I was doing so well at updating the blog regularly, don't you think? I was really proud of myself then last week came and it was one of those weeks where you need one more day.
We kicked off our second semester of Financial Peace University at our church. We are so excited to get to lead another group, but there is a lot going into this class mainly because we have 32 people participating. THIRTY-TWO! wowsers. Plus we advertised that we would offer childcare, so I've been coordinating that for about 12 kids. Honestly that has been the most work - arranging to have childcare workers there each week, having the right number of people helping each week, getting payment from each set of parents, paying the workers, and getting the reimbursement set up with our church. whew. Just trying to explain it all again makes me realize how much work is involved.
However, this past week we had our second class and after all the emails and returning families showing their appreciation, it is completely worth every second of the planning.
We have a great group for FPU - very diverse and everyone already seems extremely enthusiastic about the class. Even more exciting is that we are coordinating a second class that starts this week - wow!
On top of all the FPU craziness, I had to squeeze in work hours. I have been very fortunate that I got approved to work my second day at home now so I'm only having to go into the office once a week - so I work about 7 hours in the office and anywhere between 3-4 hours at home. It's been great so far, but makes for a busy week trying to squeeze in those hours in between everything else going on.
I also had two cake orders that were due by Thursday - I think they turned out really great. I was really proud of them - especially the R2D2 cake because it was a really awesome 3-D cake, standing about 1 foot tall and the family who ordered it loved it.


So after staying up until about 4am Thursday morning, I got the cakes delivered, then headed home to pack for our family trip to Gatlinburg. We gave my parents a weekend stay in Gatlinburg for Christmas and our entire family tagged along (sister and her family). Brent and I decided to head over on Thursday so we could see our good friends Chad and Gena in Knoxville. Ari and Gabbie are about 3 months apart in age and every time we visit, it seems like their age difference is becoming less and less. They had a great time playing with each other Friday morning before we headed to the 'Burg.
I'm not sure why I don't have any better pictures than this one, but it's still cute. Gabbie loved Ari's little chair.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the beautiful metropolis of Gatlinburg. The weekend involved shopping, eating, walking, eating, napping, eating, games, sleeping, eating, Titanic and sleeping. That pretty much sums up the weekend. HA



We did tour the Titanic Museum before leaving Gatlinburg on Sunday. And while you may be with me and think that is the epitome of redneck: a Titanic museum in Gatlinburg, it actually was very interesting. They did a great job of setting up the whole scene: before boarding the ship, you received a boarding pass that assigned you as an actual passenger that had been on the Titanic. Then you spent the entirety of the tour looking for artifacts and information about your character down to the last stop where all of the passengers were listed and whether they survived.


We headed back home early Sunday because we have an almost 4 hour drive back home. We had to make it time for the big Super Bowl game and literally we rolled in about 20 minutes before kickoff. We spent the game at Brad and Casey's watching with a lot of other friends - we had a great time, playing Minute to Win It games which was a blast!
So whew....that week was packed full of fun and busy-ness to say the least.

This past weekend was very eventful at the Whitaker household. Our good friends the Moncriefs came in town on Thursday afternoon to kick start what was sure to be a busy, eventful weekend. Brent, Jimmy and Dusty were participating in the Country Music Marathon/Half Marathon in Nashville. We had made plans months in advance for the Cranes and Moncriefs to stay at the house as well as to host a pre-race pasta party the night before. We were so excited to have Katie and Owen, as well as the Garzas join in on the pasta dinner. It was a great UTC gathering at our new home!

Friday we spent the day downtown at the Health and Fitness Expo where there were a plethora of vendors and attractions related to the race. Also the guys had to get registered, get all their gear together and make sure they were fully prepared for the next day.

We saw some pretty neat things at the expo including Denise Austin, the work-out video lady. We also saw Dan and Dane from this season's Biggest Loser.

Friday was rather eventful with the dinner at our house with all of our great friends as well as Brent's aunt, uncle and their three kids from Birmingham. Their oldest daughter, MaryAnne was running the race so they came to support her.

As the night went on, we quickly realized something was terribly wrong with our air conditioner as the house continued to get warmer and warmer. Unfortunately, it would not work which made for a very balmy night's sleep.

