Introducing Cake Pops!

They are a major pain in my neck but...they are cute!  You basically crumble a cake and mix in some frosting and then form and chill the actual balls of cake.  Then you get to dip them in some melted candy coating, pop them on a lollipop stick and you are good to go with whatever design.

These were chicken cake pops I made for my coworker's son's birthday.  The candy coating was difficult to work with on my first try so I tried my best to spoon it around and make it look like "feathers."

Basketballs - this time for my boss's son's birthday!  I piped the basketball lines on with melted chocolate.

Baby Shower Cake Pops!  Candy necklace candies were used for the pacifiers!  :)

Investing in a candy melting pot was a good idea.  It made it a whole lot easier to dip and coat the cake pops!  Yummy!

Blog Title Regrets?

The reason I named my blog "Feathers in My Hair" is because I loved the various fascinators that English people wore at weddings.  It was a random thing I thought about when I had to choose a name for my blog.  I thought it was cute.  I thought it was whimsical.  Now, I'm just like, "Why????"  Apparently, literal feathers in your hair is all the rage right now.  Just one or a few long feathers serving as a strand of your hair.  I don't know what I think.  All I know is that I much prefer the visual of having random feathers just sticking out the top of your head.  Just my opinion.  If you're going to be silly, go all out!  To me, having a feather strand or two that ALMOST blends in with the rest of your hair is right there on the verge of taking yourself too seriously.  I'd rather have the feather factor be all up in my face rather than realizing later that "Wait, you have a feather in your hair!"  Own the feathers, put more in, let them shine!

P.S.  No regrets.  "Feathers in My Hair" is what it is.

Thank you, thank you very much...

     I finally was able to go and visit my nephew in Tennessee this summer.  He lives in a small town in between Memphis and Nashville.  The views on our road trip were just beautiful.  I can't wait to schedule another trip and visit the Great Smoky Mountains.  An amazing part of the trip was the fact that my nephew had no idea that we were visiting.  We drove to his tiny town, watching nothing but fields of corn and silos whiz by.  We pulled up and he comes out and just stares at the car until he realizes that it's us!

   He took us immediately over to his horses, except that they weren't there just yet.  They called them over and they came running up from the meadow and forest.  All five of them!  It's funny...my half Puerto-Rican nephew is a cowboy in Tennessee.  He seemed happy and content with this way of life, no matter if I could never imagine myself living in a similar environment.
    We ended up taking him to Memphis for two days.  We visited Graceland first.  It was funny imagining this grand estate, but the actual mansion is not that big.  But I guess back then it was considered a big house (he only paid $100,000 for it!).  We were given a tour of the inside of the house, as well as the surrounding grounds and additional exhibits.  I always knew Elvis was the King, but seeing all of his records, awards, and posters/memorabilia was just mind-boggling.  After the tour, we saw the gravesite and took pictures.  Another thing that perplexed me was the proximity of the estate to the main road.  There are also neighborhoods on the other side of the fence.  Can you imagine living in a house with a backyard that runs up against Graceland?
     After Graceland, we headed over to our hotel in downtown Memphis.  Right across from the hotel there was Mud Island River Park, which had a mini Mississippi river you could wade in.  It was actually really cool and made to size as it ran through all of the states that it cuts through.  It all ended with a huge swampy pond in New Orleans that led out to a small lake where my nephew and I rode paddle boats.  After that we headed over to Beale Street and some of the other sites in Memphis.

    The next morning we went to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is adjacent to the Lorraine Motel, the site where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  It was very emotional to go through the tour and see the actual hotel room where Dr. King stayed.  The entire tour was intense and I am so glad to say that my nephew payed really close attention to all of the exhibits.  I was a little scared that it would be a waste of money and he wouldn't want to go in, but he really was standing there digesting all of the information.  After the tour, we headed over to the Memphis Zoo where it was ridiculously hot.

Johnny Cash!

