My Candy Project and School Programs

I finished making my candy yesterday morning, and then it came to see if this whole project was actually going to work. I’ll show you the picture first, and then I’ll tell you how I did it.

Sweet Retreat

Pretty cool huh? I was hired by a businessman to create something so he could enter it in local competition. There were 10 entries, and even though I didn’t win, I think by the way it sounded I came in second. I was hoping to come in first, but second place isn’t too bad for the first time doing this. The bottom, back, and trees are styrofoam and the most problem that I was having was trying to keep the back tight on the bottom. Daryl came up with a solution, and after he drilled in a couple of really long screws, I knew that I was back in business. Along with scrapbooking paper and ribbon on the background, I added some frosting on the bottom and finished it off with some crushed cookies to look like sand. There’s around 160 pieces of candy on the 3 trees, and when it was all put together it was getting pretty heavy. William went with me to deliver it. He sat in the back of the car and held the trees when we turned the corners. And by the time we got there, everything was still holding up pretty good. I couldn’t believe it! When the person that I made it for came to pick it up, we all met at my sisters in town. I said that if he drove slow and easy it shouldn’t be a problem to get their safe. Well, it made it on our drive for 25 miles to deliver it, and it switched hands and then moved where the judging was being held all with no issues. Whew! I guess it was my lucky day.

Last night was the last performance for the Theatrical Showcase at our high school. The kids did a great job and even though the crowd was on the light side, I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. It was kind of a bittersweet night for Daryl and I. Our oldest son Kyle, was in all the high school musicals and William not only was also in the high school musicals, but also the drama productions over the years. With being able to be in some of the musicals when he was even younger, he said that the total of productions that he performed in was 12. That’s a lot of late night practices and cold sandwiches for supper. It was also a lot time that Daryl and I sat in the audiences for every show night and having a great time at each and everyone of the shows. I have to be honest and say that we will miss this a lot. We’ll miss taking vacation time to drive the kids to school so they can sleep an extra hour in the morning instead of riding the bus after a late practice the night before. We’ll miss either delivering food to school or making ham sandwiches because they were going to practice into the night. Yes, we might even miss the drama that comes with pretty much every musical production.  And maybe even miss finding out a couple of days before the performance that they didn’t have all their clothes ready for the performance and would we have something that would work? I guess for me the part that I’ll miss maybe the most is just being around the kids knowing that they put in so much hard work and time along the way, and when they were done with a show, just how great a job they all did. I know that we’ll still go to the upcoming years productions, but I also know that it’ll never be the same. I am a strong believer that change is good – but there are some things that would be nice if they didn’t change, don’t you?

Great Job William, not only with this performance but over all the years!