first order and swimming adventures!

as i mentioned previously, i got my first baked goods order from my mother in law, so tonight i did a run-through of the recipes to make sure that i have them down and yummy! she ordered an old-fashioned chocolate fudge pie (as seen in this post) and a lemon meringue pie (which i had not made before...hence, the run-through) i had to fiddle some with stove and mixer settings to get it right, but i think the pie turned out well! (we'll see for sure tomorrow when we try it at work) this was also the first time that i had to blind-bake a pie crust, and i'm going to need to work on that a little more b/c it shrunk a bit more than i would like it to. here are some pictures of the pie--in progress and completed

:

filled pie shell--i was surprised and the yellow-ness of it as there is no food coloring or jello or anything like that--purely from the lemon juice/zest and egg yolks!


with meringue--pre-baking


the finished product! lovely if i do say so myself!

i also made some red velvet cupcakes this week...oh so yum! the icing is heaven to me: 3 sticks of butter, cream cheese, & powdered sugar...oh my! it will kill you but it's delicious!

we had a fun time this weekend--we went to a pool party/cookout for our niece Hannah's birthday, and our sister in law has a pool so we decided to embark on a grand adventure and take butch swimming! now, in case you don't know much about bulldogs...the way that their little bodies are built is not condusive to swimming. their short little legs just can't keep their thick bodies and heads above the water, so owners are strongly advised to use a life jacket or risk seeing their "child" sink to the bottom of the pool (or lake, or whatever).

she was not amused.

we put her in the pool, and she was not happy at all! she immediately stuck her little tongue out of the side of her mouth...don't ask me why...but it seemed like she was concentrating very hard on not drowning!
(blurry f/m splashes)


every time that patrick let her go, she would speed like a little shark over to the edge of the pool and try to climb out--of course she couldn't b/c it is an above-ground pool. it was hilarious!

she greatly preferred the float and would actually relax a little bit in there.


we're going back on july 4th and i will be sure to get a video this time! when i took her out of the pool i swear she was cussing us out! she just sat on the deck and grumbled for about 10 minutes. she may not have liked it, but the water did her some good on such a hot day! and it definitely provided some great entertainment for the family!