Your Favorite Cupcake

FOOD POISONING.

It was food poisoning. Boo. My brother had that on Christmas Eve morning too. But now my hubby is feeling much better. Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes. :)

OKAY! (I'm loving the caps today) So the wedding cake is still up in the air...but there is a distinct possibility that I COULD be making a cupcake wedding cake with my sister-in-law.


Look how cute that is!

So I have a question for you. Obviously the bride and groom (and the bride's mother) get the final say, but I want to know...

What's your favorite cupcake and/or cupcake filling?

Mmmm...cupcakes. :)

I also just want to thank God for today. I hope that you can have a great day too!

Sick

But it's not me. Steve woke up every few hours starting at 1am, throwing up and such. :( He's NEVER sick, so I think that maybe he has something like dengue fever or the plague. He's at the doctor right now and I hope that he knows what's going down. He was supposed to go to a CPA conference today, but he could barely stand up this morning.

Feel better, sunshine!!

My Sweet Spot

Look at all those cute little faces!!

Random side note: Our kitty is back! Steve's co-worker Trudy and her daughter have been watching Vindaloo for almost a month while we were running around. So Vindaloo is back home and sleeping on my pillow and chewing my hair at 3:30 in the morning (I'm still jet-lagged and I was up) and playing with the little thingy that keeps our milk fresh at 6:30am.

I was reading A.R.K. for God before I left for Hong Kong and I decided that, after reading an excerpt from Max Lucado's Cure For The Common Life, that I wanted to read the book.

The goal of the book is to find the gifts that God created you with, how to make a big deal of God with those gifts, and to take a leap of faith with those gifts.

I think I found the things that may help me find my 'Sweet Spot' as he calls it in the book:

-I love researching
-I love organizing (but, apparently, not my apartment...mainly events)
-I love children
-I love foreign cultures and foreign foods

It's interesting. I always said that I NEVER wanted kids, but I've always been good with kids and...don't let this sound weird, they've always been 'attracted' to me. Here's an example: I'm sitting on the train with my friend when I went to school in England (I was...probably 20 at the time.) and we're just talking. A little boy, maybe 2-years-old comes over and pulls himself up on the seat beside me. His mother is slightly freaking out. So I kind of talked to him and he kept calling me 'lady.' He started playing with my purse and I 'played' with him. (I didn't touch him. You don't touch a stranger's kid, but I just kind of opened pockets and stuff on it in a peek-a-boo type thing) And she put him in his stroller after 10 minutes WAY before we got in the station, but I think it freaked her out that her kid just came and plopped down by me. And I just thought it was a funny story, but I have a handful of stories like that...that I never really put together.

I'm trying to find out what I'm meant to do in my life with the gifts that God has given me. I think I'm using some of them, but maybe not to my full potential. I know that Steve worries a lot and he's afraid of things, but I know that when God needs us to move or to do something scary, that we'll be able to do it together, hand in hand (and obviously with a little help, you know. ;) The Big Guy.)

So what's your sweet spot? What were you made to do and do you think you've found it?

A Question For You

So it's not definite yet, but I might be making a wedding cake with my sister-in-law.

ACK! There is definitely a wedding on March 20th for my brother-in-law.

We're thinking of a cupcake cake...maybe like this?:

(But that's a professional cake, so it wouldn't look so spectacular!)

Or I might even...need to learn fondant!!! Which totally scares the crap out of me.

I was wondering...have you ever made a wedding cake? Or anything for someone's wedding? Have you ever used fondant and is it hard?!

And welcome back to the work week!

My Statistics

I was all sorts of excited for this post when I was on the plane! I know...because I'm a huge dork. So here are my statistics for this last trip.

Number of Countries Visited: 3
Number of Languages Spoken in These Countries: 100+
Number of People Who Asked Us About President Obama: 3


Their tag line was 'Want good food? YES WE CAN!' Oh, Philippines.

Number of new foods tried: 5
1. Longganisa (Philippine sausage)
2. Beef tapas
3. Pork tocino
4. Daing na bangus (salted and dried milkfish!)
5. Himalayan yak cheese (We went to a Nepalese restaurant)


Daing na bangus!

Number of arks built to biblical standards in the world: 1
Number of arks that I visited in Hong Kong: 1


The world's only biblically-sized ark! It is HUGE. I can totally see how Noah got all the animals in there.

Number of times I was patted down at an airport: 9

The Philippines are...some what dangerous? There were some kidnappings and...terrorist murders the week before we left. So before you could enter the airport, they patted you down. Then you went into security and they patted you down again. Then I was patted down in Vancouver before being allowed to get back on our plane to New York.

Number of movies watched on airplanes: 4
Number of TV shows watched on airplanes: 6
Number of hours it took to get to our resort in the Philippines: 12
Number of times I want to go back to Kalibo Airport: 0

Number of sea horses used in the medicine for my sister's boyfriend's father: 10+


Traditional Chinese medicine. There is a gecko on there, as well as shark's fins.

Woohoo!! Other side notes: my brother scuba dived in the path of a jellyfish and got a nasty rash all over his face, a woman we think was either mentally unstable or had Turrets (but there is reason to think that she didn't) swore at us in both English and Cantonese, I ate more food out of a toilet, we spent New Year's Eve in Macau at a Cirque de Soleil show, and realized how out of shape I'm getting.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So how are you doing? I'm good, just tired. I've seen that everyone was posting, but I was unable to read them. I need to go back and do that.

Also, it appears that there is some MAJOR craziness going on in the life of my brother-in-law and he's taking it in stride, but he's SUPER stressed. Could you please pray for him? Also, if you could, visit Arise 2 Write, there's a prayer request there too.

Dear Terrorists

Dear Terrorists,

Please. Just stop.

I know what you think you're doing is right, but it's not. And I could go into all the ways what you're doing is wrong, but the one that concerns me the most right now is that you're a security risk and you COMPLETELY screw with my travel plans.

I understand the need for security, but when I've been on a plane for over 10 hours, awake for over 24 hours, and have to have someone searching the waste band in my underwear, I get grouchy.

And I want to come and punch you in your terrorist-head.

So please. Can you do us ALL a favor and stop messing up our FAA security measures?!

Sincerely,
A Tired Traveler.

I hope that everyone is well!! I've missed you! Back home and completely exhausted. :) How are you doing?

Hong Kong and Macau

Hi guys! Our flight is at 1am (noon EST), but here are some pictures. From the Modern Toilet (the toilet diner), Zaia (Cirque de Soleil show where we rang in the New Year in Macau), and Noah's Ark (The world's only Biblically-proportioned ark! It's built in cubits)