Saturday morning came early - 4:15 to be exact as the guys started getting together and left our house around 4:30 to head downtown. It was a rough start to the morning as we had one camper that required a 2am drive around the town and another camper have a bad dream. (which actually we figured out later was really the beginning of an ear infection)

With just a few hours of sleep under their belts, we wished the boys well and they hit the road.

By 5:30 all the girls loaded up and followed suit to downtown. We had quite an eventful morning trying to determine the best spectator spot. We parked at the finish line, rode a "participant shuttle" to the start line and were fortunate enough to at least see Dusty on his way. Jimmy had already started with all the Kenyans and Brent was no where to be found.

We quickly determined we had quite the hike back to the finish line where we originally parked. I am pretty sure we hoofed about 4 miles that morning, babies in tow, with a cool 90+ degree temperature day.

We finally made it to the finish line, searched for Jimmy to no avail, then settled into a spot to watch for Brent. He rounded the corner on the last mile and looked fantastic! I was so proud of him. A few hours later, we all cheered on Dusty as he wrapped up his 5 hour, 26 mile trek.

We finally found Jimmy who had been finished for quite some time, but was walking aimlessly around searching for his "supporters." ha!

It was a great weekend, needless to say. Tackling many milestones: Brent completing his first half marathon (13.1 miles) in less than 3 hours and Dusty completing his first full marathon in less than 5 hours! We were very proud of all of them. (Even Jimmy, who hung with the Kenyans!)



There were RIDICULOUS lines pre-race to all of the port-o-toilets. We had to walk behind this huge long line and MAN did they stink!! I think it was safe to say there were a lot of nervous bellies... YUCK


This is hard to see, but these are some of the racers waiting to get to their spot on the start line. There were 31 corrals with 1,000 runners in each corral. They let them start every 2-3 minutes, so the start took over an hour for every runner to get through.

There's a guy in this pic without his shirt on, which was funny because Brent kept saying he was going to run shirtless because he couldn't find the right attire...


The girls waiting to see our guys.





The line of runners was infinite! I was amazing at how far down the street they were lined up.



Yep, more port-o-toilets...different spot...different line...same funky smell.




The official start line.


I could never find Brent, but I did find his corral number right before they crossed the start line. He's in there some where...






Brent - post-race after he changed out of his shirt. He just looked like a by-stander, all calm and cool. Other runners looked like they were going to die...literally!

All of the finishers:

Brent, Dusty (full) and Jimmy

This was the final cake I made for the week. A co-worker requested a birthday cake for her sons' birthday party. They are HUGE Gator Fans (bleh) so I tried to incorporate their fanatical behavior into the cake. They were having their party at a rec center, playing dodge ball and basketball so I tied that into the theme of the cake.

I made a cake for the Whitaker family for Christmas...





I also made a cake today for work for our end of the month celebrations...

Last, but definitely not least - we had a great visit to Chattanooga this past weekend. I took ZERO pictures, but all the memories are in my mind :) ha ha We started the weekend by going to watch my nephew play football on one very hot FALL morning. We ended up spending the entire day at my parents house afterwards playing card games and eventually sitting around a campfire in their backyard making s' mores. It was awesome!

Sunday we spent the day with the Whitakers at Brandi and JJ's and had a great time there as well. The boys are getting so big and have developed some very cute personalities! Brent and I had a great trip - it was probably the least stressful trip we've had to Chattanooga.

Now it's back to the work week carrying on life as usual in awesome Nashville! I hope everyone's getting to spend some time outside with this BEAUTIFUL weather we're having.

Hi-dy Ho Neighbors!

It's been a while since I've actually posted on anything "real" - other than cake! Not that anyone's complaining - especially my co-workers who get to eat all the cake I bring each week from class.

We had an eventful weekend - starting with Friday at the Sapp's house; they invited us over for pizza and games with their friends Marti and Chris. Both of which were in the wedding party, so we have gotten to all know each other these past few months.

