I Feel the Need...

The need for speed!  Who doesn't love Top Gun, right?  Then who doesn't love going to a Top Gun WEDDING?!  And decorating the cake for it, on top of that.  Last weekend, we got to drive to Colorado, yet again this summer, for my dear friend, Lorinda's wedding.  Lorinda and I taught English together in China. We didn't know each other beforehand, and we only lived together for about 4 weeks before I transferred to a different suburb, but we've loved each other ever since. Guess that's what happens when you have to cuddle with each other to stay warm! Yeah, that happened. Cold winter in China.

Anyway, Lorinda is one of those people who had relationships, but didn't really believe in love. She said she'd never get married.

How cool is this invitation?

 



So I was really excited when she called to ask me to make her wedding cake...that is, I was excited after I felt certain that this was a real thing.  She asked for an F-14 Tomcat with a couple sheet cakes on the side. Here's how it came together:

 

I started with 2 9x13 cakes--one for the base shape, and one for cutting.

 

 

I cut two graham crackers to form the tail wings. That's what they're called, right?



 

Oreos for the jets. I have some leftover fireworks from the 4th of July and thought it'd be really cool to stick sparklers in the jets and light them, but I forgot to pack them.

 

I'm happy with the way it turned out, even with slight imperfections. What cake doesn't have some?

 

Keeping with the aviation/Top Gun theme, the wedding ceremony was in Hangar 61, a hangar from the old Stapleton Airport that was converted into a church.

 

There's the hangar. I mean, church.

 

The wedding party walked down the aisle to the Top Gun Anthem, then Lorinda walked down to an orchestrated version of "Take My Breath Away."  Shad asked me if I knew whether she would wearing a regular wedding dress or a jazzed up flight suit. It was a wedding dress.

 

We had Dancy with us (Tom and Katie were at my parents' house), and she was great! She saved up her poo all day (the ceremony was at 2) until during the vows. So it breached the bounds of her diaper and flooded onto her clothes and mine. We spent the rest of the ceremony in the bathroom cleaning up. Luckily, I had a change of clothes in the van. I don't normally go prepared with spare clothes for myself, though I should.

 

The reception was at The Spirit of Flight Center in Erie, CO. That is a really cool little museum dedicated to flight. They had restored airplane engines, bomb parts, German planes, cameras, oxygen tanks, etc.

 

A dismantled airplane outside the museum. Never seen that before. We couldn't help but think, "No disassemble! No disassemble!" Short Circuit, anyone?

 

This plane was in the movie Hot Shots. It was unclear to me whether this is the actual plane, or the same kind of plane used in the movie.

 

Me with Lorinda and David Showe

 

"Oh, wait! We forgot to be Chinese!"

 

How cool is this? David's groomsmen got him these kegs burned with the flight names of characters from Top Gun--Maverick, Goose, Iceman and Hollywood.

 

"Up there with the best of the best."

 



Emergency Candles and Cleaning DVDs

While Jake and Amber (my brother and his wife) were here, Amber helped me with several projects from my "When I Have Time" list.  I finally had all the supplies for making emergency slow-burning candles, so I worked on that project while Amber moved all of the kids' toys from the living room up to their bedroom. That made such a difference!

 

I ordered this 10 lb bag of soy wax flakes from amazon.com. Soy wax has a slower burn than beeswax, so it lasts longer.

 

 

I created a double boiler by inserting one pot into another and filling the bottom one half full with water. Then I filled the top one with the wax flakes. Over medium heat, I melted the wax, stirring occasionally, until it was all liquid.

 

 

Then I used my liquid measuring cup to pour the wax into my pint sized canning jars.

 

I had 9" wicks with tabs and inserted those into the wax. I didn't get any wick positioners, because I thought surely the wicks stay in place once the wax is poured. No. It doesn't work that way. Don't know what I was thinking. But forks worked well enough.

 

Once the wax was cooled enough, I trimmed the wicks, and closed up the jars.

 

It only made 6, which was half of what I was expecting. When I rechecked the blog post I got the instructions from, he/she had used 8 oz jars and mine were 16. Here's the original post: http://teotwawkiblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/diy-survival-candles.html  The blogger said that an 8 oz candle claims to get 70 hours of burn time, but to reasonably expect 40-50. Since mine are double, they definitely should get over 70 hours of burning! And since I have more wicks, I might decide later to make a second batch to have the full dozen.

 

While we waited for the wax to cool, we cleaned the kids' DVDs. Since I couldn't remember which ones specifically were skipping, I had us clean them all. After an internet search, I decided to try kids' toothpaste. We put a dollop the size of my index fingernail on each disc, then swirled it in circles around the whole disc.

 

 

Like so.

 

Then you rinse that off under water and dry with a lint-free towel.  I don't have the results of our efforts to share yet, because shortly after this, a little person damaged the little people's travel DVD player, and we're still waiting for the replacement to arrive. But when it does, Horton Hears a Who will be the first one we watch, because I KNOW that one was skipping badly!

Omaha and Geneva

The week that we went to Colorado in July was one of the two weeks that the temple is closed for periodic maintenance, so we weren't able to attend the temple. We decided that we still wanted to go, so in August we went up to Geneva, NE to stay with Shad's family, who live 2 hours away from Omaha. We're surrounded by 3 temples, all approximately 300 miles away from us. The Winter Quarters temple in Omaha, Nebraska is the one to which we're assigned. Since Dancy was then (and still is now) refusing to take a bottle, we asked Pris to come up to Omaha with us to watch the kids while Shad and I attended an endowment session. Tom and Katie loved being there by the temple and playing with Nana. A missionary who had previously served in our area but is now in Nebraska somewhere was also at the temple that day. Shad and I didn't get to see him, but he recognized Tommy outside and said hi.  Shad and I were sorry that we didn't get to see him and chat.

 

We took some pictures afterward and tried to get a good one to put on the wall.  Believe it or not, this was the best one.

 

 

Tommy got to learn about the Angel Moroni on top of the temple, though he's been confusing that Moroni with Captain Moroni.  The Angel Moroni is the one who came to Joseph Smith to tell him about the Book of Mormon, where the Brass Plates were hidden, and to prepare him to receive the plates in order to translate them. Captain Moroni is a figure in the Book of Mormon who, as the title would suggest, was a military captain.

 

Katie liked seeing all the flowers on the temple grounds.

 

This picture was just a second too late, but it was at Shad's parents' house, and Katie had been sitting on Tommy's head, with both of them laughing.

 

On the way home, we drove through Minden, NE and saw this cool monument. We stopped to check it out and found that it is a memorial to the men (and boys) from Minden who lost their lives in the Civil War. The names are sorted by battle.

Jake and Amber

Jake and Amber came to visit for a week in August. We had fun showing them around town, playing games and watching movies. We went to the lake one afternoon. We probably would have anyway, but we didn't have the option of a swimming pool because ours is now demolished for the sake of building a new one. Anyhow, here's the lake pictures.

 

 

Katie floated on a tube with Jake.

 

Tom had fun testing out his new sand toys from his birthday.

 

First State Bank has a gallery in the mezzanine--the "They Also Ran Gallery." A tribute to the candidates who ran for president and lost.

 

Black and white portraits with short bios of the candidates line the walls.

 

Check it out at their website: http://theyalsoran.com/

 

Shad found this cool beetle outside of Dollar General. The picture doesn't show it well, but the belly side is a metallic gold color.

 

It's called a Green June Beetle.