Ryan's Birthday

Thursday August 12

Ryan went to PT this morning. They were doing sprints. When one guy came back he had to tag the hand of the next guy and so on. Well when it came Ryan’s turn, somehow during the tagging processes he injured his back. They have put him on profile for 3 days. He hasn’t seen the doctor or had any test done yet but he did see the PA who put him on profile. They think it is a muscle pull or strain.

My mission today was to make Ryan’s Birthday cake. Started out with not having all of the ingredients I needed to make the cake. No problem. Got the kids all ready and Eli in the stroller to walk up to the commissary. Open the front door and it was pouring down rain. Grrr. Waited and waited and the rain didn’t stop. I needed vegetable oil. It was a box cake mix. The kids would have gotten soaked if we walked down there. So I finally gave in and used applesauce instead of the oil. Not something I’ve had a good experience with in the past. Just ask my former work partner about the world’s chewiest oatmeal cookies.

Next dilemma. I don’t have any of my cake pans yet. Was going to go with a cookie sheet and just cut it and put it in layers. But decided to go with 8X8 square pan and a Correlle bowl for the left over batter that didn’t fit in the other pan.

About five minutes after I put the cake in the oven I looked out side and it had stopped raining. Go figure.

Ryan came home for lunch and since his injury he had the rest of the day off. I put the kids down for nap and walked up to the Commissary to find some fixings for the cake. I was just going to do vanilla frosting but decided that it was Ryan’s 30th birthday so he needed a real cake.

Search was on for Cherry pie filling. Yeah, apparently you aren’t supposed to make Cherry pies while stationed here. Went to produce section. No fresh cherries either. Went back to the baking isle to double check. Sometimes I think if I sit there staring at their selection what I want will mysteriously appear. It has yet to happen but I doubt I’ll give up the practice anytime soon.

Just as I turned around I found some canned cherries with the can fruit. Still not cherry pie filling though. Grabbed a little corn starch and some sugar. No problem… I’ve got this. Oh, by the way it was a red velvet cake- Ryan’s favorite. Decided to go with chocolate frosting with mini chocolate chips around the outside with cherry “pie filling” between the layers and on top. With just a little whipped cream to keep the cherries from running everywhere.

I knew I didn’t have my cake stuff yet but was just going to use a zip lock bag to pipe the whipped cream on. Well, Ryan had bought some fancy zipper top bags that don’t have a true corner on the bottom. We also don’t have any scissors here yet so I had to use a steak knife to cut the corner which actually wasn’t the corner. I ended up piping the whipped cream out of a jagged edge on the side of the bag. It wasn’t beautiful but it worked.

Made some awesome steaks for dinner along with mashed potatoes and corn. An sautéed onions for on top of the steaks. Everything turned out great! I love it when a plan comes together… even if it was nothing like I planned :-)

We also beat Super Mario on the Wii tonight… kind of. We beat the big castle at the end but now have to go back and get all of the star coins that we missed. We did get another remote for the Wii so that Me, Ryan and Caelyn could all play together. Eli was oblivious to the fact that he was left out. He was very happy playing by himself.

When I put Eli to bed I plugged in his new monitor. There is nothing else in his room other than a build in closet and his air mattress. I knew that I couldn't leave the monitor sitting on the floor. So I emptied a laundry basket and flipped it upside down and hid the monitor inside. About 5 minutes later when I am down stairs the receiving end of the monitor starts beeping. Meaning it lost signal with the monitor… meaning the monitor was turned off or unplugged. So Ryan whet to check on Eli. Eli had turned on his bed room light. Retrieved the monitor from it’s “hiding” place and “taught” himself to unplug and replug it back in. Boy is too smart for his own good sometimes.

So until our other shipment with Eli’s dresser gets here so we have some place to hide the monitor we will be using batteries instead of the AC adaptor… which by the way does not plug into the head phone slot on the receivers… just in case you were wondering.