Easter Pops!

Another holiday brings another occasion to try out some new cake pops.  This weekend of course brought Easter Egg Cake Pops!  I was very fortunate to have a great pop-making partner for this round.  So the process began:

I chose two cakes for this cake pop adventure: carrot & strawberry.  They both seemed to fit Easter.

The carrot cake was paired with regular Coca-Cola

I let Nikki choose a new pairing for the strawberry cake.  Dr. Pepper!

The cakes were mixed and baked; then came the crumbling and shaping into egg shapes.  This is a bit more difficult than the typical cake ball, but we improved with practice.  

Cake droppings? ;)

We set up what Nikki so kindly refers to as my "ghetto" melting system.  Hey, it works great if you don't have a double boiler.

Let the dipping begin!

It's hard to tell from the picture, but a few of the pops ended up with some little issues.  This resembled more of a brain than an egg.  We're still baffled by how the pros get them so smooth.

We got them all candy coated in white, pink, and blue and let them harden completely.

At this point we took a nice break from the kitchen: homemade pizza and Tangled.  Apparently we only like to watch kid movies when we hang out :)

Mmm, mmm!

Back to the cake pops!  This is the fun, creative part.  We set up the whole table for egg decorating.

You paint corn syrup on the eggs to get the sprinkles and confetti to stick.  It was great fun coming up with new designs for each egg.  Also quite time consuming, but worth it for how cute they turned out.  Here's the whole gallery:

We were quite pleased with the results.  Plus I was so thankful to have Nikki join me in the adventure.

We got to share them at our delicious Easter lunch with good friends.  If our lunch had a theme I think it would have been: Eggs Galore!!!

Two kinds of quiche, deviled eggs, cake pop eggs, and plastic eggs filled with candy for hunting.  Enough eggs?

All around it was a great Easter, and a great celebration of Christ as our living King!

Here's a new found favorite from the day for you to enjoy:

Perk of being a teacher...

SPRING BREAK!

Yes, I love that I still get to live by a school calendar.  It allows for some much needed breaks and relaxation.  So what did I do this year?  I went on a cruise with some wonderful friends!  There were 4 of us in one tiny cabin: myself, Maria (good friend and colleague), Candiss and Kristyn (college friends).  Maria and I decided to cut costs by driving to Dallas and then hopping in the car with Candiss and Kristyn to get down to Galveston.  That is a long trip!  But it was totally worth it.  We even got to stop at the famous Buc-ees for the first time on the way down.  We were quite impressed!

 

Once on the cruise, we were so excited!  We had been looking forward to this very trip for years!  

We spent the first couple of days at sea.  There was so much to do and see, but we also seemed to do a lot of laying out and eating :)

First Formal Night

This guy was just a guest on the cruise.  Apparently he just likes to bring this costume and take pictures with people.  So fun!

We went to all the fancy dinners.  This, of course, is the fanciest night.  My 2nd try at lobster...I decided I actually kind of like it.

We watched ice carving out on the pool deck.  Can you guess what it is? 

An Indian Chief head!

 

Here I am competing in the deck games.  I had to get a swimsuit top from someone in the audience.  I made it to the final 3!

We both got medals for our great efforts in the deck games!

As past guests, Candiss and I got special treatment throughout the cruise.  One night we were treated to our very own Captain's Cocktail party.  We felt very special!

It wouldn't be a cruise without the beloved towel creatures.  This was my favorite: Mr. Elephant!

 After 2 days at see, we were excited to get to our first port - Jamaica!  Maria and I decided to do an adventurous excursion.  The excursion started with a trip to Dunn's River Falls where we got to climb the breathtaking falls. 

Then the bus took us over to Mystic Mountain.  We rode a sky lift to the top of the mountain overlooking the lush jungle.

You can see our guide, Kimberly, to my left.  She was great and told us all about Jamaica.

At the top we were served a delicious Jamaican meal.

Spicy jerk chicken, rice and beans, and a macaroni salad

After refueling, we took a stroll through the museum of bobsleding in Jamaica.  This was all just to prepare us for our very own Jamaican bobsleding ride.  Ya mon, I got to bobsled in Jamaica!

The day would have been wonderful at that, but to top it all off we were greeted with a pleasant surprise at the bottom.  There was a man selling fruit from a little stand, and he had Jamaican mangoes!  We ran to bus to get some money so we could try out this new, tasty variety.  Mmm, were we glad we did.

