I'm Not An Engineer

I'm not an engineer, but, I play one on the night before birthday parties. I get to make the cakes!

In the past, perhaps coincidentally, our children have chosen a cake from a source with instructions like Family Fun. Eric and I have spent many happy evenings doing these cakes together. It is something we enjoy and it saves us a nice bundle on the price of the cake. (Eric has his 'George Banks' moments and I'm not opposed to saving a buck!)

This year Everett picked one out of the book in the Target bakery (pictured below- but he wanted Lightning with Francesco and a 'winners circle' theme rather than a 'pit stop' theme with Guido). I snapped a pic with my phone. I showed Eric. He said 'No problem' (foreshadowing folks, foreshadowing). I gathered the supplies and on the appointed evening we tucked the kids in bed and met up in the kitchen for a fun cake creating evening.

This was pretty much the first time it occurred to us that we had a picture and no instructions. As we looked at the two 13x9 pans of cake we began to wonder HOW we were going to create a tall sloped grandstand from these. (Imagine us both with our heads tilted quizzically to the side). Eric had two years of architecture at Texas Tech and I waited for him to take charge-- cutting and stacking cake........silence. Eric now proclaimed "Yeah, I have NO idea how to do this".
Let's just say that in the end the ratio of cake to icing was....um....weighted heavily on the icing side. But, it all came together.

The important part is that it held together until after a certain small boy blew out the candles!. Everett was thrilled with his cake and that is all that matters, in the end.

As for Eric & I, we will be forcing steering our children in the direction of cakes with instructions (for goodness sake!) and I think we also might be ready for the Amazing Race!

Photo from here and here