     It was sad taking him back home after our adventures in Memphis, but I truly believe that he had a great time.  When we took him back home, he took me on a ride on his go-kart into the woods!  It was kind of scary but cool to go through the woods and then land in an open field with dragonflies buzzing by as we drove.  It was a wonderful trip, a long overdue trip, but I am so happy I got to see him.  I know he was sad when we left but I just hope that he could focus on the positive and be glad that we got to have fun with him while we were up there.  I miss him already :)

The city where my nephew lived is in between Memphis and Nashville, and that's a long stretch of driving.  We wanted to take him to Nashville with us but it would have been too much driving back and forth.  So as we made our way to Florida, we stopped in Nashville for a day.  It just happened to be the Country Music Awards Fest, but it was so much fun!  We did a trolley tour and saw all of the main sights:  the state capitol, the Parthenon, Music Row, and the Country Music Hall of Fame among others.

So it was nice to meet you Tennessee!  We'll meet again soon!

HOTlanta!

Oh, summer vacations always go by so fast!  This summer I had the chance to go to several places.  I first started of by going to Atlanta with one of my good friends, Mandy.  Here are a few pics of the places we hit on our trip to HOTlanta (definitely not an exaggeration...)

We visited the top of Kennesaw Mountain.  It was pretty hazy so the views of Atlanta weren't the best.  It was a really nice hike though.

RANDOM ALERT!  We visited the Cabbage Patch Hospital!  It was just too unbelievable to pass up.  I had to see a Cabbage Patch being born, and we did!  Mother Cabbage was dilated ten leaves! lol.  I was amazed at how all Cabbage Patch babies pretty much always have that distinctive smell.  I'm pretty sure my own still has that smell (wherever she is - in the attic maybe...)

We visited this small northern Georgia town of Helen, which basically was Epcot Germany x1000.  We went tubing down the mountain river and saw lots of interesting sites, including a dog floating down on his own tube, as well as a baby sporting a real mullet. Really...

Random alert again!  GOATS ON A ROOF!  This was so much fun.  It basically is just this roadside attraction where you can feed goats.  I sat on this bike and wheeled a cup of food up to the goats on the roof (they could come up and down as they pleased).  It was odd, but cute!

I had a great time in Atlanta, and I could talk about visiting the Georgia Aquarium, or Olympic Centennial Park or Coca-Cola headquarters....but, I must leave you with this pic of....milkshakes?!  These aren't just regular milkshakes, folks.  These are liquid nitrogen milkshakes from Top Chef All-Star's winner Richard Blaise's burger restaurant, Flip!  Delicious!  What you see here are the Strawberry Shortcake and some kind of toasted marshmallow milkshake.  They were super light and creamy.  Yum! Cheers to Atlanta!

New cupcake designs

Here are two of my most recent cupcake designs:

I made these Hello Kitty cupcakes for my friend Christey's birthday.  It was my first attempt at using fondant and it was a little difficult.  You can see that some of the faces are a little wrinkled (she needs a little Botox) and that's because I underestimated how quickly the fondant dries out.  But I thought they turned out pretty cute - better than trying to draw the faces by hand with icing like I did last time.

And these were the ones I made for Easter.  Pretty simple to do, but they took a lot of time.  I cut out egg shapes from graham crackers, then iced them with frosting and dipped them in the colored sugar.  Then I piped out the lines with colored frosting and added some decorative hearts, flowers, and other shaped confetti candies.  I loved the colors!

Look back soon for some pictures of cake pops I made.  I've made three so far - they are exactly what they sound like.  Cake balls stuck onto a lollipop!

Recent Audubon Visit

The Audubon Center for Birds of Prey is located in Maitland and it's basically a center that rehabilitates wild birds and sets them free back into the wild.  If they sustain an injury that would prevent them from surviving in the wild, the birds are kept in captivity at the center.  I love to go there, so if you love birds like I do then you should definitely make the visit.  What makes it even better is their annual baby owl shower that takes place in May.  You simply bring in an item from their wish list and you can get in for free.  And they have baby owls!  They are a little awkward looking, but still so cute.  Here are some shots I got of the baby owls and some of the other beautiful birds at the center.

