We had the birthday cake and cupcakes for the two New Year Birthday babies.
Happy 2013!!!
We had the birthday cake and cupcakes for the two New Year Birthday babies.Category: Events
We had the birthday cake and cupcakes for the two New Year Birthday babies.Already, the year is so old??
Good grief, time flies. I really need to get past living from holiday to holiday, event to event, and meeting to meeting. It blurs all those good days in between!
We had a wonderful New Year’s Eve, celebrating not only the new year, but, of course, the birthdays of my mother, Gert Svarny, who welcomed her 81st year with perfect grace, and my husband, Caleb, who grumpily acknowledges his birthday each year. Of course, if a big deal was not made of it, I am sure he would be totally disappointed!!
So every year, I debate the great cake question….what kind of cakes this year? I settled on a cheesecake with a nut crust, enrobed in chocoate and served over a strawberry coulis, plus an incredibly dense chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. To tie them together, each had orange in them and were sprinkled with orange zest.
The chocolate cake was so heavy, (literally, I could not carry it with one hand) I was really afraid to cut into it and serve it. But, thank god, it was absolutely delicious. I believe I have found the perfect cake for the Chocolate Extravaganza!
As we get older, we joke about being able to stay awake until midnight! We have devised a schedule to help us out….a late dinner at 8 PM, socializing and drinking(!), then, started for the kids several years ago, we play our “traditional” New Year’s Bingo games with great prizes of things mom wants to get rid of!! At 11:45 things start to ball up….getting the champagne ready, watching the ball drop, toasting the new year in, running outside to watch the fireworks, coming back inside for a hearty rendition of Happy Birthday, eating cake and opening presents! By the time this is all done, it is usually about 1:30AM.
And so, with a great start for 2011, here’s hoping your year will be filled with happiness and prosperity. If not that, at least have some fun!
Articulation.
The Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska hosts a traditional culture camp in Unalaska. Camp Qungaayux^ is designed to bring Unangan Elders, Mentors, and Western science biologists together with the younger generation in order to teach both Traditional Knowledge practices and Western Science principles which encourages cultural and environmental awareness.
So in 2003, I talked Caleb into helping his brother teach the kids how to construct model kayaks.
In 2004, I talked Caleb into working with his brother Mike, in teaching the kids how to construct a full-size iqyax^, or skinboat. His brother couldn’t make it so Caleb ended up teaching by himself.
In 2005, Caleb taught the kids how to cover a full size iqyax^ by actually covering the one built the year before.
In 2006, Caleb, with HIS mentor Lee Post, taught the kids how to articulate a Baird’s beaked whale.
In 2007, 2008, and 2009 Caleb taught the kids how to construct traditional drums.
2007 was actually the last year I coordinated camp, so I don’t think that the Tribe knows what a jewel they have with Caleb. The secret to Caleb is that he had never taught a class before 2003. He had never made a model kayak. He had never constructed a full size kayak. He had never covered a skinboat. He had never thought of articulating, let alone articulated, a whale. He had never constructed a drum. The secret to Caleb is presenting him with a problem and giving him the time to explore it and solve it.
So when the Tribe asked Caleb to teach at Camp again this year, and they asked him to do drums again, I said, “Drums? Again?” And Caleb’s other cohort who first suggested the whale articulation, Reid Brewer, reminded Caleb that they had the sealion bones from two years ago……
….and the deal was sealed. So, I am going to try to follow Caleb along in this project. Not by being intrusive and all in his face with the camera and questions, but by using the photos he takes himself, and listening to him when he comes home lamenting his woes. Hmmmmmm, I see he forgot the camera today.
Unalaska From My Point of View 
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