Cakes, Farms, Politicians, Trains, and Lions, Oh My!

The past two weekends have been filled with fun. Last week I took my first cake decorating class with my friend Mae-Luen from high school. We learned how to make delicious butter cream frosting as well as several kinds of cakes from scratch. We also spent time cutting off the dome, smoothing the icing, making borders and roses, and learned how to make letters. This is my finished product...

It doesn't look very elaborate, but it tasted great! I'm excited to keep practicing Tommy's birthday train cake, now in less than a month!

This weekend has been fabulous. Friday night we went to the children's farmstead near our house for "Night of the Living Farm." Tommy wore his costume along with all the other kids. They had moon walks, hay rides, games, and trick-or-treating, all of which my son was scared of. He shrieked with horror upon seeing a kid dressed up as a goblin. Poor guy. He is a monkey (specifically Curious George) this year, but he is only half of the Halloween costume fun at the Lisenbys. Stay tuned.


Barack Obama came to Kansas City! We didn't get to hear his actual speech on Saturday (Tommy and I got hungry and the lines were crazy), but being part of this historic event at the WWI memorial downtown was fascinating. I loved that there were people there from all different cultural backgrounds and socio-economic classes. I felt like walking around with 75,000 other people had to be similar to being part of MLK's "I have a dream" speech. The pictures do not do it justice or show the magnitude of the number of people who came out. It was powerful.





After a quick dinner at Fritz's Train Stop in Crown Center, David dropped me off at the Music Hall to meet my mom and her friends for The Lion King. I've seen quite a few off-broadway shows over the years, and this one clearly takes the cake. I would rank it above Wicked, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Annie, all of which I have seen in either Devner, KC, or Chicago in the past 5 years. To be honest I wasn't that excited to see this show. After all, I've seen the Disney Movie several times and own the Elton John CD. Boy was I wrong. The costumes were incredible, and I was inspired by the South African singing. My cultural tank has now been filled, which is a good thing because after puking when I got home last night at midnight I'll be laying low for the week.