Red Velvet Happy Birthday Cake

Nothing says I love you better than a homemade birthday cake! That’s why, as soon as I purchased my flight ticket to Texas, I sent Madison on a secret mission to discover what her mom’s favorite cake was so that we could make it for her birthday. Madison waited until the time was right- they were eating cake somewhere and then she asked her mom what cake she liked best. Her mom, my little sister’s answer: Red Velvet Cake. How exciting, I had never made a Red Velvet cake before. So I hopped online to find a recipe and as usual no one could agree on which ingredients to use and how much or even which was the proper icing for a Red Velvet cake. Some insisted a wimpy runny icing was the traditional Red Velvet cake icing, but knowing nothing beats the delicious sweet sugar happy high of a cream cheese icing, there was no question which would top my Red Velvet cake!

As it turns out, a Red Velvet cake is just a chocolate cake which has been dyed red. In the olden days, the cake was dyed with a concoction of red sugar beets, but now a days, a bottle of red food coloring is used. I did consider making a go with the beets, but this was my first time to make a cake from scratch and being the sensible person that I am, I thought perhaps one new thing at a time was enough.

My first full day in Wichita Falls was Angela’s birthday. Fortunately, she had a workshop to attend so I was going to watch the kids and bake the surprise birthday cake. There were three kids in total: Madison age 10; Grayson age 3 and Carson age 1.

The boys were wide awake when mommy left, but Madison, as she had warned the night before, slept until lunch. The boys spent their time between running outside to skinny dip in the plastic kiddie pool, throwing toys from the toy box onto the living room floor, sneaking off to Madison’s room to stare at the workers who were replacing her floor (another long story) and investigating cupboards which I am fairly certain were not meant to be investigated by one-year-olds.

At one point Grayson disappeared completely. I searched through all the rooms and closets, but could not find him. Fortunately he quickly grew bored wherever he was and joined us again. In between all this I tried to set out cake stuff so that if Madison ever decided to wake up- between the boys screaming and the men stomping and sawing, I don’t know how she managed to sleep at all- we would be ready to bake the birthday cake.

Perhaps growing bored, Grayson climbed onto the counter to investigate what I was doing and quickly discovered the red food coloring box. He loved it because it had a lady bug on it and he kept calling it the ladybug box. Maybe he thought there was a ladybug inside, I don’t know, but it kept him occupied while I searched for the sugar. When he learned that we were going to make his mom a birthday CAKE when Madison woke up, he marched off and made sure Maddi was soon out of bed.

Madison ate a bowl of cereal while I tried to cram some chicken down the boys, but they only mostly ate the strawberries. Then Carson had the brilliant idea of taking a nap so it was down to Madison in her Justin Bierber T-shirt, Grayson in nothing at all and myself. So far so good! We shifted the flour first. The flour shifter was a big hit with Grayson so he continued shifting flour all over the counter while Madison and I creamed together the oil, sugar and eggs. Now it was time to mix the cocoa and red food coloring.

Hum… something was missing: the ladybug box. How can we have a red velvet cake without red food coloring!!! We looked everywhere for it and asked Grayson a hundred times ‘where is the ladybug box?’ He was having the best time ever, laughing and running in circles looking for the ladybug box. (The ladybug box was mysteriously re-discovered several hours later in the aforementioned toy box).

We ultimately decided to make a velvet cake rather than a red velvet cake. The problem now was how to make a paste with cocoa and food coloring without the food coloring. We experimented with oil and water but when we started mixing it all together, it just didn’t look right. With Carolyn’s voice swirling around my head, “Cooking is an art; baking is a science,” I decided we should start over. The plan was to shift the cocoa with the flour and add 2 tablespoons of milk to compensate for the food coloring. Grayson was well pleased with this because he was finished with the shifter and now wanted a bowl of wet ingredients to stir which was not an issue as we now had six bowls on the counter. That’s when Carson decided to wake up.

I gave him some strawberries and he happily snuggled onto the couch. Then, like baking cake from scratch pros, we whipped up another batch of cake batter and before long the pans were in the oven.

