Lessons Learned from Making a Ding Dong Cake

1. If you go to bed while the almond bark is drying on the cake you could wake up to find the top half hardened into place slightly askew of where you left it and trails of marshmallow ooze dripping down the sides of the bottom half. This doesn't create a complete ding dong look exactly.

2. You can't push candles through a hardened shell of almond bark without first cutting tiny X's with a knife into the top shell of the cake.

3. You need a sharp knife to cut the cake into wedges. But it will fall apart anyway - there's a hard chocolate outer shell and a creamy marshmallow center.

4. This cake tasted just exactly like a ding dong if even more delicious. It was the sweetest most chocolatey most marshmallowy goodness ever. It was, in fact, unfinishable.

5. There is a reason ding dongs come in small packages and this rule of life should be followed. Only one of Colin's guests, out of all of us eating cake, was able to finish his whole piece. The rest of us were incapacitated.

Nerf wars are currently in progress. I've deemed my area a no-fire zone.
We're having fun!
LOVE

The Great Ding Dong

I'm currently making Colin a birthday cake. He likes ding dongs and wanted a cake that was like a giant ding dong. So here's the idea. I have made two round cake halves of a Pilsbury devil's food chocolate cake. Then I melted a package of chocolate flavored almond bark. I've iced the bottom of the cake which is currently setting. Once it's dry I will flip it onto the cake plate and cut out a section of the middle. I will fill the middle with marshmallow creme - the kind of marshmallow creme from a jar that you never really knew what to do with before. Well, I think its for making ding dong filling because I've never really used a jar of marshmallow filling before. Anyway, after filling that hole I will cut out a section of the other half and heap the marshmallow up a little to fit into the hole in the top half. Then I'll pour the almond bark all over the top and sides. It should be set and solid by morning. We will be totally ready for this party by tomorrow! I'm very excited!

My nephews are coming to the sleep-over party which should be fun. I like the idea of Michael and Justin getting to know Colin better. They need to hang out more. They will essentially be like cousins sort of. Anyway, Chris is picking them up first thing tomorrow after he gets off work which he's leaving early. Then, with the boys, Chris is going to pick up Colin from school so they can be home by 3:30ish to wait for the other guests. I'm leaving work a little early tomorrow - like 4:30 so I should be home in time to join the fun.

We're ordering pizzas for dinner and having ding dong cake and ice cream. The boys will all have a nerf gun war using the nerf gun arsenal that Colin has collected. In the morning, I'll make pancakes for breakfast which is Colin's favorite breakfast. Colin's friends from school and after-care program will leave around 10 - 11 and then we'll take Colin and my nephews out to Jack Brooks Park for disc golf. I think they'll love it!

I formed a team at work to raise scholarships for kids going to UH's Bauer College of Business. It sort of fell together so if you have any fund raising ideas or items to donate for sale on our online auction - please share. We haven't come up with a team name yet. Maybe we'll auction off the naming rights to our team. That should be fun. So anyway, we'll be raising money for scholarships for the next couple of months - till the end of May. Anything helps!

I gotta go check on my ding dong cake. I'll take pictures.

Time Gets Away from Me

Eight days into February before a post. Argh! I'm not meeting my goals at all.
I've added Carmen's new French Blog to my roll and removed Chris since he hasn't posted in more than 6 months. Check out what is happening with Carmen here.

Below are some shots from Christmas that I finally got from Chris; some shots of Carmen, Kevin, and Carmen's Aunt Linda who we partied with at Christmas time; and some random shots from disc golf games we have recently played. Oh and perhaps a shot of Chris with his new Prius.

Chris told me a week or so ago as we drove along in his new car that the Prius truly suits him and he feels very at home as a Prius owner. He went on to explain how it fits in with his Go Green mentality and plan as well as his high-tech geek personality and the secret compartment loving stasher he fancies himself. It's also quite nice in terms of a family car and he feels better about being able to drive all of us around in his own car as it has a lot of space. The Prius really is a nice car. I have to agree.

Colin LOVES him some Granddad! I think that Granddad is definitely Colin's hero. AND he always gets just what Colin wants for Christmas every year. So here he is getting thanked in Colin's favorite way - the big squeezy hug.









Carmen and Kevin. Ah! La amour.

This was the night they stayed with us in Clear Lake.
















Here's an action shot of Chris chunking his frisbee at Jack Brooks Park on hole 11.











Here's Chris in action again on Hole 12 at Spring Valley Disc Golf course.















Here's a pic of me and Honey girl at hole 13 at Jack Brooks Park. What a gorgeous day in January in the great state of Texas.















Here's Chris with the new Prius out at Jack Brooks Park in January right after he bought it. It was actually here that the car got it's first ding. A white car apparently opened the door into the Prius. Chris wasn't too worried about it.















Chris bought me a new disc golf bag at the pro shop on the Spring Valley course. It's exactly like his new bag only pink! And I love it!!! My favorite part about it is that it holds my drink (up to a liter size bottle of water or gatoraid so that I don't have to hold it separately. I can also carry a lot more discs but the first day I had it, I did not see this as all that advantageous. The ability to carry a host of discs begets actually doing so and my bag was considerably heavier as I went from 4 discs to 9.
















Today, Chris and I walked the new course at Jack Brooks Park. It's still a little under construction but is being built to be a world class course with a lot of challenge. This year the World's Biggest Disc Golf weekend is happening in Houston, Woot! but like ON my birthday weekend - so not so woot maybe. Shouldn't it all be about me?

Anyway, while walking the new course today Chris and I carried 2 frisbees each - a new Oddessy mid-range and the wheel for both of us. The course was treacherous and we decided we need new shoes to do those hills. But here's the fun part - Chris found this block of wood that had been marked on three sides by some disc golf buddies but the 4th side of this block said this. We loved it and left it near the hole where we found it.














So that's it for an update.
I found a good price on a new wind shield that I'm going to have installed soon. I did my taxes and I'm getting a nice refund which will go entirely towards my debt. I'm still trying to reduce debt. Chris and I are going to be house hunting and spending the next few months cleaning out Chris's old house and putting it on the market. There's lots of busy-ness all around us.

much LOVE