A Scottsman and Lassie's Wedding

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A moonlit night preceded, as though a storm was brooding across the moors.





But a sound called, pulled from the bag and pipes of a lone player, sheltered 'neath a nigh, gnarled, oak tree.





And drew us to the chapel, through the next afternoon's mist and drizzle.





To the shelter of the stone passage.





The rain did nothing to dampen spirits,





as we were greeted by the wedding party.





And prepared to enter the sanctuary of the chapel.









Where, after the greeting of friends, the groom anxiously awaited the arrival of his bride, attended by bonnie lads and lassies.





Then, she came, like the morning mist gently and graciously drifts across a thirsty land.





All gave hearty approval to said vows.





And they left, as man and wife, before God.





Then there was the Cute Factor. What a doll!





We made it to the reception in time to have our choice of tables.









Preparing for fun.









He may still be playing.





Gorgeous! Our best wishes and prayers for these newlyweds.

~Faith

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All Hail the Cake Fairy!

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Oh, NO! Not a Bridal Shower Game!

It's that age-old groaning response you hear in the powder room, out of shot of the harried party organizer. C'mon, ladies! Where's that sense of adventure? Well, I love the challenge of making things fun, and I think this one does the job pretty well. So if you are ever asked to come up with a game, give it a try before you run off whimpering behind the punch bowl.

You can call it whatever you like, but I revamped it for this housewarming party by calling it the "Cake Fairy Game". Pretty creative, eh?

When you do this for bridal showers, it's easy to choose the main character - it's the bride-to-be. And her silent cohort can be chosen in any variety of manner, just making sure they are one of the best bakers in da' howz, but it's best to not let on to anyone what is about to happen. They might run. And I don't recommend tackling in party attire.

For the housewarming party, I handed out 3 by 5 cards and pencils to everyone, with instructions to write their names and an estimation of how many hours a year they might spend baking from scratch in the kitchen. No one knew why, other than we were going to play a game.

It was impressive, and dare I say uncanny, how much discussion can take place concerning that simple instruction, but after about 5 minutes I had all the cards in.

The one with the highest estimate of hours was bestowed the honor of the Mute Chef.

The one with the lowest estimate of hours was transformed into the Cake Fairy.

Then they were given their props, and let in on the parameters of the next 20 minutes of their lives. Once the chef hat was on, our chef protagonist became mute, much to her chagrin.





The Mute chef is not only forbidden to speak, she may not make hand motions, nor impart any help whatsoever to the Cake Fairy. The Mute Chef is only to follow commands given by the Cake Fairy.

The Cake Fairy is to instruct the Mute Chef how to bake a cake... ~ from scratch.

Without a recipe, by the way. She does no work herself. She's a fairy, Silly. The Cake Fairy simply commands, and the Mute Chef obeys.

Generally, a bride-to-be has little experience baking from scratch, so the game is hilarious, especially if she enjoys hamming it up.

The Mute Chef is about dying the whole time because she knows just how badly this cake is going to turn out, and there is nothing, NOTHING she is allowed to do to divert the disaster, except participate in creating it.

In this case our hostess, for whom we threw the housewarming party, had no experience baking from scratch either, so it was just as fun.

Here she is, thoroughly enjoying waving her wand as she issues commands like royalty.





I always bring a box of pantry items, in case the host home is short on anything. I throw in necessary ingredients for basic cake baking - plus some extras to throw them off. It's much more fun to see them try to figure out just how much corn starch goes into the bowl.

Both times I've done this game, the cake was amazingly edible, despite the lack of experience, and we wrote the recipe down on a card, for future posterity, as the cake was being put together.





Make sure you do this game first, as the cake will need to bake while the rest of the party is going on, and then you can eat it at the end. Or feed it to the chickens, whichever seems most appropriate at the time.

Yup, now that the cake is in the oven, they'll need to make frosting, too.





It was really good! This one ended up being not real sweet, with about half the sugar a cake would normally have, and the frosting was more like a drizzled icing. I think we have a new chef on our hands!






All hail the Cake Fairy!

~Faith

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Armed and Dangerous

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This weekend was our much anticipated Carry Permit class. What a hoot!

By law, in our state, you must attend an eight hour class, including a state produced DVD on handgun safety, in order to legally carry, open or concealed, a handgun on your person.

Well, you know what happens when the government gets involved, so we got so much more than what the state requires and we had a great time. Of the 5 instructors, the one who sticks out most in my mind was kind of a mix of Sam Elliot, Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, and a smidge of Barney Fife.

"Sir, what about...?"

"NO! DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION?"

No one in the class was safe, if you had anything to say, you became the recipient of the evil eye and biting sarcasm. Everyone had a derogatory nickname. Even if they kept their mouths shut, as one dear friend did, they got a nickname and a staredown when they tried to eat their sandwich. He was hilarious!

It became a game of seeing who could cause the biggest ruckus with a question asked. No question was stupid, of course. But you didn't know that by the time he finished with you.

He was good, too. I have no idea what he has been involved with, I decided not to ask, but he's been shot, he's killed people, and he's been in knife fights, his home is a scary fortress... and that's enough for me.

While I brought my camera to the class, there was NO WAY I was going to pull it out and try to take pictures, so out at the shooting range I took photos when our half of the class had already done our shooting.





Reloading.





Fire!





Hanging around, waiting for the scores and certificates.





Oh, yeah. These perps are pushin' up daisies.





Michael and I are looking forward to the next class on the agenda, home defense.

Better start burying some money in jars.

~Faith

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WWJD?

Luke 22:36 "He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

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Yard Sale and Clean Up Day - August 14, 2010

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New digs, folks! Our little church gathering place is moving and this is it! And old car dealership. Pretty cool, eh?





But we had to get rid of all the stuff in it first, part of the deal of having free use of the place, so we had a big yard sale.

We were the first ones there, but many came after. As all at the event will tell you, I am no salesman. Many a laugh was had at my expense. When will I find my own particular talent? Still waiting on that one...





We had a lot of fun, hanging out til about 1 pm, both manning our tables,





and going in to do major cleanup. This was an abandoned car lot/repair shop, and it had 5 bathrooms to prove it. Kind of run down. Perfect! We had a great time, but we sure would have loved air conditioning. We took turns fanning through the bathroom doors while the others worked in them.

No photos of that, I guess, too busy hosing off with Lysol and wiping sweat from my drippy face.

Some peeps...

















This guy's a real head case...

















Heavy lifting.





Way more work to be done!

~Faith

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Lake Outing - August 10, 2010

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In one of the girly cars, on the way to a birthday bash at the lake.





We had too much fun on the way over. We received a phone call from a police officer while driving. The son of one of my friends noticed us as we all had our arms out the windows, making like our SUV had wings down the highway. That's still legal, right...?

Picking up more along the way.





Follow the red canoes!





OK, this looks like a good spot!





Hey, do we know you?





Perfect. Right near the bathrooms!





I never did get that group shot. But we had wonderful shade over both tables and plenty of food.





Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,





A tale of a fateful trip.





That started from this tropic port





Aboard this tiny ship.





Actually, they were headed for that island. Some of them rode in the canoes, some swam.

I could not swim far out, as I have a bum arm, but I enjoyed the water close to shore, visiting at the tables, and watching duckies.









The thunderheads began building.





The explorers returned.





And just in time for the sprinkles to set in, we packed up





and made our way to the theater to watch Despicable Me together. I vote two thumbs down for that movie.

But two thumbs up for the day!

~Faith

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