This past Tuesday, the Cake Shop celebrated our third birthday with a Mardi Gras party with live music and a raffle to benefit Green Opportunities’ Kitchen Ready Program.  Heinzelmannchen Brewery in Sylva donated the beer (and stuck around to pour it!) and Sour Grapes donated the wine.  The raffle included amazing gifts from Harvest Records, Honeypot, Marco’s Pizzeria, The Village Witch, and Mark Rosenstein.  Also, Emilou made a pie, and Hannah donated a handmade apron.  Our neighbors that play bluegrass came over and played for us, and there was singing, dancing, drinking and cake.  It was a beautiful evening!

The day started for me at 3:30 am, when I went in to the Cake Shop to start the king cake dough to get ready for our TV appearance on WLOS.  Victoria Dunkle was gracious and fun, and we had a blast talking about Mardi Gras, King Cake, and the party on the morning news.  (You can see a link to one of the TV segments here)

This is Victoria making beer cupcakes with Deiter and Sheryl of Heinzelmannchen Brewery.  After a brief nap and a LONG production shift, the party was underway!

There were lots of kids, and friends young and old.  Beads were flying, and Carrie-Welles knows how to run a proper raffle.  All told, we raised almost $200 for Kitchen Ready, but most importantly, we had a chance to thank our community and friends for three wonderful years of love and cake.

(this is me doing a little birthday dance before lighting the candle.  And THAT- is the Strawberry Lime Birthday Cake that the One and Only Hannah Dansie made for the Cake Shop’s birthday.  It was so delicious, it was gone in MINUTES.

Much thanks to the wonderful Peter Parpan for designing the flyer for the party, taking great pictures, and generally being awesome.

Love me some Sara.

Emilou in the house!

Love you, Duncan!

Thank you, Everybody!

Thank you to Alisa Kuumba, Peter Parpan, Carrie-Welles Miller, and Braden Russell for the photographs!  So much love.