Motorcycle daze

For a friend's birthday I made a motorcycle cake in Harley Davidson colors. This is not my best work, working with black was very difficult. My icing was runny so the lettering on top was not nearly as good as it could have been but it tasted great and that's what counts.

A motorcycle cake hit close to home here at the Hoyt household as Nathan has recently become obsessed with the idea of having a Honda motorcycle. We only have one car right now and with the possibility of not being able to live so close to work again we are faced with the decision of whether or not to buy a new car. Nathan's argument is that the Honda he has been looking at only costs about $5,000 and gets about 40 mpg which I must admit is pretty good. While the idea of having a motorcycle frightens me I agreed to go to the dealership with him to have a look for myself.

Bunco at the Hoyt's

My friend Amanda and I joint hosted a Bunco group this Friday. We chose a luau theme for the party and purchased everything from palm tree pens to a coconut bra. For those of you unfamiliar with Bunco it is a dice game where the goal is to roll specific numbers for each round. If you roll the correct number for that round you get what's called a Bunco and usually get to wear whatever the Bunco prize is, usually a hat or something. Amanda and I decided to change things up and make the Bunco prize a coconut bra only when I received the bra in the mail it was terribly boring in appearance so I jazzed it up a bit. I added polka dot ribbon, flowers and a mini-grass skirt. I was worried that the bra would be a bit too riske but it was a huge hit. Women were practically fighting over. When another women rolled a Bunco the previous winner did not want to give the bra up.

I enjoyed my own round in the bra when I rolled my only Bunco of the evening


I made a special luau cake for the occasion using fondant that I hand painted. I made a hibiscus flower on top and used graham cracker crumbs for sand with white chocolate sea shells. I made a pineapple ambrosia filling to go in between the layers of vanilla cake and everyone loved it.


The party was a great success, all of the girls were laughing and teasing one another and the bra was a great conversation piece. I am going to miss my friends here very much.

All Captains on Deck!

Late last year Nathan's father generously offered us his old boat for the remainder of our stay here in Louisiana. We are only about 45 minutes from Toledo Bend which has pretty good Bass fishing. So we hauled the boat up to our place and got to work cleaning it up as best we could with soap, water and a lot of elbow grease...


Once "ol'yeller" (a nickname given to the boat by Nathan's father) was cleaned up we took her out to the lake and on our first trip she began to break apart a little in the front. For months Nathan has made do with her rotting wooden front deck and finally he has decided to do something about it. This past weekend was spent spending way too much money between a marine shop and Lowes (for the proper tools of course!). Giving the boat a brand new fiberglass front deck is the goal. Our neighbor's parents were in town this weekend but their son spent all weekend in the field so the father wandered over to our driveway Saturday and Sunday to help Nathan with his boat project. Nathan was glad to help out his friend by giving his father some company and in the process you will see our neighbors Dad in some of the photos I took. Here is the first day Nathan fished off the front deck, back in October, and noticed that it needed to be replaced



Using his new Skilsaw he cut out the new plywood deck and placed it in the boat to make sure it fit then he sanded down all of the edges





Bring forth the Epoxy and fiberglass coating!



Concentration requires some musical accompaniment folks



The next day he left town all week on business but I'm happy to report that the epoxy took beautifully to the wood and created a nice smooth finish. This weekend Nathan will be home again and he hopes to have it out on Toledo Bend by Monday (it's a four day weekend for us Yea!).

School's out it's Party Time!

Finals were brutal. I've conceded to the fact that I will have to take Chemistry again, not because I didn't pass (I did pass) but rather I have no idea HOW I passed. I got decent grades this semester but no Dean's list. Now I can focus on the move and hopefully getting some neglected scrapbooks finished.

Our neighbors and dear friends, the Miller's, have been asking us for a crawfish boil ever since the crawfish season started in late February. So, this weekend we hosted a crawfish boil on our front lawn and I passed out invites to all of our friends on our street. Our house is a prime location being at the end of a culdesac, everyone just walked down from their houses. Our neighbors set up a huge pool for all of the kids and we all contributed tables and chairs which we set up under the trees on our front yard. It was a beautiful day, 75 degrees with full cloud cover from the sun and a soft breeze. The kids were fascinated with the live crawfish and some made it home as "pets" Nathan did what he does best and cooked for everyone. Corn cobs, sausage and whole red potatoes went into the boil along with the crawfish. For some additional appetizers I made sweet pea salad and yeast rolls we also put hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill for the kids (and some girls who couldn't bring themselves to eat crawfish).

Once the party died down and some of the other couples went home we found ourselves with our neighbors and another great couple the Whites. The Whites have made us all addicted to weeknight card games with one another. I can't remember the last time I'd playing any sort of game so this was a welcome change. It's more fun to have something to do with your hands while you're sitting around talking with your friends. So that night, after we cleaned up the front lawn we headed inside. The kids watched movies and played video games while we sat around and played cards. The Whites were kind enough to bring their poker set with them so we started off with some good old Texas Hold'em poker. As the evening progressed we decided everyone would take turns teaching a new card game to the rest of us. Nathan's game "Bourae" pronounced boo-ray was the favorite new game of the night and best of all it included betting. We don't play for real money but it's fun all the same.

To top off an already great weekend Nathan and I used our "stimulus" check from the government and purchased a grill we've been wanting for several months.

We like to call him R2-D2

Derby Day

Derby Day 2008!

Our friends, natives of Kentucky, hosted an awesome Derby party this weekend. All of the guests paid money into the pot and drew random horses out of an envelope.


Of course, I baked for the occasion making a traditional Derby Pie which was so delicious that I couldn't get a picture of before it was nearly devoured.



Aaron, one of our hosts, mixed up Mint Juleps which apparently everyone drinks at the track that day, boy those will clear your sinuses!





I was lucky enough to pull Big Brown's name out of the envelope and won the jackpot. Those of us who had such high hopes for Pyro kept asking one another "what happened with Pyro?" "What place did he finish in?" The big joke of the night was that he was still somewhere on the track running, trying to finish. He really got smoked out there! Nathan commented that sometimes these horses that do so well before the derby are only running against 10 or 12 other horses and at the Derby the field gets so packed that they just get lost in the shuffle.

We had such a great time we stayed up late with our hosts and played cards into the night.



There were several threats of playing for money so people could win back some money but in the end I got to keep my jackpot. A lot of good it did though as Aaron and Nathan spent all afternoon the next day spending the forty dollars shooting at the skeet range.