We were still congratulating ourselves when Carson waltzed into the kitchen with Madison’s leftover cereal bowl. Now, did I mention this bowl was a GLASS bowl? And did I also mention that not only was Madison's room getting new flooring, but the kitchen had already new flooring, a lovely cream colored hard stone tile flooring? You know where this is going...

There really wasn’t much of a showdown- as soon as I saw it, the bowl was already slipping out of Carson’s chubby little fingers. The bowl hit the ground with the unmistakable sound of glass splintering into a thousand tiny pieces. Everyone sucked in their breath for a moment of disbelief. My voice, somehow both a whisper and a yell, broke the silence and said, “Nobody move! Stay where you are!” Arms and legs froze in mid air. Eyes were growing bigger, bottom lips starting to quiver. If I wasn’t careful I was looking at a full blown meltdown. I forced my voice to go back to its normal sound and said, “Everyone’s in their bare feet.” I snatched up Carson who was standing in a halo of broken glass and as I tiptoed through the glass shards, I sang “I just don’t want anyone to get cut.” Madison and Grayson were still on the kitchen counter so I scurried over to put on my flip flops and one by one airlifted them to the couch. There! All the kids were snuggled together under a blanket on the couch- Disaster averted. [insert Auntie Kat Super Hero theme music here]

Meanwhile, the cake wasn’t quite baked when the timer first went off. Then, it was left in a little bit too long... SO the cake was a little on the dry side, but nobody mentioned it and said the cake was delicious which is why I love my family.

The fun part of course was the decorating. I did the icing then Madison arranged the Happy Birthday letters

and used the colorful icing tubes to make it extra beautiful.

My favorite part was when Madison helped Grayson squeeze out the colorful icing goo to make an airplane for his mom.

It was decided that some strawberries around the edge were essential before several mounds of sugar glitter topped everything off.

Then, I made the executive decision to wait until just before the singing to put the fancy swirly candles on the cake because the extra heavy glass lid would not fit over the cake if we put the candles on at that moment.

Whew! Everything was cleaned and the cake was in the middle of the counter with the homemade birthday cards surrounding it; it was time to get ourselves ready to go out to Birthday dinner.

It was also decided on this trip that Dad was no longer DAD. Dad was just too unused; it is not who he is anymore. He has a new role and his name is Pops. So here goes- Pops called to see how the cake baking went. It’s possible Pops was on standby to buy a store bought birthday cake in case of an emergency, but I assured him everything was fine: the cake was sitting on the counter waiting for the birthday candles, the singing and the … uh, wait a minute! Apparently, SOMEONE or SOMEONES did not agree with my executive decision regarding the candles and managed to lift the extra heavy glass lid and arranged the swirly candles on the cake. Sure, when the lid was replaced, the candles were squished down a bit further, but obviously I didn’t know what I was talking about when I said that the lid would not fit with the candles on the cake. At any rate, the cake was now ready for the singing and the eating.

Happy Birthday Angela!!!

Love City

Yesterday I dove with two dolphins. It was my 1,139th dive and the first time I experienced these amazing beings underwater. When I first saw the dolphins, they were at the surface getting some air. Naturally, I screamed and promptly started to shake my underwater maraca as I pointed toward the animals. I didn’t even bother to look back to see if everyone else was paying attention- I was not going to take my eyes off these two dolphins. They rolled around each other and oozed down into the water. They were both about the same size, that is, way bigger than me. Happily, one decided to take a fancy to me and stretched onto her (his?) back and twisted toward me. I was in shock. All I could do was hold my regulator in place so it would not fall out as I continued to scream. As the dolphins began to swim away, I remembered that I was supposed to turn and twist too so they would stay and play, but it was too late. The dolphins glided down the reef slope just as a spotted eagle ray flew past. I screamed some more, then raced back to the boat to tell the Captain what we saw.

