Candy Cakes, Honeysuckle, and Last Days of School

One of my former co-workers celebrated her birthday this month and as it happens, she is also retiring the end of this month.  I made her a candy cake with a birthday message inside with the promise of a tea-date to celebrate.  I sent the cake over to her in the interoffice mail and her boss saw it and in the course of a phone call for another reason, happened to mention that her birthday was also this month.  Not wanting to disappoint her, I put another one together.  I'm beginning to realize that maybe I should prepare some of the paper cuts in advance to have on hand as these seem to be a hit.

Yes, this is a bit of a mish-mosh post as I was going through the pictures on my camera and remembering that I had not yet posted some of them.  Which brings me to a recent bike ride that HWNSNBP and I took down in Barnegat one morning.  This time of year you can see, and smell the honeysuckle blooming.  I asked HWNSNBP if he had ever tried honeysuckle and his answer was no, as was his answer when I picked a couple of blossoms to show him how to get the honeydew out of them.  Such a brief, sweet taste.  And fun to get to it.  I remembered that it was an elementary school friend that had first shown me how to do this many moons ago.  And I think, at least I hope, that I shared this with my kids when they were younger and we had some honeysuckle vines (since removed) on our property.

Using your fingernails, gently crease the blossom at the bottom but not completely through and pull the style down.  This will capture the honeydew/nectar in the neck of the blossom so coveted by hummingbirds.  And then just touch it to your tongue to enjoy.

The school I work in is in a residential neighborhood and there is one house that sits on the corner that is surrounded by our playground and parking lot.  The family that lives in that house has a child that attends our school and needless to say, he is a walker of course.  However, the last week of school he chose to ride his scooter to school.  Twice he rode it right past the bicycle rack, past the front door and deposited it on the grass out front.  We thought it was a riot.  The distance from his house to the bike rack was about the same distance as the bike rack to the front door, so really, what would be the point of riding the scooter if you could only go half-way?  That's what I'm thinking.  We did have to have him move it the second time he did it however after a visitor commented on it being there.  We told him that they were going to cut the grass. (His teacher told me that earlier in the year he walked to school with cross-country ski poles and did park those in the bike rack!)

And lastly, my office cohorts and I had what we call Fat Friday the last week of school, only we did it on Thursday because the last day is kind of crazy.  I made a variation of Rice Krispie treats using Trix cereal instead.  Aren't they pretty?  Personally, they tasted great but I was having a problem with their sweet fruity smell.  I also made my Sausage Stars, Pink Fluff, and Chocolate Chip Cheesecake bars.  All the recipes were and can be found on Pinterest.