Cherry Blossom Festival

Every April the bases in Japan have Cherry Blossom Festivals, the base is open for the local Japanese and it is a huge event and the line to get in seemed to go on forever. The one is Atsugi was this past weekend and me and Danny went and had a great time. The First Class Petty Officer's Association ran some game booths- they had a ball toss, three bouncy houses, and an Adult and Child Strongman. Danny ran the ball toss and strongman for a few hours, I swear he must have hit the bell like two hundred times! They made almost $3,000!! They also set up the run way with the different planes and sell merchandise from all the squadrons.

Here are some pictures of the cherry Blossom Trees

Here's my Hubby working the ball tossand hitting the Strong-Man

E-2 Hawkeye, my baby's bird

XOXO,

Annie

Easter Cookies

MARTHA'S ROYAL ICING

__________________________________________________

Ingredients: makes 2 1/3 cups

1 Box Confectioners' Sugar, 1 pound

5 tablespoons Meringue Powder, or 2 Large egg whites

1/2 Cup Water

Directions:

Combine Sugar and Meringue powder, mixing on low speed

add scant 1/2 cup water

mix until icing holds a ribbon-like trail on the surface of the mixture

for 5 seconds when you raise the paddle.

For thinner consistency add more water- used for flooding or filing in.

Thicker is used for outlining or detailing.

________________________________________________

I used meringue powder this time and I liked it much better than egg whites.

If you use too much water then it gets really runny and is hard to use.

Then I used Wilton gel food coloring to color the icing.

For 72 cookies I made two batches, plus I had four containers of wilton cookie icing.

I liked the white and pink ones, but the yellow was egg yolk yellow

and the green was really bright.

Royal Icing- yellow for the duckies, I used small jelly beans for the eyes.

Wilton Icing and Decorating Supplies

XOXO,

Annie