Needless to say it has been a good move over to Love City in St John. Everyone has settled in nicely and we even have a wonderful little house. We had looked at a perfect cookie cutter apartment, but then fell in love with a one room cottage. It basically defies description, but here goes… I have never actually been inside a big wooden Spanish galleon ship, but the house feels like you’re in the belly of a big wooden boat. There is one high sloping wall without any windows (the one facing the road). The ceiling also slopes downwards and the other three walls are more or less nothing but tall skinny windows. Sylvia, the owner explained that the shutters on the windows were thoughtfully placed so that no one can see in.

“That way,” she said, “You can come home and walk around naked and not have to worry about anyone looking in.”

Yep, pretty sure she was at Woodstock. Another great thing is that none of the walls are covered in nasty toxic paint. Sylvia and Augie are bee keepers and they use the bee’s wax on all the interior walls and cabinets so that all the main beams are a dark black and all the rest of the wood is a shinny wood color where you can still see the natural wood patterns. The best thing about using bee’s wax (besides being non toxic) for paint is that it smells SO good! Other great things about our home include: beautiful garden with ponds, but the bees eat the mosquito larva so we don’t have to worry about a lot of mosquitos; tons of iguanas lounging in the trees; walking distance to the beach; and a SUNSET WALL on the aforementioned beach! Also, Sylvia put up a sign on the fence facing onto the street: BEWARE OF DOG it says. She did this because of Cleo. So you see, Cleo is my ferocious attack doggie!

El Temblor

As I walked up the little road to my house last night, the sky was quickly growing dark and with the darkness, a tremble began to swell inside of me. With the daylight, I was fine. With the darkness, the only picture in my mind was last night’s 7.3 earthquake. Thank goodness I had Justin and together we tried to untangle the events of last night. In the end, I decided my fear was because it was so unlike anything I had ever experienced, that I couldn’t describe it. I couldn’t put it into words so it remained a frightful picture for my mind to watch over and over. So here I am, hoping to get the right words out...



It’s 2:24am. We’re all asleep in bed: Justin, me, Cleo and Pedro. The bedroom door is shut and the ceiling fan rattles around and around. Suddenly, out of sleep I am jolted awake; the house is alive. There is a terrible creaking, an almost human groaning sound. We are thrown back and forth like we are on the Mini Mine Train in Six Flags. I ask Justin, “What is going on?” Are there mean men in the house trying to kill us? We’re struggling to get out of bed, but it’s difficult. We are thrown against each other, our arms grasping for something to hold onto. There’s the sound of breaking glass, of crashing objects. Is the house breaking apart and falling down? Are we crashing to the earth along with suffocating piles of timber on top of us? At last we make it out of bed and Justin opens the bedroom door. I wobble to the door frame; it’s dark and I do not move any further. I can’t see Cleo, but can feel her against my leg. The house is still standing- still shaking, but the pilings are holding. I am beginning to understand it is a earthquake but the words for it are not in my head. I am not sure where Justin is or what he’s doing. I hear myself calling out, “Come over here” or something of that nature. From the light outside the living room window, I can see Justin’s shadow swaying and tripping over the couch cushions which are now on the floor. As he makes it to my side, we reach out for one another. Cleo is still at my leg, but I have no idea where Pedro has gone. This is the first ten seconds; we have twenty more to go.

The earth continues to rumble and the room shakes around us. It feels like it should have ended a long time ago. How can it persist? How far can this house bend? When will it crumble to the ground? Unable to make sense of our world, we hold on to each other as our home continues to grumble and shudder back and forth.

As quickly as it started, it is over. It is unnaturally quiet after the roar of the earthquake. There are no sirens or car alarms going off. The only sound is the beat of the techno dance music from the Bar in the Bush. Justin cracks the front door and a streak of orange fur zooms outside- Pedro. I get dressed, find my flashlight on the floor and walk downstairs to try and coax him back home. There are lights on in the surrounding houses, but no one running around naked and bloody. The dogs have started barking as a sort of Utilian siren. Their howls continue for hours as those who live closer to shore ran from the fear of a tsunami into the island's center.

