Monday, March 22, 2010

Worth the Weight.


Carleton and I missed Taylor turning 2 when we were in Charleston, but we were here when Weston was born three days later on Friday, March 12th. We stayed with the other three kids for the weekend until Jes and Phillip came home Sunday afternoon. Mom and baby are well and we're so excited to have the newest addition to our family, Weston Hyrum Bush. For more pictures visit my picture blog.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Charleston.

Are you ready for a picture overload, because if you look through this whole post, that's exactly what you're gonna get!

Day 1 we didn't take any pictures, I just thought wow it's so beautiful, I'd love to do a bridal shoot down here sometime! We walked to beach, it was a little to chilly for my liking, then we went to Ft. Moultrie, Carleton climbed on a cannon and scoped out cannons big enough to put Tessa in. That night we went to Poe's for dinner, it's mainly a burger joint named after Edgar Allen Poe and his burgers are named after his writings.

Day 2:
Here we are on top of Ft. Sumter, this was one of Carleton "must do" items. Interesting fact, the Civil War was started on April 12 (Carleton's bday), 1861 at Ft. Sumter!
Here we are on the Ferry leaving Ft. Sumter. On the way there we saw a TON of dolphins alongside the boat jumping beside us, when we were standing in the back there was one following us he kept popping his head up and blowing air out of his blow hole, so cute!
After Ft. Sumter we went downtown with John and Jack, had lunch at Sticky Fingers which was really yummy! We got BBQ and peach cobbler, mmmmm. I want some right now! Shortly after, we decided to split so John could go meet his wife and everyone else while we did a little sightseeing for ourselves. We walked a LOT.
I couldn't decide which way I liked the fountain better, what do you think?
Carleton was in love with the cobblestone roads
I'm not sure where we are in all these places...battery park maybe? Kristin, Carleton...a little help here?
I wanted some fun silhouette shots of the birds, but they were all pretty much gone by the time we got to them (there were dozens more just seconds earlier).
Carleton took this picture, I love the leading lines:)
Sitting, waiting for the rest of our group
Carleton told me all about the Hunley about 15 times by the time we ran into this so he HAD to get a picture, he is very excited to show his dad and see if he knows what it is.
When we were planning our trip, Allison whipped out her 1,000 places to go throughout the US and Canada, among those must visit places was Charleston. It gives you some things to do while there, one was to eat at Bowens Island Restaurant. We saw the menu, Carleton was sold from "Big Old Seafood Platter". Don't let the fact that this restaurant has a website fool you, it doesn't seem like a very legal establishment! We were a little ways behind the Gochnours, Ted was following the directions the GPS was giving us, even after it turned us onto a dirt road. We saw the Gochnours up ahead turning around saying they went a little further and there was pretty much no way a restaurant was up there. Well we ended up driving all the way down this dirt road and to our astonishment, there was a "restaurant" there. By restaurant I mean a place to order, then down wooden bridge/short boardwalk type thing, a wooden shed with netting over the "windows" and and heaters throughout. There was a black dog that kept walking by our table while we ate. I'm not even sure if there was a bathroom...outhouse maybe? Carleton recorded some of our drive back to the main road, but got bored with talking to himself so stopped before we even hit it. That's how long of a drive it was on the dirt road! I've tried posting the video for the past two days and after using a different web browser, it finally worked, ugh. Anyway...after we left Allison decided to fill us in on the fact that she saw a big rat by the ice bucket when we were ordering...good thing we got bottled waters! Aside from oysters they only served fried food, my crabcake had an entire crab claw in it. To their credit, it was quite the experience and they had mighty good fried shrimp! I wanted to wear my little black dress to dinner that night, SO glad I didn't get the chance to go back to the hotel and change!
Just part of the oyster massacre outside of the restaurant, it goes on a ways in both directions!

Day 3: Another of Carleton's "must do" list was the USS Yorktown...so here we are in that... it was a little complex
and just my size
but not Carleton's
The last thing a bird sees and the expression it makes before it dies


The stairs were SO narrow, my heels are pushed all the way back!

He got really into this, there are 5 other pictures of him doing different action shots
I just got in
Like I said, he LOVES this stuff and gets really into it.
That's the Yorktown and battleship behind us

The submarine was even smaller, we both had a hard time getting through those doorways
Boone Hall Plantation, the last stop on our trip. Can anyone...aside from Kristin and those that went on our trip name the movie that was filmed here...ok there's more than one, but it's a chick flick and it's only part of the movie, but still.
This is the oldest living, working plantation, and the most photographed! Here is Carleton showing us some cotton.
Our whole fabulous group!
Ted and Tessa in this picture=postcard material
We loved these trees
and this one
Here's the house...
John and Melanie
and their munchkins, Jack and Jonah
Jonah and Tessa
Ted, Allison, and Tessa
and of course, as to not disappoint any of our loyal readers, we will seal this post with a kiss :*


Monday, March 1, 2010

Baby Cake.






Jesica is due with her 4th baby (a boy) in just a few weeks. She's been in need of a day out with the girls so one of the women in her ward and I put together and luncheon for her. We all got together at Chili's, chatted, ate, opened a few presents and had a great time. I made a carseat canopy for her with the colors she picked out, thanks to Ali for the pattern! I'll post a picture when she gets it on her carseat. Chantel (the very talented woman who taught me how to make the cookies) and I started planning on making a cake for this luncheon with a baby theme. She showed me some pictures and we decided on a block cake. All the cakes were made when I got there Friday just before 5:30, so we started filling the middle with yummy raspberry sauce, dark chocolate, and buttercream frosting, YUM! After making sure they were all perfect cubes (some of the tops had to be cut off since the filling in the middle made them a little rectangular) we started coloring the fondant. There were lots of colors we had to make. Some time along the way I cut my hand (I was using just a smooth rolling pin with rubber bands on the side, so don't ask me how) so Chantel and i switched jobs. I went to covering each side of the blocks while she rolled the fondant out (she was a lot better at that than me, I kept making it stick to the surface, oops!) A few hours, and a lot of delicious buttercream frosting, later we finally got to do the detailed decorating, that didn't work out so well and it was already after midnight, so we decided to switch all the very tiny detailed cutouts for the big letters, planes, bottles, etc. I think it turned out really cute though and we had a lot of fun. I was home and in bed just before 2:00am, but I learned a lot and had a great time. Thank you SO MUCH, Chantel for showing me the ropes, and letting me get a lot of hands on experience!


The top "B" block and the bottom "Y" block are the ones I decorated, when I told Carleton he said, "oh wow that's really cute", then I pointed out the tarheel I put on top of one of them and he said yeah, that part's not so cute. I know he thinks it is, biased as he may be!

PS- I start my first cake decorating class tonight!