Love Day

Another Love Day has come and gone and once again I am exhausted. Valentines week is another one of those weeks that I am crazy busy. This year I decided to torture myself a little more and decided to do a wedding cake and a grooms cake along with my work things. I know. I'm crazy. I just can't say no. One thing I do love making for valentines day are these heart meringues. I just love them. They are so cute and they taste good too. 

Each year the country club has a dinner for valentines day. For the first few years I just made cakes that they cut and served. Last year we changed it up and made individual desserts. I guess people like them because I was able to make 150 of them this year. I am really happy at the way they turned out. The first one I made was a lemon raspberry parfait. It had crushed shortbread on the bottom and top, fresh raspberries and strawberries, raspberry lemon cheesecake and lemon curd. It was topped with a meringue heart. 

The second dessert was a repeat from last year. It was french vanilla chocolate chip ice cream in a white chocolate cup. When I was told to do this again I wasn't very excited. I do not have an ice cream machine at work so I have to make it the old fashioned way by freezing it 2 hours stirring it, then freezing it for 2 hours, then stirring over and over. It tastes wonderful, but it has a different texture then store bought ice cream. It is much more icy. Well I got a great surprise. They surprised me with an ice cream machine. It is so wonderful. I was so excited. I have been asking for one for two years and I finally got it. There will now be ice cream on the menu every week. 

The third dessert was a brownie mousse cake. It's a brownie topped with milk chocolate mousse covered in chocolate ganache. It was good. I messed up one and had to eat it. Oh darn. After the first seating it sold out. I guess I can count on it being on the menu next year. 

After getting the dinner desserts ready saturday morning I delivered my wedding and grooms cake in Roanoke. I ran home at 12:00 to finish the cakes and had to be out the door by 1:40. At one o'clock I get a phone call from the mother of the bride asking where the cake was. I almost died. I had written that the reception was at 4pm. Well..... it was. She thought I was going to drop the cake off that morning at 10 when the florist was there. She was supposed to leave flowers for me to put on the cake, so I didn't want to be there before her. I wasn't planing on being there until 2:30, so I guess she misunderstood. At that point my nerves were shot. Luckaly andy and my mother in law where coming with me and were able to help.  I'm not sure I would have made it through the door without them. Well, we made it on time. The venue was beautiful. It was in an old house that they have turned into a bed and breakfast. The room was set up so beautiful. I told Andy if I ever had to do an event this is where I would want to do it. The bride thought it would be fun to surprise the groom with a grooms cake. He is an EMT for the Roanoke fire department so I made a cake that looked like the fire truck he drives.  

I also thought it would be fun to put little characters of the bride and groom in front of the fire truck. 

Here is the wedding cake. She wanted big and she got big. I can't take credit for the design. She brought in a picture from a magazine and I just copied it. 

Now, I thought this was really cool. Instead of having little favors made up for people to take home, they had this candy bar with little bags so you could make your own. I have seen candy bars, but never one that you made into favors. Isn't that such a great idea. 
After all the running around Rachel took us to Heavenly Ham for lunch which I love. I mean I love it. Heavenly ham is something I crave all the time. It is just so awesome. Thanks Rachel for all the help. After the day was done we went to my parents house to say hi and got there just in time to see Chris Rider and his girlfriend Amber (she goes to BYU in Utah) off to a military ball that was going on that night. They are the cutest couple. So in love. After sending them off we decided to go out to dinner. We learned by 7:30 on valentines day that restaurants are crazy full. Well, the nice restaurants that is, but not Taco Bell. Yes, we had taco bell for dinner. The nice thing was we didn't have to wait. Just drove up, ordered, payed, drove away, noticed like always they messed our order up and took it back to my parents house to eat. I had to put a picture of my dad eating. 
That is a burrito. First my dad trying to just open it and eat the insides out and I told him that was just wrong. You have to have respect for the burrito. Well, he then made it into an burrito Popsicle. I'm not sure which was worse, but it was funny. 
Last, but not least, I am going to give a shout out to the love of my life, since it's Love Day and everything ( It's a little late, but I've been busy). Andy is the love of my life. I love the Stevie Wonder song "I love you more today than yesterday." To me that's what my marriage is. I love Andy "more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." I love you Andy. Happy Love Day.