90 YEARS!!

We had a 90th birthday party for my Daddy last week. His real birthday was yesterday, but we had to do the party when all of the family could get into town. We had a spectacular day! We also had a dinner last night. I made a big dinner for the family. All four of us (siblings)were there. We each had one of our children in attendance. Although everyone could not make it, Daddy had a good time. I made another cake, too. I also made a cake for Kate, whose birthday is today!


I am late posting this blog, because I did not have the pictures to use. All of my cameras bit the dust a long time ago, so I borrowed my daughter's camera for the day. My Iphone camera just doesn't do justice to many images these days. Anywho, I am posting the party this week in honor of my Daddy.

One of Daddy's nieces made the trip down from North Georgia to attend the party, and she brought her whole family! All of my Savannah cousins were there, also, so we had a great big crowd.

I made a three tiered cake and turned it into a mountain. The mountain leaned a bit, and I was afraid that it was going to fall over! I put some dowel rods inside of it, and the whole thing stayed together. It looked kind of like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but it never fell over! I had two fishermen on it. I actually thought that the one on top was a hunter with a bow and arrow, but it was a fisherman. HA! My eyes are a bit feeble these days. The fly fisherman was on the bottom layer. He had a fly rod with fishing line! I had fish all over the cake placed to look like they were in a stream going down the moutain. The "hunter/fisherman" was on top with a moose and a pine tree.

I also had a neat little sign that said, "Super Dad" that was written in tools. Daddy is a great Mr. Fixit guy, so I thought that the tool sign was really appropriate. Daddy is from the Georgia Mountains, and that is why I made a mountain with a stream going all the way down.

My brother fried the fish, along with several "helpers"! HA!

We had the party at my daughter's house.

We used the lot next to her house for our party, which is right by the playground and pool for their community. Although no one went into the pool, the kids enjoyed the playground and big yard.

We had horseshoes and ping pong, too.

We called this a BYOC party - bring your own chair - and everyone sat around talking and having a great time of fellowship and fun. It was a great day!!

We were all very proud to be able to celebrate the 90th birthday of such an awesome man and father. He is also a war hero, from World War II. Daddy was a medic in the war, and he received the Bronze Star for going out under fire to rescue soldiers by bringing them out of the line of fire to receive medical attention.

Daddy is a wonderful person. He is extremely honest, to a fault some may say. He has always been hard working and honorable. I am proud to say that he passed those qualities on to our whole family. Daddy was raised in extreme poverty up in the North Georgia Mountains. He worked very hard from the time he was a young teenager, in order to help feed his family. There are any tales of hardship that he could tell, but he has come out of it all as a strong, sincere, honest, and awesome man of integrity and honor.



I cannot say enough positive things about my Daddy. I love him very much, and I am very proud to be called his daughter!!

Rose Petal Saga

Hello,
I tried a new thing this week, making crystalized rose petals. Mine didn't turn out exactly right, but I used them anyway. My birthday was Thursday, and I decided to try out this new cake topper on my own cake. I'm glad I tried it out on me first! I bought a dozen beautiful pink roses at Fresh Market. They are really soft and velvety! Here they are, minus the two I plucked!


I plucked one of the roses and started peeling off the petals. After peeling a few and tearing them, I figured out that I should pop the entire top off of the stem first. Wow, that made a big difference. The petals just peeled away easily after that. So, I put the egg whites on each petal and sprinkled my pink cake sugar on top. I put them all on parchment paper, covered them with foil, and put them in the fridge.

I thought I had followed the directions, but I must not have done the egg whites quite right. Plus, the recipe calls for 'superfine' sugar, which I did not have. The super fine sugar must be the trick to the whole thing. The next day, I took the petals out of the fridge, but they were not crystalized. So, I stuck them in the freezer. WRONG idea. They got dark and wimpy! I put them on top of the cake anyway!
Oh well, they still looked kind of pretty. Since those didn't work, I plucked another rose and spread the petals out around the base of the cake. I thought that they looked pretty.
So, there is the saga of the crystalized rose petals! I am going to try this again, though. I might also do it with pansies, since pansies are also edible!!

Yards

My front yard is very hard to mow. It has a hillside type of slope, and this incline makes it very difficult for me to mow my yard. I finally got out there today and did the best I could, but it isn't very attractive. The weeds were knee high, and I think the lawn police are around the corner waiting to give me a ticket!! The last time I tried mowing this front yard, my face turned red, red, red, red, red, and it stayed that way for the entire day. I felt awful for a day or so, too. At that time, I did not know that I had high blood pressure. Also, this particular day was a very, very, very hot summer day. I was totally worn out. That incident was a few years ago, and I haven't attempted the yard since then. I was really scared that I was going to pass out for good if I did. So, I have asked and asked people to cut my yard lately, but no one has taken the offer to heart. So, I pumped up the lawn mower and just did it. Yes, I wore myself out, but the weather is a bit cooler than that summer day a few years ago, so I didn't have heat stroke today. I even ran over the backyard a bit. Do I want to do this again? NO! Will I do it again? I will only attempt fate again if no one else will agree to do the yard. So there! The good thing is that we are now having fall weather, so maybe the yard won't need mowing many more times before next Spring!!!!