Our mango man even washed and sliced it up for us.

That completed our time in Jamaica.  We were the very last group back on the ship, so there wasn't any time to waste before setting sail for the next port.

The next day took us to Grand Cayman.  We decided to just get off the ship and explore the shopping scene right off of the pier.  It ended up being a very rainy day, so we weren't able to do much.  We walked the strip of shops and spent the rest of our time being entertained in Margaritaville.  Not a bad place to get stuck in the rain ;)

Before the rain...

after the rain.  Seriously, the faces were not prompted at all; it was just how they were truly feeling.

Fortunately, the next day brought lots of intense sun in Cozumel.  We did what everyone does in Cozumel, jump in a cab and head to the beach.  We decided on a less crowded beach, Mike's Beach.  It was a really good decision.  The sand was beautiful, water was crystal clear and a blue like I've never seen, they gave us these amazing lounge beds, they had hammocks, beach volleyball, kayaks; it was great!  I thoroughly relaxed and got as much sun as possible.

You can barely see that's us in the letters.

We felt like we were on one of those commercials.

 

The photo opportunities were randomly set out just before we returned to the ship. We couldn't pass up this opportunity!

Bye Cozumel!  We didn't want to leave you!

We had another day at sea to soak up some more rays (we all burnt that last day).  And it was our last chance to take advantage of any more activities on the ship.

If you've been on a cruise, you know that one of the best parts is building a relationship with your waiter.  We got a good one!  Everyone knew him as Wiwi.  He is from Bali, and he treated us like princesses.  He was so funny and willing to do anything we asked.  If we wanted 3 appetizers-done!  Extra ice cream - done!  We have an open invitation to come stay with him in Bali!  Apparently they need teachers there :)

We love you Wijaya!

I am so thankful for the quality time I got to spend with these incredible girls!

This may be my last Spring Break.  I'm glad it was a memorable one!

Random Updates

Random is the best word I could think of to describe this post.  There really is no theme, just a general "this is what's been going on in my life".

The first week of March was Dr. Seuss week.  For the 2nd year, I think it might be my favorite week of the year.  There are so many fun Dr. Seuss books to read and endless activities to incorporate Dr. Seuss.  I wore the classic Cat in the Hat red and white striped hat, we ate adorable Dr. Seuss cupcakes, we had one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish jell-o, took an imaginative walk down Charmwood Street, and finished the week with a nice serving of Green Eggs and Ham!  What a week!

I am so thankful for my parent volunteer this year.  She is always bringing in fun stuff for the kids!

This is my 1st grade team!  We were quite proud of the work our kids had done on the Green Eggs and Ham paragraphs.

That weekend brought the awards ceremony for the Winter Race Series I had done.  It was a fun evening of hanging out with fellow runners, eating the runner's favorite meal of spaghetti and watching a humorous slide show of pictures from the series.  Maria and I made the slide show.  We won the award for "Hey what are you wearing tomorrow?"  Our tie dye apparently stands out! :)  Making the slide show meant you got a free pint glass! 

Yes, we even matched on the night of the awards ceremony!

 Then they also gave out trophies to the top 3 finishers in each age group.  With only 3 girls finishing the series in my age group, I was guaranteed to win a trophy.  Pretty great deal! 

The trophy was engraved and everything with my name, place, and times for each race.  Way nicer than I ever expected!

The new season of The Amazing Race has also begun.  So keeping with last season, I decided to continue cooking dinners to eat while I watch based on where the teams will be that night.  Last weekend the teams were in Japan.  So I tried my hand at Japanese food.  Was I glad I did!  It was super delicious and not very difficult.  Here's the recipe in case you want to try it yourself:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Yakisoba-Chicken/Detail.aspx
I even topped it off with Green Tea muffins!  It was a great Amazing Race night.  Not only was my themed food a success but the Cowboys continued to do well.  I'm going for the Cowboys all the way!

Finally, I am just so thankful for the incredible family I have been blessed with.  I don't ever want to take for granted what a blessing it is to have a loving family.  And I have so much!  I have grandparents who have set great examples for me to follow of what it looks like to work hard and serve the Lord.  I have aunts and uncles who are always there for me, care for me, and love me.  I have the best cousins!  We never fail to have fun when we all get together and are able to just joke and laugh.  And there aren't even words for how great my mom, dad and brother are.  I loved getting to spend some unexpected time with all of you!  Praise God! :)