What A Weekend

This week was a little crazy for me. About 6 weeks ago I got called into the primary presidency and was told I would be in charge of writing the primary program. Writing a program for kids from the age of 4-11 is quite an interesting task. We have about 115 kids that are active. Trying to get each one of them a part and keep the program under 40 minutes was quite a task when the songs they sang took up about 20 minutes. Well... the program was Sunday and it went perfectly!! I am so grateful for all the people that helped manage chaos and especially the music leaders who did such an amazing job with those kids.
So if the primary program wasn't enough... I had a huge cake week. I had entered into a wedding cake competition for the Utah Chocolate Show. It was a really fun experience, but a lot of extra stress for such a busy weekend. The winner got $500 and guess what?????? drum roll please..... I didn't win.

I felt my cake was pretty darn creative and I was happy how it turned out, but the judges hated it. Yup.. they actually told me there was nothing about my cake they liked. They hated the concept of a chocolate fountain... they thought it was a terrible idea and I would have been judged a higher score without the fountain. (and they said this all to my face) So... I guess my chocolate fountain was not that great of idea. Oh well.... you win some - you lose some. Luckily... one of the judges did say she thought my cake tasted fabulous so at least that was something going for me. I'd hate to own a cake business and have crappy tasting cakes. (I guess I just have crappy looking cakes) -- ha, ha. Even though the judges didn't love my cake, I was still happy with it. I thought it was a fun idea.

My next couple cakes were not for competition.. but for clients. Luckily, I didn't get the same response from these two cakes. They were actually the opposite effect. Nothing makes creating a cake more rewarding than when you can see the excitement and emotion in people's faces. These two cakes had that effect. One cake was for a little girls birthday. I didn't get to deliver this one, but Brian said she kept wanting to hold it and she couldn't stop staring. I love it when that happens!!

My next cake was probably one of the funnest deliveries I have ever had. The party was for a ladies 75 birthday party that her kids threw for her. Her cake was decorated with figurines of all her grandkids doing things they were interested in and the birthday girl on top. It was so much fun to see all the family members come up and crowd me as I was putting all the figurines on the cake. They would say... "Oh look, it's you Sarah" "Hey, there are the twins", "Oh look at Hannah" etc, etc. Then all of a sudden I look behind me and I have about 6 people taking pictures of the cake and the birthday girl showing her guests her cake with her grandkids on it. Oh my gosh.. it was really fun. It's rewarding to do a cake when it's so customized to the client and they appreciate your work. It was a pleasant change from the judges of the cake competition.

(click on picture to see a larger image)

So... needless to say... this past week was insane and there were several sleepless nights. I was so grateful that all I had to do today was blog and hang out with my kids.