The best place to start is with Scott's 40th birthday party, which was the week before we left.
Our original plan for the trip was to leave after Scott's birthday for Goshen, Indiana. We thought about having a party on Saturday, June 20th and leaving the next day, which would put us in Goshen on Tuesday June 22. However, that Sunday was Father's Day, and Scott thought it would be fun to leave earlier and surprise his dad. So the deception began! Scott's sister and mom knew about our little plan and were wonderful about not letting his dad in on it so it would be a big surprise! (more of that later!)
So, the party was held a week earlier. We had a very nice BBQ and pool party for most of the day and well into the evening.
My big contribution was the birthday cake. I was totally excited. I'm the first to admit that I'm not the greatest cook... or a cook at all, really. But I wanted to make him something special for his birthday. So I set out a week before the party planning and testing this- ehem- marvelous double layer cake I was to make. The flare was to be in the decoration- I wanted to stencil a vintage Gil Elvgren 1940s pinup (Scott's favorite) onto the cake.
I started days before making the stencils- I made two total- believing I'd make it easy on myself. I figured that I use stencils all the time in my artwork- granted it's usually with ink or paint, but how different could icing really be??Ugh.
I did a practice run that actually came out okay on a piece of tinfoil coated with the chocolate icing I was going to use. I wish I took a picture so Scott would believe me. Confident that it would go smoothly the day of the party, I took to banishing Scott to the backyard so he wouldn't see the cake until that evening and began decorating.
And swearing.
And starting over.
And almost crying.
It just wouldn't work. I couldn't get the icing on the cake to harden enough so that the stencil wouldn't pull it up. Finally I had to throw in the towel and admit that it just wasn't going to happen.
Which is how I decided the easiest thing to do: Do what you know. Which is how Scott's 40th birthday cake came out like this:
Nothing says 40 year old man like unicorns and rainbows. But I still think he liked it!
The party was really a lot of fun and we had some very wonderful friends over to celebrate. Good times, indeed! 
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