When I’m 65…

John will be 69. Maybe by then we’ll be retired.

But I suppose it’s a little early to be thinking about retirement.

 

But I was. Because I was making cookies.

…

For a retirement, that is.
A family friend retired this week after serving 30 years in the Marine Corps. Pretty awesome, right? This logo I piped on here is the emblem for the Explosive Ordinance Disposal. Like, bombs and stuff. Which is why there’s a little bomb with lightning in the middle. (I figured any male readers would appreciate that)
I piped about 75 of these babies in one day. 8(ish) hours of fine/very detailed piping. OUCH. My poor hand was screaming at me by the end of it.
How did I manage to pipe all of that awesomeness so accurately? Well, I’d like to take all the credit, but I can’t - I used a projector. I ran over to Hobby Lobby and snagged a cheap one that I had to make a few modifications to…
There is actually a specialized projector out there for making cookies and cakes called the KopyKake, but since those currently run at about $250 and I’ve only ever seen them online…well, I needed something cheap and fast. So this is what I came up with. And it worked! A little ingenuity (and masking tape) never hurt anyone, right?
John busted up laughing when he came home to my little (well…not so little) projector rig I had going on. He snapped a few action shots. I loved having the emblem projected onto my cookies though. Was a HUGE help in getting all those cookies piped and looking pretty. But I’m probably going to have to save up and invest in a KopyKake :)
I whipped up a quick bag topper for the occasion and they were all set to go!

And now my hands are in serious need of a nice break. And maybe a massage :)

Going to the Mall

The National Mall, I mean.

I promise the National Mall is more interesting than my shopping mall trips.

Anyway, I went with my family and my Grandma Hunt to the National Mall on Monday. Fun stuff! I went all “city slicker” and took the metro into the city. MUCH nicer than the L in Chicago. L = scary/crazy/smelly people. Metro = the occasional guy that tries to come talk to you while you’re obviously engrossed in a book to ask you for money. At least he was normal looking…

But I digress. We headed to the Museum of Natural History and saw some amazing photographs from a photography competition on display in one of the sections in the museum
It’s Nemo!

Then we went to the butterfly aviary! Love it
The butterflies loved the color of my mom’s shirt. Several landed on her while we were in there.
This one really liked it’s perch in her hair :)

After looking at a few more exhibits (like dinosaurs and other interesting skeletons), we went over to the Museum of American History. We looked at First Ladies’ dresses and china and the Star Spangled Banner. And we saw some other fun things :)

Like Harry Potter’s robe!!!!! Awesome.A sunstone from the Nauvoo Temple! How cool is that!?
It’s kermit!

And of course, the ruby slippers

By that time, I needed to get back to pick up John from work. But it was a very fun day in the city!

Dude…

Happy Father’s Day

Okay, so I have TWO dads now, right? A Dad, and a Dad-in-law. Can’t forget Dad! After making tooth and toothbrush cookies for Dad Moffat, I thought and thought and thought…what kind of cookies should I make for my dad? I was thinking neckties…but I wasn’t really feelin’ it, you know? I don’t think my dad even wears ties to work…(do you, Dad?) I thought about making John Deere lawn mower cookies…but that was a little too complicated at the moment.

THEN I found some awesome inspiration HERE (I seriously love her stuff…I am so inspired every time I visit this blog) And I thought this was perfect! My dad doesn’t really wear Hawaiian shirts…but it was a perfect cookie manifestation of my fun-loving dad :)
And I finally branched out with my bag toppers! No chevron, see? And I love my hibiscus design. I’m getting pretty handy at my photoshop trial, whaddya think? :)
Gettin' funky with the background again. What do you know? All that unused scrapbook paper I’ve been hoarding does have a use!

I’m thinking this was a successfully cookie’d holiday, don’t you?

A Sweet Tooth

We’re talking a literal sweet tooth here.

