Sunday 16 June 2013

When cakes, a very worthy cause and Bunnings all combine.

Okay now Lovelies

Its time to get a bit serious ... well as much as I can in my life anyway ...

Yes this blog is still about cakes ... just keep reading on for the story.

The below link will direct you to a 60km walk that a few of my friends and I are doing for an INCREDIBLE cause in November.

http://sy13.endcancer.org.au/site/TR/Events/Sydney2013?px=1008656&pg=personal&fr_id=1060

Yes you read right!!! 60kms ... over 2 days ... how hard can that be you ask????

Freaken hard!!! We did a 10km walk last week and I was ready for a sit down very soon afterwards. Mind you there was alot of hills and stairs to climb up!!!

Anyway back to the seriousness. The toxic disease of cancer no matter what type is just an evil evil evil word.

Both my parents have been touched by different forms of cancer. Very important people in my life have lost parents, siblings and friends to the evilness.

I have even had 3 foul skin cancers scooped out of my back in the last 3 months (wear suncream kids, don't argue with your parents).

And yes, there are survival stories which are sensational but we still have a long long way to go to beat the bastard.

So ... my friends and I are not going to pretend we will find the cure for cancer (that's for the scientists) but we are going to help out by doing this 60km walk and raising money for the Chris O'Brien Life House.

This is going to be for a building at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney where people can go and get treated and looked after all at the one location. This was Chris O'Briens wish. He was the very famous and hugely respected Neurosurgeon that passed away from a brain tumour.

There's not much more to say apart from each little contribution is going to help in some sort of way. Even if its just enough for a tap in a bathroom ... that's one more tap before the start of the day isnt it ...

So lovelies, here is the link again if you would like to donate. We all very much appreciate any little contribution.

http://sy13.endcancer.org.au/site/TR/Events/Sydney2013?px=1008656&pg=personal&fr_id=1060

Also  have a quick look at the cake stall fundraising event we did at Artarmon Bunnings yesterday. We raised $1700 in total!!! Its a brilliant start for us!!!

You'll see everything we all prepared for the day. Lots of people helped make this day possible so thank you to all!!!! Couple of facts that we learnt yesterday too.

People are very very generous for a very worthy cause, the men are the ones that bought the melting moments and yes ALL BUNNINGS STAFF are just as nice and they appear to be on all the TV ads.



Team Lovelies (you can tell by that who picked the name and who the Captain of the team is ....) Just missing one member Kate who is in Germany at the moment but she is there in the photo in spirit.


Monday 10 June 2013

When Thomas The Tank Engine and The Pyramids Meet ....

We are all very lucky to have incredible friends in our lives. I have quite a few and am very appreciative of all of them.

All of them keep me laughing and most importantly answer all my questions - even the ones we don't know the answers too ... they all have learnt to just tell me something and that gives me time to ponder away.

One of my all time greatest friends is Richie ... aka as Jo or mostly ...  Mrs Richie Stewart as we now call her as she is now a gorgeous wife to Cam and mum of the world to 2yr old Sam and there is a new addition baking in her stomach right now.

Richie has been watching over me since we were at Brownies together (she was Sixer of the Moora Morras. She hates me bringing this up regularly but I love it!!!!), We also played on the Mosman Netball team together, were both at Mosman High and then we were over in London at the same time for some of the years we all spent over there.

There was one time when Richie gave me her Year 11 Biology exam to study from. The day came for me to take my exam a year later and sure enough it was the exact same paper. Result. Hence to say I did very well in Biology for that year.

Richie and Cam's son Sam has turned 2 yrs old this week and Richie wanted to make a Thomas The Tank Engine cake ... it was combined team effort but please take note of the actual Thomas that Richie made - he was awesome. The polka dots were my idea ... you cant exactly put pretty ribbon on a little boys cake ....

Check out Richie and Cam's kitchen, its great!!! My dream is to have a big kitchen like theirs and more importantly a big kitchen bench and table. Each time one of my besties goes to a new house the first detail I am told about is the kitchen and how bad my kitchen envy is going to be.

One day ... I don't ask for much in life.


You are all professionals now so won't ramble on how we get to this step but this cake is a 12 inch round choccie mud .... with pale blue fondant on top and chocolate ganache underneath too ....


This was one of my contributions ... polka dots ... my favourites. All bedazzles a cake.


That's me making sure each one is perfect. See, don't I just look good in a nice big kitchen ... again ... one day .....


Getting there ... look at Thomas ... he looked fab ....


Here is Richie on cupcake duty ....


Take notice of the tiny green dinosaurs as decorations ....


Stars going ... don't be alarmed that Thomas's face is not on .... we had to work out a way to stick him a bit more so he didn't do a faceplant ....


And done .... looked really good.


24 hours later ....



Now here is a just a little memory for you all. In August the year 2000 ... can't believe 13yrs ago, Richie and I went to Egypt for 16 days of superbness. It was an amazing trip full of very funny stories, great people and learning alot about an incredible part of the world.   

Most of the stories involves many many trips to the bathroom as there were dodgy tummy's a plenty. We caught a train from Cairo to Aswan and couldn't go to the toilet for 14 hours .....was a very quiet journey towards the end.

Was a regular occurance to be having a conversation and then to turnaround and realise someone had to  do the bolt to find the nearest bathroom. There was one time when we had just arrived in a hotel and we were both running up the stairs to be first in the toilet and we played paper, rock, scissors game. Not even me making new ones up like 'water' (which overrides paper and scissors) worked for this occassion. I lost, however Richie promised to leave the door open to save even 1 second of time for me to go in next.

I managed to fall off a donkey in Luxor on the way to The Valley of the Kings. Quite easy to do if I can say so. My donkey and I didn't see eye to eye so he was making every attempt to get rid of me which even included trying to nudge me off the cliff... no joke. Anyway at one moment we were trotting along nicely then in an instant he just stopped but I kept going. I still remember the feeling of going over his head!! I did land upright though so it was round 2 to Fiona.

This photo is one of my favourite ever. It was one of my dreams to get the Cairo Pyramids. Always. And we did it. Just reminds me that all things in life are achieveable. You just have to do it yourself!!!! The camel was smiling. Much nicer that the dodgy donkey.