Confectionary Art

I actually remember how to do this!!!! I still want to go back and catch-up on some travel and event posts, but I thought I would share my sweet fun from today.

Mom invited the girls over today to play cake decorators with her. Growing up she always made us the most amazing birthday cakes. We had Mom, Alicia, Alyse, Kiaya, Aryn, Sophia and me all playing with the rainbow colored frosting. It was lots of fun and tasted yummy too!

I first practiced a smiley face on a cupcake, but gave it to Dad to eat before I got a picture of it. I did get pictures of my Bumble Bee and Butterfly.

Alyse took off before I got pictures of the complete set, hers are great and we will need to look on her blog for those, but here are the rest! Thanks again to my family for a fun day (and making me forget about how mad I was at my computer with this great distraction).

Technical Difficulties!!!

Okay, so this is just getting silly! First there was a slow/non-existant internet, then we could not even access the blogger site because of regulations/censors, and now the picture wheel just keeps spinning in circles and not loading! Although if this actually posts we will be one step closer than we have been so far in weeks.

We spent about 3 hours this morning trying to get any one of our blogs to work. That was including (and after) having to sort through nearly 6,000 images; because when trying to import the photos off mom's camera for the last bit of the trip, we somehow took ALL the images on any open windows too at the time (this included all mom's facebook stuff, her account had been open in another tab, like albums and icons from the games, as well as just random stuff). So we finally threw up our hands and just went out.

Good news, we found the world's largest Apple store in Covent Garden today and they said if we still have problems in the morning we can take mom's laptop in and they will try help us. They actually seemed impressed we somehow figured how to mess the import process up so much. :D

So please be patient, we are really trying to keep our blogging promise. It has just been a comedy of errors, hopefully nearing to end of its' run.

2010 Year's End (Part 3)

I thought this got posted last night but apparently it only went to draft...so it is a day late!

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTIONS

One of my favorite relaxation things is to go see movie in the theater. I love being pulled into a new story and being able to forget about my own life for a few hours. I have seen LOTS of great movies this year and really can’t name just one I loved.

Of course Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) and Eclipse have to top any list I make. If for no other reason than the fun events I attended in conjunction with those releases. But those are different stories to be told another day…

Today we are going to see Tron so I will have to report back on that one later. Hmm, earlier this month I saw Burlesque for a second time and loved it and want to see it again so it will have to make the list. I wouldn’t recommend it for teens and it is pretty racy so Alicia wouldn’t like it.

Several fun animated shows were released this year. Topping this list for me were Tangled, Toy Story 3, and How to Train Your Dragon. But, also enjoyable were Megamind, Despicable Me, and Alice in Wonderland (though was this really animated? Not sure how to categorize it),

In the chick flick category Bounty Hunter was zany and lots of fun, Dear John was wonderfully heartfelt (though technically I didn’t get to see this one till it came to video), Valentine’s Day was cute (especially since I went with Scott, Mom and Dad on Valentine’s Day to see it!), and both The Last Song and Remember Me made me cry and laugh at the same time, one of the best kind of chick flick movies. I also found Date Night hilarious, You Again a good thought provoking story about making life work and Letters to Juliet simple but sweet.

Action movies were also enjoyable this year. I really enjoyed Iron Man 2 a lot more than I ever thought I would. Does Knight and Day go in this catergory?, well I am putting it here, along with Inception which had some of the most mind bending plot twists and special effects I have ever seen.

WOW!!! Okay when I started this post I didn’t mean for it to get so long. I didn’t really realize how many movies I did get to see this year. And yet, as I was going though an online list of movies released this year I made a list just as long of titles to add to Netflix…well they were all enjoyable and I would recommend most of them to others! Guess it was a great year for me at the movies!

2010 Year's End (Part 2)

Candlelight Massed Choir and Processional
at Disney World's EPCOT

Last Night (Dec-20-2010) I went to the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT. This is one of my favorite Christmas Programs. There is a reading of the Christmas Story from the Bible, interspersed with gorgeously arranged music.


The music includes “Shout for Joy”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “Il Est Ne”, “O Holy Night”, “Angels From The Realms Of Glory”, “Away In A Manger”, “Rejoice With Exceeding Great Joy”, “What Child Is This”, “Do You Hear What I Hear”, “Silent Night”, “Joy To The World”, and “The Hallelujah Chorus”. The music is played by The Walt Disney World Orchestra and sung by a choir consisting of The Walt Disney World Cast Choir, The Voices of Liberty and Guest Choirs (mostly high school students) from all over the US, Canada and they even had a choir from the UK this year!

Trace Adkins was the narrator we listened to this year. His deep bass voice was hypnotic and gorgeous to listen to. It was a really fun night to share with Mom, Dad, Erik and Matt. I am so blessed to be able to listen to such a beautiful Christmas program.

2010 Year's End (part 1)

Look! There the year goes,
Oh how it flies by.
So much still to tell,
It could fill a pie.
The posts I could do,
It almost makes me cry.
Daily I will come,
To share all the whys.
You know what to do,
Just come back on by.
To hear Holly’s tales,
Before year’s good-bye.

Oh the things I could tell
If I just had the time.
Spent yesterday in SuessLanding
Now I’m talking in rhyme!

Same Old Questions

Here I am another night (or early morning depending on how I count it), awake and stressing over the future and what I am suppose to be doing. Every few weeks someone will still ask me one of the following questions, or some variation on these, “what do you want to be when you grow up”, or “what do you want to do with your life”? Getting these questions can really frustrate me. I have been working at my job for three years next month, I like my job 80 percent of the time (which I figure is pretty good!), and I am good at my job.

No, working as a small business manager in hospitality is not what I pictured myself doing as a kid. I thought I would be a great musician, or a doctor who would changed lives, or some rich and powerful CEO. Yet, looking at my little piece of the world I don’t regret my small contribution; even though my life is nothing like I pictured it would be, I am okay with this. I had a conversation with my mother a few weeks ago about this very topic, and while I know the people who asking the questions only want to be interested and loving it can be hard to feel like the path I have chosen is not good enough. Maybe that isn’t what people mean by these questions, but that is often how I feel.

While I was thinking about this again tonight I remembered a song I came across last week after listening to Showtunes Saturday Night. "I Stand" is sung by Idina Menzel and re-listening to it tonight, the very beginning of the song just struck a chord. I’m not sure if it makes me feel better, or just less like I am alone in my frustrations, when I think about these lyrics: "When you ask me, who I am:/What is my vision? And do I have a plan?/Where is my strength? Have I nothing to say?/I hear the words in my head, but I push them away."


PS. This week, from Idina’s youtube page, I heard about and then got a chance to watch the DVD of Chess in Concert: Live from Royal Albert Hall. That was a wonderful set of performances and I would recommend it to anyone! I could really relate to the feeling of being a chess piece in someone else’s game and just trying to find the best ways to live in the situation you find yourself in.

Cookies!

In the spirit of appreciating moments…this last week I made Scott cookies (well I actually ate at least ½ of them, so I guess technically I made them for me too!). He is even pickier than me about desserts. He doesn’t like desserts at most places or store bought stuff, like cookies. So I decided to surprise him, while he was at work, and have fresh chocolate chip cookies for him when he got home.

I had forgotten some how much I love the simple act of baking, and how much yummier my cookies are than say, the chips ahoy ones. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures, maybe next time. Only bad part…we ran out of cookies yesterday. :( So now I am craving home made cookies! Maybe brownies will have to be on the schedule tomorrow. Hmmmmmmm :D