Cake and Family in C-burg

This past week I went back home to visit my family. It was a big week... my cousin Amanda came in from Arizona, my cousin Joey (who now lives in NYC) flew in from Wisconsin (where he'd been working), my Aunt and Uncle drove in from DC, even Tracy and Keith came down to visit. Big Weekend.



When my family gets together like this it usually results in gatherings around food. We joke about planning the next meal as we are finishing the current one - as in... We are sitting at Bob Evan's (aka "Boobs!") for breakfast (or brunch as it turned out for this new mama running behind), while feasting on the last bit of biscuit, we start planning the next meeting place... "We could go to the 'Poopette.'" (Ummm, that's The Parkette to you normal folks.) That's a local family-run diner type place that serves really tasty salads made with a dressing that I swear is pure vegetable oil or perhaps castor oil. HA! Don't make any after lunch plans...It always makes you have to... well, you get the picture. (Some call it the "Puke-ette" - just depends on your feeling at the moment.) It's usually tasty and downhome cookin'... just not my normal diet. :)


Anyhoo... We eat alot during these visits. It's the best time to sit down and talk to each other. There's no blarring TV on in the background. There's no other rooms to go to escape conversation. There's always someone to bring you refills on your coffee.



This trip we also decided to celebrate two milestones... My 30th birthday and Amanda's 30th birthday. This whole birthday thing was also a simple and unveiled reason to EAT Bonnie Belle's cake! - Another tasty and grease-filled tradition... (or as my loving and uncensored sister pointed out LARD filled tradition) Eh, whatever.... it's DELICIOUS!

The Cake.

As you can see.... According to this cake, you are dead right after 50. Gee, thanks.

Here's a close up after we put some candles on the cake. That was a story in itself. You see, we didn't have any candles in the kitchen and Tracy scoured the basement for this old box full of cake topper supplies. (We are talking VIN-TAGE!) She found it and it's contents of old candle holders and even some candles. This shows you one of the funniest candle holders - a cowboy with a gun. We placed him hiding behind the tombstone, of course! Other candle holders included monkeys, elephants, an Indian with papoose, and so on. The box also contained crazy weirdo things to stick in the cake from - I'm guessing - the 50's. Like a "shrunked head" on a toothpick..... uh, sure.

In any case, the trip was successful. Everyone got to meet or re-meet Zoey. We all got to eat our body's weight worth of grease. (That was, in fact, Amanda's vacation goal....) We also did some other things. But I didn't take any pictures... bad me... So, if the family sends me any of those parts of the trip, I'll add some stories about them too!

Oh and forgive the massive spacing issue... I can't seem to get blogger to stop spacing everything out like I'm stretching a 4 page paper into a 10 page research document.... forgive my computer illiteracy.