See? Ha ha ha haaa

So my father-in-law is a dentist. When I came across tooth and toothbrush shaped cookie cutters, first, I may have squealed out loud about how cute they were..and then second, thought “ohmygosh I HAVE to make these for Dad Moffat for Father’s Day!”

And that’s what I did. Because what makes more sense than to give a dentist cookies? Ha! But if they are tooth shaped…it makes sense. And if they are toothbrush shaped, I think that actually makes them good for your teeth! Am I right?! Come on…

Sadly, all the toothbrush cookies broke on their way to California. I need to stop sending fragile-shaped cookies in boxes. Oh well. Here’s what they were supposed to look like ;)
Of course, I had to make some fun bag toppers.
And you better brush your teeth reeeeaaaally good after eating cookies. You don’t want your teeth to end up with fillings. Like this one ;)

Happy Father’s Day! :)

We Interrupt This Program…

To bring you something other than cookies.

Relief, right? Well, don’t worry, I still have lots more cookies to show you anyway ;) Those will come later…

But we went on another adventure this weekend! Love me a good adventure with my best friend! We made another trip up to Baltimore this weekend to go to the National Aquarium and the Sailabration! What is a Sailabration? Well, this year marks the bicentennial anniversary of the War of 1812, during which the national anthem was penned. It’s a big deal around here. So they had 40+ fully rigged, working ships from all over the world docked at inner harbor for this week long party. Lots. of. people. And you could wait in line to go onto the ships and look around. We did that later. The lines were insane when we got there!

We decided to be smart about this, so we took public transportation into Baltimore. Unfortunately, they don’t have a fabulous train system like they did in Chicago. If there’s one thing I actually miss about the city of Chicago, it’s the train systems. Can’t beat it. Anyway, we drove up to the BWI airport and took the Light Rail from there into the city. We found a station a couple of blocks away from Inner Harbor and walked over! Super easy :) Lots of festivities going on!

They had this awesome sand sculpture at the front. They were going to have a competition, but we didn’t know when that was happening…
I’m not sure why John didn’t think to tell me that my hair was doing scary things in this picture…but whatever…I’m over it ;)
John was seriously loving all the ships we saw
Cool costumed singing people…

After grabbing some lunch, we headed over to the Aquarium. The really awesome thing is that John’s company has a corporate discount/agreement with the Aquarium…so we got in free!! Yesssss….my favorite kind of discount… ;)

The Aquarium is HUGE! Easily the biggest and coolest aquarium I’ve ever seen!
Have you ever noticed that all the fish from Finding Nemo always seem to be in the same tank?
They had a really cool rainforest level
Sorry about the bird butts. Didn’t realize that two of the three weren’t even looking this way…
They had this whole exhibit on jelly fish. What freaky creatures. Really cool exhibits though.

After the aquarium, we went back out into the masses to see more ships.
The had an airshow going on at Fort McHenry with the Blue Angels that day. Even though we weren’t over at the Fort, we could still see the jets flying around. We went up to the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse to get a better look.
Then we decided to find a line onto a ship that wasn’t too long. Luckily, we found one! This is the Gloria, from Columbia. We called it the “Party Boat” because they were the only ones playing fun music and they were giving out candy ;)
John loved this display of knots. He wants to make something like it someday.

After the Party Boat, we finally made our way back to the Light Rail. And I’m so glad that we are smart. And looked up how many different kinds of train lines there are. So that we got on the right train. I was surprised at how many people got on our train only to realize (once it was too late) that they were on the wrong train, going to a very different destination. Oops ;) Before heading home, we stopped by the Columbia Festival of the Arts that had been going on since Friday. We actually went to check it out Friday night and came back to see the sidewalk chalk competition. It was a bit of a letdown…I guess you can’t have genius chalk artists in every city… ;) Before we left though, there was an acrobatics show, so we stayed to watch. They had a pretty cool trapeze act.

After that we finally made it home. What a day! That’s 2 things off the bucket list, people! We are on a ROLL! :)