pair of needle nose pliers.

For the bottom (10") tier, I used white cake with a raspberry filling and the top (6") tier is chocolate cake with a caramel buttercream filling.

The client had given me a little sketch of what sort of cake she wanted. I will deliver this cake tomorrow morning before church.