When I am on the other side of our apartment building we have our first aftershock. It creaks a different kind of creak from the outside, a less alive kind of creak. In the dim light, I stop and watch our apartment building move slowly from side to side. Pedro isn’t seen again until sunrise.

For the rest of the night, the next day, and weeks afterward we continue to experience these aftershocks. Sometimes you don’t know if it’s real or if you’re imagining it. Other times it feels like you’re walking on a waterbed. The first nights after the main earthquake the aftershocks rumbled at regular intervals and Cleo and I clung to each other, shaking as Justin slept soundly. It's weird, but now we have become somewhat accustomed to the earth shaking around us. The other night during dinner, there was an aftershock and we didn't even stop eating. Cleo is also much braver. She woke and growled furiously at the aftershock we had last night and promptly feel back asleep.

It is really quite amazing how very little damage was done. The worst of the damage seems to have happened on the mainland. There, most of the houses are made out of cinder block while in Utila, everything is built out of wood and was our saving grace. For us, we had a lot of broken glass from picture frames and candle holders. Somehow, the TV fell from its metal enclosure. Also, the refrigerator tried to walk across the kitchen. I had made chicken chili in a crock pot that evening. We both had a bowl for dinner and then I put the pot inside the fridge. In those thirty seconds, the chili, inside the pot, inside the refrigerator splashed up and over the lid. The unlocked windows jiggled open. My iPod fell from the top shelf and now has the white screen of death, but I don’t care. I can buy a new iPod someday.

Thanks for reading. I think this has really helped, however I don’t think I will ever forget that first moment of waking up with my house roaring at me and jolting back and forth. I see it almost as a cartoon because houses are not meant to move like that. If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t believe it were real.



P.S. I have looked on the internet and the American Red Cross has not recommended you stand in a doorway during an earthquake for many years now. There is actually a bit of disagreement on what you are supposed to do. So, who knows? Just keep breathing.

Tortola-New Mexico-Utila

We are over one month now on Utila. I have thought many times about writing, usually just before crashing in bed. I feel so out of touch, especially since so many things have changed! I’ll start where we ended, Tortola. We lived in the big white house on the hill for two and a half years. It was a great house with hot water, floors that hide how much pet hair was actually there and of course a million dollar view. With the help of our friends, our final week on Tortola was packed with laughs and good times: Taco Tuesday, bird watching, one last sunset beach yoga, Mulligan’s. At one point, I owed my sanity to sunset yoga, but it is Long Bay Beef Island that I miss more than words can say. I knew our days spent there were truly special, but I guess you can never fully realize how important something is until you no longer have it.

I'm not the only one who misses this guy.

Yes, it took 15 different shots, but I finally got one where neither one of you has a goofy expression! Ha!!!

From Tortola we traveled for a solid 24 hours to New Mexico. Our time at the cabin in the mountains was beautiful. By the end I had utterly fallen in love with the trees, the winding roads, the mountain tops. It was good sharing time with Randy and Jamie. We cooked together, hiked to the bottom of a canyon, played dominoes and best of all, went skiing.



I was also able to take a quick trip to see Angela and her new baby boy, Carson. I cannot believe it has been nine years since Madison was that small!

Ahhhh!

A couple of days after I returned from Wichita Falls, we had a big snow storm in the night so we woke to a winter wonderland. Cleo was more excited than the rest of us. She bounced around and stretched her paws on our legs until I finally relented and began layering on the clothes- now she was barking and biting and turning flips in the air. Justin stayed in the cabin to watch hockey (he never gets to watch hockey in the islands) so it was just Cleo and I in the snow. We wondered silently under the juniper branches heavy with snow beside a tiny stream. We felt like the only two people on earth because the only prints in the snow were mine and Cleo’s (and yes, I am fully aware that Cleo is a dog and not actually a person). Cleo is from the islands, but she thought the snow was the best thing ever. She dug in it and plowed her nose though it and didn’t seem to realize that is was cold at all. I just loved the quiet, the solitude, the clean air that tingled through your entire body when you breathed.



