Busy Last Week

Last week began at the end of the previous week - on Saturday. I wanted to throw a great baby shower for my dear friend Jill, who is expecting a baby girl next month (we can't wait to meet her!). If you are an avid reader of this blog, you may have already seen the cake I made. Well, we threw the baby shower and it was a lot of fun. We ate great food (thanks for all the help, Lorne) and played some fun games. Jill got some totally cute things for the new baby and we had a lot of laughs. Here are some pictures from the event!Monday began the prep for the busy Valentine's Day week. We put out a special for the big romantic day (cupcakes and cookies) and we had a significant amount of orders. I do not need to tell you I didn't sleep much on Tuesday night or Wednesday night (3 hours Tuesday night and 2 hours Wednesday night). Not only did we bake 8 dozen cupcakes and 8 dozen sugar cookies but we also baked 2 cakes. It was super productive but really reminded us about the space issues we have. I use a simple metaphor to illustrate how it feels to work this business in my home. It is like a child when it grows out of their shoes. They will complain that they are too small and then the parents disagree and shove the shoes on. Eventually the child complains louder and when the parent forces the shoe, the child cries and limps. We are at the crying and limping stage.
Also, as is tradition for me every Valentine's Day, I worked at Godiva for the 13th and 14th dipping hundreds of strawberries for eager (and impatient) strawberry wanting costumers. This was my 6th year doing it and as hard as it is to get to Godiva (in DC) at 5 AM, it wouldn't feel like Valentine's Day if I didn't do it. By the way, should you ever want to buy chocolate dipped strawberries, white chocolate is the best on strawberries. I don't even like white chocolate but the properties that it has makes it the best tasting combination as the white chocolate brings out the sweetness of the berry. Many people don't give the white ones a chance, do not overlook this amazing taste opportunity!

I could not have done everything I did over those 2 days without the help of my grandmother and my dad. Abuela Meme came over Tuesday afternoon and watched Jasmine while I got work done. Jasmine loved it because she had Abuela Meme all to herself. Also, Abuela had a good time because she had a change of scenery and she adores Jasmine. She spent the night through to Thursday and she was a huge help. She helped clean, watched Jasmine and was a great compaion for chats while I worked. My dad came over Thursday morning to take Jasmine to school and I was a bit sad because I would have loved to have taken her on such a fun day, but alas, my responsibilities were such that I had to entrust someone else. Dad did a great job and Jasmine came home from school bouncing around (they had a party of course) and showing me all the Valentines she had received from fellow classmates. My parents also came over the night before and helped Jasmine make the Valentines for her classmates - I took some cute pictures in between working on cupcakes!

I had made reservations about 3 weeks ago for a nice Valentine's Day meal at a restaurant in Old Town Alexandria called La Tasca. They are a Spanish tapas restaurant and they had a 4 course dinner for the special night. Lorne had to travel and was worried he wouldn't make it back in time. He did however and we had a great night. He gave me a card that made me bawl and told me that my gift would be arriving the next day. He bought me the Nikon D40X that I had been begging for for about a year! We gave Jasmine some fun Valentine's stuff and we had a great and tasty dinner. The best part was dessert. It was the best dessert I have had at a restaurant for a long time. It was a dense rich brownie volcano lava cake with fresh sliced strawberries and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. It was so good! They even did a heart-shaped design on the plate - so pretty we had to take pictures.
Friday we had an appointment to look at a potential space for our business. I love it, it is the perfect size, the location is right and I just feel really good about it. Lorne of course was Mr. Negative Nelly. He will say the he is just being realistic but I know that he uses his hard cold exterior to negotiate. That is just not my style. Jasmine had a great time running around this big empty space and did a little ballet for us!All in all, it was a busy but very fulfilling week. Maybe it will be a bit quieter this week although I doubt it!