Baby Owl #1 - So cute!

Baby Owl #2 was like a statue

American Bald Eagle

Sweet face

This captive hawk's one injured eye would prevent him from being able to hunt successfully for food in the wild.

A Weekend for the History Books

Now I hope that some bored souls read my blog, but I actually just like to write things so that I can look back and see what I was thinking about or doing on any particular day.  So, with that being said, I think it's important to reflect on a pretty eventful weekend for the world.

Let's start with the most watched wedding ever.  The ROYAL WEDDING!  Yes, I was one of those people, eagerly anticipating this big day where Prince William would wed a normal girl (a commoner!) Kate Middleton.  I'd constantly click on any link on People.com that alluded to possible wedding dress options.  Though I will say that I did not throw a royal viewing party, or prepare tea and scones.  I was fine with just curling up on the couch and hitting play on my DVR.  I personally think she looked beautiful.  And the scene in Westminister Abbey was made complete with my love of.......FASCINATORS!  One of the main reasons for the title of this blog (after attending my English friend's wedding).  Sigh...just seeing all of the bright colors, feathers, and netting planted at different angles on people's heads was an amazing sight.  And the hats!  I loved it all.  But I do think you can go a bit overboard and all I have to say is WHY did they seat Princess Eugenie and Beatrice right behind the Queen with that crazy hat??  It was awful!  The guards should have knocked that sucker down upon her entry.

I wish them all the best.  They seem like they are very much in love.  It is sad that Princess Diana was not there to see her eldest son get married, but she was there in spirit.  Kate having her ring, them kissing on the balcony just like her and Charles did, and riding in the same carriage as she did on her wedding day were all special touches to the event.

I remember when they announced that Princess Diana was killed in a car accident.  I was in middle school and I remember them replaying the scene over and over on television.  It was a shock.  That shock and disbelief came again, along with intense feelings of fear, horror, and anger, when September 11, 2001 happened.  That horrible scene of the twin towers falling kept playing over and over again on TV and I couldn't tear my eyes away.  I was a freshman in college and had a math lab that day.  I woke up and got ready for school, never turning on the TV to catch the local morning news.  I got in my car and listened to the CD that was currently playing.  When I parked at school, I switched on the radio and caught the DJ's talking.  I knew something was wrong, but I didn't yet know what.  I had just tuned in and wasn't able to put together all the pieces of everything that had happened.  I got out of the car and headed for class.  Something wasn't right...I tried to grab a newspaper but there was no news to shed any light on what happened.  Everyone came in and prepared for class.  All I remember is a kid sitting in the back saying, "The twin towers are gone."  I felt like I hadn't heard correctly, but had an awful feeling he was right.  The teacher came in with no news and we had class like it was a regular day.  Trying to head back to my apartment was awful.  The radio confirmed what my classmate had said in class.  Cellphones weren't working at the time and it was just fear and chaos.  Once I got back to my apartment, I just turned on the television and watched it all day long.  It was unbelievable.  I had just been at the top of the World Trade Center a few months before during a trip to New York City.  I remember the guy who took us up in the elevator, the simulator ride we rode at the top, the food court where the Sbarro lady served us up a salad, the violinists preparing for a concert on the concourse outside...everything...it was all gone.  But I still remember, and I still wonder, are they alive?  Were they there on that horrible day?

Nothing can ever replace the thousands of lives that were lost that specific day, or throughout the years of the war.  But if the families affected could get even a small piece of closure, it would have been to finally capture Osama Bin Laden.  And on Sunday night, the United States of America received the news straight from President Barack Obama that Osama had been killed in Pakistan by Navy SEALS in a military operation.  Ten long years overdue, but it happened.  I don't want to harp on the subject, especially since the terror alert is probably higher at the moment, but he is gone.  Finally.