wedding cake

Does anyone know where the tradition came from to freeze part of your wedding cake to eat on your first anniversary? It's an odd thing to do but fun at the same time. Last year my mom froze the top tier of our wedding cake (chocolate with raspberry filling, DELICIOUS!) and we thawed it last night to celebrate, a little late, our first anniversary. We had no idea if cake would even taste decent after a year in the freezer but surprisingly it did! I think fondet (fondent??) helps seal it to keep it from getting a lot of freezer burn. Whatever it was the cake was still delicious and even more enjoyable in the comfort of a home a year later when we could both savor eating it.

The best part for us of cutting in to our cake last night at my parents house was what we found hidden underneath. All my mom's family flew up from all over the world literally last summer to be at our wedding, the Burdine side that we just had the triennial family reunion with. Their big thing at Dave and Aimy's wedding was to hide $200 one dollar bills all over their house so they would find them in the weeks and months to come after their honeymoon. They literally were still finding $1 bills a year after their wedding, what a cool idea huh?

Since Ben and I lived in CA and they couldn't hide $1 bills all over our house they had people at our reception come up randomly and give us bills and they hid money in our honeymoon suit cases. Anyway, all that to explain we were REALLY surprised to find a final $1 bill hidden under our frozen wedding cake! Well done Burdines! I don't know how or when that got slipped there, I'm guessing during the reception but very creative! We loved finding it! What a fun family.

family time in WA

posing by a carved tree trunk at a local park











a picnic lunch at a local winery with Craig and Joan Probst, Craig is like a surrogate dad to Ben





the invisible green screen





the weather forecast for the evening looks sunny


We spent an afternoon with the Mitchells in MO before we flew back to CA to drive up the highway

I've managed to get behind again in my blogging in part because of our move to Alaska but also because I have misplaced my camera cable that lets me download pics in all the moving shuffle. Yep, I have no idea as of yet where my cable is but I am sure it will show up sooner or later. I have several pics to download but thought I'd put up a couple from our time with Ben's family in WA before we headed up the Alcan.

We got to spend two days with Ben's mom and Tim in Kennewick before heading to Spokane for 2+ days with his dad and Tina. Tim is a weatherman for a local news station in Kennewick and we got to crash his station one evening and do a little news shoot of our own, very fun! Thanks Tim! We also went shooting one afternoon with Dorothy and Tim . . . pistols this time. I'm improving my aim more and more. Hand guns are easier than rifles and shot guns b/c you having the "right fit" doesn't matter as much. We've already picked out "my" rifle that will come later down the road . . . a youth size that I can manage much easier than Ben's guns.

We enjoyed every minute of our time with family in WA. Thanks for being great hosts! I've got more WA photos that I'll post later when my camera cable shows up! :)