Unlike the quiet and relaxing hikes around New Mexico, the move to Utila was anything but serene. I’m sorry to say it, but Justin is a horrible mover! Times of uncertainty drive him crazy. He just cannot relax and accept that he has very little control over what’s going to happen next. Of course, I am the complete opposite; I have always been inspired and energized with times of uncertainty. As fate would have it, our plane encountered a storm on its way into Atlanta, Georgia. As we descended toward the runway, furiously strong winds blew our plane back into the clouds and all the way over to Charleston, South Carolina. With an early morning flight that leaves only once a week out of Atlanta, we ran to the rental car kiosks and snagged one of the few remaining cars. Finally, after driving all night through pouring rain and gusty winds we made our flight to Honduras.

So now I am back where I started. I am happy to have taken a little walk around the Caribbean for the past five years, but as my English friends back in Tortola always say, at the end of the day, I knew I belonged somewhere in Central America. It's difficult to say why. Perhaps it's simply because it is so different from living in the States. Or it could be those beans in a bag. At any rate, it is good to be back in Honduras. Even better though, it has changed very little since I left it. The biggest change is that the road has been re-cemented, so now Main Street is no longer freckled with potholes. Thank goodness, however, that they didn’t expand the road. It is still a skinny one lane street used mostly by pedestrians, motorbikes, bicycles, golf carts and a few rusty pick-ups. Certainly, the island has become touristier. The street is more crowded than it was five years ago and sadly the baleadas stands by the ferry dock are gone. The blue table with the tarp is still there, but she only opens at night and she actually makes grilled chicken. The other baleada stand, the orange box that they painted blue when Lonely Planet said the best baleadas were found at the blue baleada stand, is completely missing. Also, the big green bench where the old men sit and watch everyone meander down Main Street has collapsed. They just left the broken boards where they fell and rebuilt the new old man bench right across the street from the old old man bench which is really a better location anyway because there is less sun on that side of the street.

Early morning Main Street taken from our balcony at our first apartment in Utila.

There's a park right next to our dive shop. Cleo and I spent our early mornings here reading and chasing rocks.

It's hard work for such a little dog to have a full time job. She has to bounce around and wag her tail and make sure everyone gives her a scratch. Whew!

Our first month here we stayed in a small apartment right next to work. It was nice being able to run to the apartment while at work, but I couldn’t let Pedro outside and it was noisy with Main Street just below us. So we have moved to a place called Bananaville in the center of the island. Now our only noises are the various bird songs and the wind whipping the banana fronds to and fro. As is the custom, the islanders, in their never ending battle with keeping the plants and trees under control, burn their excess foliage. The deeper you walk into the island the stronger the smell of slowly smoldering leaves: a welcome home kind of smell. Anyway, we live in the third floor apartment in the middle of a banana grove. We are right in the tree tops so it feels like we’re actually living in a tree house. Pedro is delighted to be able to sit outside on the balcony, but being just a few feet from the branches he can cause quite a hubbub among the birds living there.

Bananaville!

Looking down from our balcony.

We are also lucky to have two bats living in the rafters on our front porch. I wanted to name them, but Justin said they should only be known as the bats because they will either disappear one day or will start a big bat colony and that would be very bad because then there would be bat guano everywhere. At dusk, we watch the bats as they wake for their nightly hunt. One bat has to clean and stretch his wings for several minutes before flying off, but the other bat is completely still and then suddenly takes off. There is also an iguana living in a hole at the base of a tree, but he is rather boring. All he does is sit in the sun and then scurries back to his hole if you get too close.



Work has been extremely challenging, but not in the ways I had thought it would be. That’s always the case, right? You get prepared for one thing and fate hits you with another. We are still happy we came though. Cleo comes everyday with us to work and that was especially important. Last week, I taught an Open Water class and for the final dive I had the Dive Master in Training lead the dive, so I was able to hang out in the back with no worries and guess what? I found a little baby seahorse! That’s always a good sign I think. We haven’t yet found our Long Bay Beef Island on Utila, but I have faith that we will. (I’ll be sure and let you know all about it).

The road to work.

Slowly smoldering leaves