Faith's Birthday 2007

This past weekend was my big birthday weekend, and it was great (for me, anyway)! Here's some of the stuff we did:

We started off Saturday morning by going strawberry picking. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of us actually picking strawberries because it was a spur of the moment thing and we didn't think to bring the camera, but here's a brief slideshow displaying the fruits (ha!) of our labor. I froze the strawberries individually and put them in a bag, and Onil's been using them to make his awesome slushies. He just blends up frozen fruit and some milk, and it comes out like an awesome fruit milkshake. He made a strawberry banana slushie for me on Sunday and it was delish.

On Saturday, we also:

cooked chicken on the grill,


opened presents,


and had cake.


Here's a slideshow of the cake and presents, and here's a boring video of me blowing out the candles on the cake:



As a side note, I have to say that I feel really good about this cake. When I first saw this recipe in one of those little supermarket checkout recipe books from Betty Crocker, I was very intrigued. I love anything with bananas in it, so this was right up my alley. Unlike some foodie snobs I know (I'm looking at you, Lita), I have no problem with boxed cake mixes. Go ahead and call me Sandra Lee, but using a boxed cake mix means that there are less ingredients to deal with and I don't notice any awful "boxed cake mix taste". However, the big problem with this recipe was the fat content; I knew 20 grams of fat would make me want to throw up. So I cut out the 2 tablespoons of oil and increased the banana count to 3. I also used egg whites instead of whole eggs. Then I used fat free sweetened condensed milk, light coconut milk and fat free half and half, followed up by some fat free whipped cream for the topping. I don't really know how many grams of fat I saved by doing this, but I'm sure it was a lot. Also, we didn't have that "I'm so full I'm going to throw up" feeling, which is always a plus in my book. Okay, go ahead and scoff, but it was really tasty.

Another cool thing that happened this past weekend was that Onil got his learner's permit and is now on his way to learning how to drive! We went out Sunday morning to a somewhat empty parking lot and he drove around to get the feel of the car. He's not ready for the roads just yet, but he did great for his first time behind the wheel. Anna took a video from the back seat of Onil's first driving experience, and here it is. At the end you'll hear me crack up and demand the camera from Anna, because I saw this sign and wanted to take a picture:



Here's the video of Onil driving:






If you're unable to see the videos I've imbedded here, click the following links to access the videos on You Tube: Faith's birthday and Onil's first driving lesson.