Is it July already? Okay, so we're halfway through July almost. So what if 2005 hasn't been the year of blogging for me. I'll be sure to add it to my list of New Years resolutions in about 5 and a half months.

Did everyone have a good 4th? I sure as heck did. You would've, too, if you had spent it at the place there in that picture. That cabin right there belongs to Michael's parents. They just finished it a couple weeks ago (or I should say almost finished...still needs a few things here and there done), and I must say that it is AWESOME. It took this picture from the dock...this house overlooks Reelfoot Lake. We fished morning, noon, and night...Travis caught his first fish...we shot our fireworks right into the water...watched a 4th of July boat parade go by...it was awesome. You can walk out the sliding glass door, onto the deck, and down the steps, right onto the dock overlooking the lake. The best thing is, we can use the house pretty much any time we want to. The master bed/bath is downstairs, with another half-bath downstairs, a HUGE vaulted ceiling in the living room, laminate wood flooring throughout the downstairs. The 2 guest bedrooms are upstairs. When you go up the stairs, you land on a balcony and you can look out of those funny-shaped windows onto the lake. From the bedrooms, you get an awesome view of the lake and the huge cypress trees. One day I'm going to wake up and see an Eagle land in one of those trees...how awesome would that be? In case you didn't know, bald eagles actually visit the Reelfoot Lake certain times of the year. Reelfoot Lake was created by a massive series of earthquakes in the 1800's, but never fear....my Mother-in-Law purchased earthquake insurance. :-)

So what else is new? Travis just celebrated his 4th birthday, and let me tell you...it was more like Christmas than a birthday! He got loaded down with new clothes, Spiderman toys galore, and even a Spiderman backpack for when he starts school (which Michael brought to my attention that school starts for Travis only 8 weeks from TODAY!). In the midst of the birthday preparations, I took up cake decorating. I got sick of the bakeries in the grocery stores not having anything creative to offer...I mean, seriously, Travis has been wanting a Spiderman birthday since his birthday LAST year (after I'd already bought Thomas the Train stuff), and so as his mother, I wanted him to have an awesome Spiderman birthday cake! Is that really so much to ask? The one they had in the book at Schnuck's was just a city scenery with a plastic Spiderman and plastic Doc-Ock stuck in it. Too cheap and cheesy! So I took it upon myself to take on the task of making his cake myself, and lucky for me, my sister just so happens to be into the cake decorating thing, and has all the decorating tips, cake board, colors, etc., so I called her up with a huge plea for help, and she said I could come over and use her stuff and she'd teach me some stuff. She pretty much showed me the basics, and I got the hang of it pretty good. I had so much fun doing it, even though it was rather time consuming...it took from 10 a.m. Friday until 4:30 p.m. All that hard work, not to mention major cramps in my hand, was well worth it when Travis saw it and lit up like a birthday candle! Here's the picture, in case you are so intrigued. Not too shabby for my first cake ever! I had some folks think I bought it at the store, and others couldn't believe it was the very first cake I'd ever attempted. I'm about to get more practice, too, because I am involved in 2 upcoming baby showers, one in August and the other in September. I think I had more various stuff to blog about, but I am too tired to remember, plus I need to go ice a cake I baked a little while ago...it'll be cooled down in about 10 more minutes or so. Later!