Snow in the Glens

I had a cake order for yesterday, so spent all of Thursday and Friday baking and decorating. Made it to the venue just in time for the launch!

Quite unexpectedly, we experienced a snow storn the week before last. I have never seen something quite as spectacular. And there is still snow laying on the ground in some parts of the Glen.

sliding down the bray on bags last weekend

Yesterday, the 3 of us ventured up to the Forest Park for a walk. Needless to say, we had to take advantage of the snowy weather and go sliding down the mountain, make snow angels and I built my first snowman.

Can you see Cassie in the water?

snow angels - sort of

George the Snowman

 After spending the afternoon in the snow, we were exhausted and spent the rest of the day catching up on series and dozing in front of the fire. Twins and Barry and Shannon came over for ribs and chips and we had a great evening catching up. Cassie is somewhat jealous of the babies, and whenever I had one of them, she tried to sit on my lap too. She is very gentle with them though, and goes up to them when they start crying to investigate. 

Conor, Cassie and I

Despite the cold and windy day, Karl, Cassie and I did a 2 mile beach run this morning, and my legs are still fatigued. All this running has made me very hungry though, and I find myself eating every 2 - 3 hours. Hugh and Sinead are supposed to be coming around for tea this afternoon, so I suppose I better get up and get ready.

Boat cake

The first week back to work after the holiday is always a long one. That coupled with detoxing and the fact that we had to bake mid-week again, was exhausting. Got a text from Joanne on Monday asking if we could do a boat cake for her friend's boyfriend's birthday on Saturday. I assumed that meant we would be baking on Friday and Saturday, but it was not to be. The cake had to be delivered on Friday, because it was travelling to Dublin! Boy did we panic! But we managed to pull it off on Wednesday evening, even though we both hit a serious wall at around 10pm. We then googled a few ideas and managed to pull it all together quite nicely. We did enroll the help of the guys to help us with the shape of the boat (thanks Karl!). We've had a really chilled weekend, and feel human enough to face another working week. 

PS. I signed up for the running club, to run every monday evening (Karl is also coming along), and guess what?! It snowed today! lol! Will still go tomorrow though.....

Its a dogs life!

Wrote this in an email yesterday, and decided that it would make an awesome blog post. 

Cassie’s daily schedule:

5:30am: scratch on the door to wake mommy and daddy up

5:31am: nice and snug in the bed between mommy and daddy

6:30am: breakfast

7:30am: get dropped off at granny and grampas house for the day

7:35am: nap time

8:20am: granny and grampa up and eat half grampas cheese toast and drink the last of his tea from his cup

9:00am: walk with grampa

9:30am – 5:00pm: play around in the garage with grampa, Uncle Jim & PJ and the other people (who keep snacks for me in their car when they come to the garage!)
I also have my very own corsa that grampa leaves the door open to and when its naptime, I just jump into it and sail away to dreamland.

5:00pm – 6:30pm: Granny comes to get me from the garage and I play stickball (she sits on one sit of the coffee table and uses her paws to push her tennis ball under the table to the other side and waits for some sucker (usually Grampa) to hit it back to her – we actually have a pole to hit it back to her with so we don’t have to get up – she can play for hours! Last count was 3 hours.

6:30pm: mommy and daddy collect me

6:35pm: asleep in the car

6:45pm: dinner time

7:00pm: see what bits of leftovers I can get from parents

7:30pm play with my tennis balls/teddy in the hall

9:00pm: fall asleep on the couch

10:00pm: cuddles with mommy and daddy in bed

10:30pm: bedtime

5:30am: time to do it ALL over again.

It definately is a dog’s life!

Christmas Holidays

I can't believe we are already at the end of the holidays and that my alarm is set for 6:30am tomorrow morning! Not looking forward to it at all, but I guess its a choice I need to make, to choose to be happy and make the most of every day I have been given.

We started off our holiday with the Carey Floor Care Christmas dinner, which was held at a restaurant literally a few feet from our frint door. After dinner, we had a few ones round our place before calling it a night. The rest of the holiday literally is a blur. We had so much going on in such a small space of time. The American family all arrived for the wedding and we had to get our spare room ready for family staying over. Christmas and Boxing day passed us by so quickly - we had dinner both days at my in-laws. Turkey, gammon and all the trimmings. Then all the wedding stuff really got going and the last of the running around was done. 

Cassie the reindeer

On the Friday before the wedding, I went over to Joanne's and started baking Rosie's christening cake. It took me 11 hours! It was Joanne's mom's birthday, so she got into a cake of her own, which turned out really well too.

The Chrsitening was the day before the wedding, but we didn't stay very long, because of a few last minute run-arounds. The wedding was beautiful, and Christina looked amazing. I don't have very good pics because I took it with my phone, but here's one in the meantime. 

For the evening do (after the meal etc) Mark and Christina organised a hog roast. And a South African company at that! Had a fat old chat with the owner (he is from Vereeninging) and has been living here for 11 years! 

Needless to say there was enough hog roast left to feed Ireland and we ate it for 2 days after. We stayed at the reception until pretty much everyone had left (just after 3am) and just in time to see Mark do a very special dance for his bride to I'm too sexy for my shirt. He wiggled his hips, danced around a pole, (with his long legs) and at one point he nearly took off his shirt! Christina crawled under one of the tables - she was THAT embarassed. It was a brilliant day.On New Years Day, Christina's family was all still here, so we went for a walk in the forest park and went back to my in-laws place for some hog roast. This was followed by a pub quiz, and we only got into bed at 4am. No wonder I have a throat infection - all the laughing and screaming and performing (we are a very competitve family)!

I really can't even remember what else we did. I baked and took the spoils over to Joanne's, spent some time with the twins, Conor and Ewan (3 months old) and finished the holidays off with a post Christmas lunch and shop (hit the sales) with Joanne in Antrim. Here is a pic of our delicious meal before we start the detox and healthy eating habits tomorrow.

lasagne

homemade chocolate pudding

tried a new decorating idea

homemade brownies

All in all, it was a holiday filled with friends, family and good food. Lets hope next Christmas we'll be home for Christmas! Wishing you all a very blessed 2013.