He's Eleven

Yesterday was Alonzo's birthday. He is 11. How the heck did that happen? Surely he was only like 6 last year. Although there was no party I believe he had a great day. Dave was able to to take most of the day off, he had few things at work that couldn't be avoided, but was able to get back home quickly so he and Alonzo could hang out together.


We went to African Habitat gift shop where he picked out a a cool little statue of a woodpecker, then out to lunch for pizza. For dinner he requested Dad's special chicken nuggets, the ones that taste like Chick-Fil-A only better, and fresh green beans cooked so they taste like the canned ones. I am guessing I'm not the only one missing convenience foods. I make almost everything we eat here from scratch. My sister-in-law called to ask what kind of foods we were missing so she could stock the pantry for our visit and my answer was anything that comes in a cardboard box from the freezer section. Fish sticks and tator tots, Yummy!

Most of the day was spent playing video games. He played by himself, against dad, and with his bothers. This is a rare treat, I am usually the video game nazi queen. If the sun is shining no video games, if it is a school night no video games, if you are fighting with your brother no video games. To have all day access to the video games is a huge deal around here. The highlight of the day was finally beating a few of Dad's high scores on some of Wii fit Plus games. Dad's not worried, he says now he has something to do while we are in the states, reclaim his titles.


Of course no birthday is complete without cake and presents. Alonzo asked for a snake cake. If you do a google search for snake cakes you will come up with some very cool cakes, but I am in Africa and the confectioners sugar, or icing sugar as they call it here, is much coarser than the stuff in the states. It doesn't make great decorators frosting. It is always gritty no matter what I do. One of these days I am going to have to try making cooked buttercream where you whip hot boiled sugar syrup into eggs so I don't have to worry about finding or ordering decent confectioners sugar. It is supposed to be great stuff, but a birthday cake is no place for experimentation so I played it safe. I triple sifted the sugar and did the best I could. I opted out of a sculpted cake that I might otherwise try and stuck with a basic chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and used Wilton's decorator frosting to create a snake. The texture of the frosting was still gritty but the end product lived up to the expectations of a happy 11 year old.


After stuffing his face full of cake he finally got around to checking his e-mail where he got happy birthday messages from family and found an e-mail from dad.

Happy Birthday !!!!

They will be waiting for you at Uncle Danny’s house

Yep! Alonzo will soon be the newest member of the Cyberbones toe shoe club.