More adventures in king cake baking.

So, Mardi Gras is Tuesday. I usually celebrate this by making king cake and jambalaya. This year is no different.

King cake is a terribly exhausting thing to make. It takes almost four hours to make a single, delectable ring. Oh, but the end result is worth the sore arms.



Whisking and sifting and kneading and punching is a lot of work. And apparently, neatness is not my strong suit. I (once again) burned some sugar and set the smoke alarm off.

The offending smoke alarm.

I almost completely destroyed the cake in the process (after three hours of work on it!). A team effort between Brent and I saved the five pound beaut, and we got it in the oven.



It was pretty banged and bloodied up, but she was delicious on the inside.

Valentine's Day.

We hung out with some real characters.

How did I live 19 years without Food Network.

It's pretty much all I watch. It's educational, it's entertaining, it's action-packed, it's the perfect television network. And, Alton Brown is my hero.

My favorite show is probably Ace of Cakes, which is about a total bad ass that makes total(ly) bad ass cakes. They look something like this:



Ok, now I know that I will never get THAT good, but I decided to try my hand at cake decorating. Duff (and Geoff!!!) inspired me, so I went to the store and bought supplies. Cake mix, icing, parchment paper, and the all important fondant.

Fondant is expensive, like play-doh (but doesn't smell bad and tastes yummy), and really hard to work with. I think my first run came out semi-successful, but I'll let you be the judge.







At least they were yummy.

Tuesdays in Hollywood.

---I have no idea why some of my pictures are sideways. They are not this way on my computer.---

So today we decided to scope out Hollywood Studios. We were hoping for a nice, quiet park with no lines.

Well, it was pretty bustling, but our longest wait was 25 minutes on Toy Story. By the way, TOY STORY IN MY NEW SECOND FAVORITE RIDE.

We scoped out a bunch of celebs, too. I played paparazzi for two major celebrities. I was way too shy to meet them.



We also caught up with Bill Cosby and Walt Disney. We shared some laughs with those gents before being on our way.





Oh, and we got to try out the new American Idol show. It was pretty cool; 2 out of the 3 contestants were English. Always a plus. Everyone was pretty terrible at singing, and a lot of the pre-recorded stuff was awkward. But, overall it was neato. I snuck a picture of the stage just as they were yelling for no photography.

I swear I'm the most boring person alive.

I watched Spongebob all day. Realizing I was being a complete bum, I went outside to play on the playground.

On a slightly productive note, I've been learning more about my camera (after owning it for 2 years). I think I figured out how to use the manual mode.