The Vances

The Vances
The crew

Friday, October 31, 2008

Fabulous Follies

This month I did some incredibly stupid things!  They were dumb enough to take pictures of so that you could all have a good laugh.  

The first grand idea I had was to try out a new chocolate cake recipe hours before my book club would be arriving to eat it.  All was going well with my two layer cake of fat and sugar when I made my first mistake, I didn't wait for the top layer to cool before putting it on the bottom layer.  It promptly split in half.  Next I mixed up the yummy frosting and
 didn't think to check the consistency before I put it on the broken cake.  It just oozed all over the cake and onto the plate.  AAAhhh, what was I to do?  I had no backup plan.  Then I got a brilliant idea.  I sliced the cake onto the plates so that no one would see the finished project and drizzled frosting and cherry pie filling on top to make it look like I meant for it to be that way.  Can you tell?

The next folly I blame on the fact that in the almost 10 years that Richard and I have been married, this home is the first where we have had a dishwasher.  To make a long story short, we ran out of  dish detergent and so I thoughtlessly put another type of detergent in the
compartment...






At least Tide smells really nice.







Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bloodshot Eyeball Party




Our oldest had a birthday recently.  He is such a clever boy.  He came up with all the ideas for the games and directed me as to how to frost the cupcakes.  He loves to take 
charge and use his creativity.






This is the "put the bloodshot eyeball on the skeleton face" game.  It was made by the birthday boy himself.

Monday, October 27, 2008

A Day at the Clark"s Farm




Our oldest has amazing scout leaders.  We were invited to go to his leaders farm and churn butter, make cider, eat doughnuts, feed animals and tour the property.  I was so amazed at how self-reliant they are.  They grow so much food and can it all!!  Nothing goes to waste.  The scraps go to the animals or into the compost.  It was great to see the kids learning so much.

The Corn Maze




We live really close to Kruse Farms where they grow and sell great produce.  During the fall they plow paths through the corn stalks and make a really fun corn maze.  Here are some photos of our outing in the maze.


This was just one of the many fun family things we have done here in Roseburg.


I Dream of Jeannie



Richard and I were invited to a halloween party and assigned to come dressed as Jeannie and Major Tony Nelson.  I had an interesting time trying to sew a costume.  That is more my big sister Michelle's talent, and boy was I wishing she lived next door when I started cutting and sewing.  Of course the sewing machine stopped working in the middle of the project and so the stitches were terrible.  Then when I tried the shirt on the seams were ripping because I think I am smaller than I really am.

In the end I got the costume put together, mostly with hot glue and pins.  I got so many compliments and everyone was just as surprised as I was that I had sewn it myself.  I even won an award for the best look-alike and got to take a trophy home.  The best thing of the night was that the people I had just met didn't have to remember my name, they could all just call me Jeannie.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Richard Rocks!!

Have any of you found yourselves using your spouse as a crutch?  Richard is insanely good at anything computer or money related, hence I do nothing for myself in these areas that he can do for me.  He is constantly giving me fish and offering to teach me to fish.  But, I say to myself, I already have enough on my plate (pun intended), I will just let you keep fishing for me, I don't want to know how to fish.  However, as I write these very lines I hear so many older and wiser voices telling me that I should be self-reliant in these areas.  I say to you all, YOU ARE TOTALLY RIGHT.  Does that change anything?  No.  

Hence, I have Richard to thank for creating this blog for me.  I have to give myself some of the credit though.  I did sit by his side and manage the project (in a very bossy voice of course.)  And I came up with the cool name.