On Saturday, Brent's parents came for a little visit to Nashvegas. We decided to hit up the TN State Fair - I had been told it was just "ok" and that was definitely our sentiments once we left. I thought that since it was our STATE fair that it would have been HUGE with LOTS of activities, but it wasn't. We saw the typical cattle, goats, some beautiful sheered sheep, chickens, crazy roosters, several guys with mullets, women wearing stuff they shouldn't have....so I guess, all in all it was your typical Fair!

We ate dinner at Genghis Grill - it was Brent's parents first time to partake in the gluttony of the "grill" and Brent and I haven't been in a while (I think we got burned out on it on all the trips we took to Nashville before we moved here; we used to eat there EVERY single time. Brad and Casey have recently told us they got SICK of taking us there...ha)

Brent's parents were even good sports and let us teach them how to play Rock Band. We all rocked out for about 2 hours then everyone zonked out in the bed.

Sunday we ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel (thinking of you every minute, Brittany ;) ) and they headed out on their own merry way.

We had a great visit!


Cake Class...

I was really looking forward to this week's cake - it was our first time to work with fondant. For those of you who are not cake people, fondant is that icing that is on all of the "designer" cakes. One girl in my class said that Martha Stewart single handedly make fondant popular. However, by NO means does my cake this week even closely resemble a Martha Cake! My mom's cake she made a few weeks ago for the baby shower that look like suitcases were made from fondant and the wedding cake she made for Casey was also fondant!

I did realize that I need to buy more food coloring as all my cakes are starting to resemble one another - robin egg blue, hot pink, hot yellow...ha ha oh well.

Oh and the design of this week's cake is already selected for us - we have to pretty much make the cake that our instructor tells us to. I'm not sure I would ever have a need for a cake with a big bow on top of it.


Anyway, here's my first fondant cake:



Next week we get to learn how to make roses from fondant and the following week is the MECCA of all cakes: we have to make a TIERED cake (think traditional wedding cake) with over 30 (yes, THIRTY) roses.

In other news...
I have surgery on my foot Thursday this week. I'm not a bit worried or concerned about it - for all of those who have been asking me that - just thinking about what recovery will be like, when I'll be off drugs, etc. I know it will all be ok - just pray for Brent :) He's taking Thursday, Friday and Monday off from work to be with me. I know he'll be BORED to tears, but he's a GREAT caretaker.
Thanks everyone for your kind words and thoughts for my surgery. Hopefully I can post about it later this week (if I'm on drugs, who knows what I'll say)

New UTC member...
Our friends Katie and Kevin had their little boy this week: Owen. While I haven't gotten to see pictures, I know he's a cutie pie (because he has great looking parents)

I've been thinking about taking a cake decorating class for quite some time now. I have a mom and sister who are extremely talented at cake decorating: my mom's been doing it for over 20+ years now and she is awesome. My sister has never taken any classes and just started doing it a few years ago and I must say has given my mom some competition!

Mom's definitely taken the family market on some amazing cakes. She recently made a cake for my grandfather's 80th birthday that looked like a tropical island, but I must say she is really starting to get awesome at wedding cakes. She's making 3 different wedding cakes over the next few months and I can't wait to see the outcome.

The business mind in me would love to capitalize on my family's talent and open a business, but neither my sister nor my mom are interested. In looking to the future of potential profitable businesses, I thought now is the best time to start learning this profession in case I want to have it as a possible business venture. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be posting about the grand opening of my very own bakery: Becca's Bountiful Bakery ... ok so maybe I need help in a creative name.

Anyway, I'm hoping I have inherited the cake decorating genes, so I'm trying it by taking a few Wilton classes.

I was a little concerned that I wouldn't enjoy it because I tend to be WAY too particular about projects like this (it takes me HOURS to complete a scrapbooking page because I want it to look just a certain way). But I must say, this first cake isn't the best, but I did actually enjoy it. You'll see there was a LOT of different decorating elements, but the whole point in making this one was for practice. So I did just that: I practiced pretty much every techinique we've learned so far on this one poor cake.

I've made a mental note to practice the writing. It's a LOT tougher than it appears.

Next week it's on to creepy clowns....and if you've never seen them, I'm sure the anticipation is KILLING you.