A bit of a reflective mood today...

Youngest daughter blowing out her 6 year candle on the cake she decorated!!!
Happy Birthday Love!

So today is my youngest daughter's 6th birthday and I am just baffled by this. When did all of those years pass and where did they go? Yah, I have a bunch of memories but not my little baby girl! She was one of those little ones that just fit perfect...right up until now. I find that I have to move my head to hold her comfortably where as just a few minutes ago she just snuggled right in.

I always bake the girls a cake for their birthday celebration with us and their big treat is to be able to decorate it however they want to. This year my youngest one wanted a layer cake with strawberries and white icing. I ended up using a box cake (yep...with everything that I have going on it was easiest also she wanted a confetti cake). I did make the icing twice. The first one was the 7 minute frosting. Note to self-do not attempt egg white frosting in Florida in the summer time! Ended up with a powdered sugar icing that worked just fine.

We decided to have her birthday party last night with just us. We have orientation for the girls at school tonight and it would have been to rushed. What does a 6 year old care as long as she has cake and presents!!! For her special dinner she wanted steamed clams. Pretty cool huh? So we had a 100 clams (I swear she ate 50 herself), steak, potatoes, and salad...oh yah and cake too!

Anyway another thing that has made me reflective, and I feel so sick when I really think of this, but I need to put it out there, 4 years ago today we returned to our home after evacuating during Hurricane Charley to find our home destroyed.

We lost our roof which in turn means that you have lost everything inside. I lost photos, keepsakes, furnitures and all sense of security in my home. It was such a sad time for us. We had to move out of our house for 6 months while the whole interior was gutted and rebuilt. I'd like to tell you that it is better and stronger than ever but I will never trust this house again. 4 years later I still have not wavered from that! Oh sure the house looks way better than it did. Who gets the opportunity to totally remodel your house from top to bottom??? I guess what I realized was that a house is just sticks and stones it's what's inside that is important!

We evacuate for every threat. Pack up the car with our emergency bag that is packed from the beginning of hurricane season, load up the dogs and head away from the threatened area. Is this hard? Oh yah, but not as hard as staying. People lost there lives during that storm. 29 deaths can be attributed to Charley. I know what can happen first hand but at least we were safe. It scares me to think how lucky we were.

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com