Stars and piñatas forever

Rooting for the good ol' US of A during the Olympics has put me into a patriotic mood lately. So I submit to you a few pictures of piñatas and birthday cakes as quintessential Americana to help bolster your national pride. It's not that cakes and piñatas are more inherently American than other things. We all know that the tradition of breaking piñatas came from Mexico, and the fount of all knowledge (Wikipedia) has taught me that birthday cakes originated with the Romans. But if you think about it, nothing is more American than taking someone else's culture and acting like we've been doing it all along.


Marci and I made a piñata for Caleb for his birthday because he always said that the piñatas were broken by the little kids before his turn came up at the family parties when we were younger. Strong Bad was a natural choice because he has the most balloon-shaped head out of anyone.


Hey batter, batter, swwiiiingg batter!!!!




We made this cake for our friend Lindsay's birthday. The fro was made out of little cupcakes, and the pick was, ...um, just a pick. You can't really see it in the picture, but the grill on the teeth says Happy B-Day.



I know this last one strays slightly from my theme of piñatas and birthday cakes, but I had to put it in. This is our actual wedding cake. Marci's cousin made it for us, and it turned out awesome! The base was made out of Twinkies around a real cake, with Lil' Debbie brown and white cupcakes at the very bottom. Then it goes ho-hos, red zingers, yellow Hostess cupcakes, and orange Snowballs. The bride and groom at the top are Han Solo and Princess Leia.

How not to do it

Yesterday, in the listlessness of summer afternoon's languor (that sounds really poetic right? I got that from the inside of one of those Dove Chocolate wrappers), I decided that it was the perfect time to take my longboard for a tour of the neighborhood. At the end of my ride, I realized that I was going way faster than I was used to (and yes, my normal speed is somewhere between wussy and three-legged goat). So I did what any quick-thinking person would do in my situation. I decided to launch my body off the board, and then use said body to stop the board.
The following is an inventory of the new holes in my clothing/appendages:
New running shoes - 1
Cargo shorts - 1
Ankle - 2
Leg - 2
Hand and forearm - 6
My red shirt from Savers that I think says "We came to party" in Danish - 17

Hot chicks...

As Marci can attest to, I get giddy like a school-girl when I can see cool wildlife up close. A couple of weeks ago, I found a nest of quail just behind our patio that were in the process of hatching. By the time I got the camera, they were already trying to get out of their nest.

I like to think that the little slip that the first quail does is, in fact, one quail giving his little quail brothers a flying elbow-drop. That's right buddy, you show them who is going to be calling the shots around here. Then, why don't you just step on someone's head to make sure that they got the point. Well done.

This was only about five minutes after they hatched. It's awesome how far they jump. I'm sure what he was thinking was: "Walking was so two-minutes old; that's baby stuff."