Julie & Peace

Tonight when Isabelle was colouring she said “Mummy, I’m going to colour this peace sign purple.” I said OK. Then, I asked how she knew it was a peace sign – she said Julie told her about peace signs. Julie babysat Isabelle last year but she is studying in France now – one of the few downsides to the school, the graduating students have to be a long way from their families to continue their education. I think Isabelle misses seeing her around the school – remember when you were little and one of the ‘big’ kids actually spoke to you – it was pretty cool, right?

Anyway, Paul pipes up that Dar Williams sings an appropriate song (well, not all of it!). So here it is, and maybe Julie will see it and think of Isabelle. Hmmm, maybe Isabelle should draw a picture to send to Julie – remember when you were at college and got real mail – that was pretty cool too!

Isabelle’s Birthday Cake

Hard to believe I have a 6 year old! And there is no doubt – she has had 5 celebrations this year – two in Nova Scotia before her birthday, one at school on her birthday, one at home on her birthday and today a joint party with her classmate Dorian at our pool. Unfortunately, Paul missed every one – but don’t feel too sorry for him, check out his latest blog entry!

Anyway, channelling Tante Rhea and with A LOT of help from Google and Radia I made the cake for today. I wanted to make something appropriate for both a boy and a girl and to tie in the pool party was also a goal. So, here it is – thanks to Radia also for taking pictures of the making of the cake.

 

2 – 9 x13 chocolate cake (Radia says not chocolate cake, it is so hard to frost with white icing. She was right!

Cut out a chunk out of the top cake

 

Line the hole with a thin layer of fondant.

 

Prepare two boxes of blue Jell-O with half the water.

Ice the top and sides of the cake or start to make such a mess of it that Radia does it for you! THANK YOU RADIA, you are a lifesaver!

 

Pour Jell-O into the hole. I used less than half.

 

So, do you see it now?

 

And on to the fun part.

In retrospect, I wouldn’t do the fondant/Jell-O part the day before.

 

The cake decorated – the lane dividers didn't really work – they rolled around too much (I needed a Paul solution.)

  

You can see where the fondant dissolved overnight – I don't think the kids noticed though!

 

Dorian was quite anxious to get to the cake part – I hope he liked it.

 

The birthday girl and boy – Valerie (Dorian's mother) got this great picture of them blowing out the candles.

Addendum to the Mice

I mentioned in my post that it was cold when Dawn visited and that she had taken some pictures to illustrate how cold it was. She was kind enough to forward a few to me so here is the fountain at the Westin Poinsett Hotel in downtown Greenville. The first picture was taken about a week before the others.

 

   

Looking Back – February 2009

When I look back at my blog from last February I did pretty well covering our activities but I did miss one thing. Isabelle’s school held an international dinner to recognize the almost 20 different nationalities represented at the school. As a Canadian with Scottish, Irish and even distant Italian roots, I probably wouldn’t have too much to share beyond what was already represented but luckily I married an Acadian so the decision was easy we would make rapure (rappie pie). Since two great friends have written about making rapure with Paul, I will leave to them to get into the details (Taryn's Blog and Radia's Blog). Suffice it to say when all that was left but old potatoes and meat, Paul’s Acadian ancestors concocted this meal to get them through the end of the cold, hard winter. With Taryn, Paul could use pre-packaged grated potato available in the freezer section of a lot of Nova Scotia grocery stores but here in South Carolina we have to make it from scratch - well almost, he uses an electric juicer to remove the starch and water from the potatoes.

For the dinner, the children were also invited to wear traditional clothes if they had them. Paul’s parents had visited just before the dinner and his mom came prepared to make an Evangeline outfit for Isabelle.  So here she is dressed as a petite Acadienne.

 

Margaret Wise Brown in Greenville

Well, not really. For those of you wondering who Margaret Wise Brown is  - remember that gentle book of a little bunny going to bed with the simple illustrations by Clement Hurd. We read it to Isabelle almost every night for the first couple years and as she grew older she loved to look for the mice hidden throughout the book.

In downtown Greenville, nine bronze mice have been hidden – high and low – which is great entertainment for Isabelle. The original project has been supplemented by a book and t-shirts. We always look for the mice but until Dawn visited earlier this month we had never gone downtown with the express purpose of finding all the mice. We printed the hints for finding the mice from the Mice on Main website and headed downtown. Isabelle found all 9, with a few hints – even some from Maggie who seemed particularly good at finding them.

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Now, you may notice Isabelle’s attire. Dawn visited South Carolina for 10 days (both in Greenville and on the coast) and it was freezing while she was here. And I don’t mean the “I have moved to the south and can’t remember what cold is” kind of cold. I MEAN COLD – it was actually colder here than in Nova Scotia while she was here! The downtown fountains were even frozen – I didn’t get a pictures but Dawn did so maybe she will send me one to post (hint, hint).

Now we are back to more normal temps and even had a picnic on Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)!

Looking Back – January 2009

Since I am not the best blogger and obviously have missed lots of opportunities, I thought I would try to share some of the things we have done in the last year along with our current activities.

A year ago, my parents were here visiting. They arrived just after New Years and stayed a couple of weeks. It was my dad’s first visit and my mom’s second. Since then they have been back two more times and we are waiting for another visit so we can check out dad’s new car!  While they were here we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway which, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is beautiful no matter what the season. Here the clouds are pouring from one side to the other and you can just see the silver frost on the trees.

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Mum and dad’s visits include work as well. Dad recovered a chair and a chaise for us last January and both of them spend some quality time with both Isabelle and Maggie.

Notice how comfortable Maggie is, some of you might remember when she wouldn’t even go near my dad – she finally figured out that she has a good thing there!