What good is a cake if you can't eat it?

Saint Louis is celebrating it's 250th anniversary.  We have really learned a lot about our new city and I've learned a lot about how to navigate around in a place I've lived in for less than a year.  Here's more on the 250 cakes that are respesentative of the St. Louis culture.

http://www.stl250.org/cake.aspx

The Ferguson, Missouri Cake- Counting the cost

Michael, the kids and I set off with excitement and anticipation to visit the Dream Center in St. Louis to hear Joyce Meyer speak on Sunday, August 3^rd.  I woke up early and measured the minutes to get us all out the door in plenty of time. With packed lunches, water bottles and a camera full of batteries, the trip would take us just under an hour. We wanted to have enough time to arrive at the 10:00 service without rushing. As it turned out, we had a lot of extra time and so Michael and I decided to pull out our cake list and find a cake nearby.  With a good 40 minute leeway, we found ourselves just minutes from the Ferguson Station Depot cake.  The cake was nestled in a quiet, peaceful little area of St. Louis.  Just up the hill from the cake was a little depot where you could buy ice cream.  We took a few photos with the cake and both agreed we would like to return here in the future to visit the depot and spend a little more time exploring the city walk.

As it turned out, we did make it to the Dream Center in time to get in the church to hear Joyce Meyer but a last minute decision to put our two boys in the children’s ministry cost us our lead time.  Payton readily joined his 5 year old class but Taylor was not at all happy as he had almost fallen asleep as we pulled in and it took awhile to get him settled, I still left him in tears knowing they would call if he didn't adjust.  That decision resulted in locked doors to the sanctuary as we returned from checking the children in and we were ushered downstairs to the overflow basement.  Did we receive a good word from Joyce? sure. But the disappointment of meticulously planning to arrive in time and get seats to hear and see her in person, only to spend the hour viewing her from below in the basement was crushing.  I admit, I sat outside the locked doors of the entry way for a few minutes because I was so disappointed.  "Why didn’t they tell us that if we left to take the children to their rooms that it would cost us our seats? Do they know we drove an hour to get here? Can’t they just let us stand in the back?" Then I heard it, a small voice in my head saying, “You’re acting like an entitled white girl.  Are you here to see Joyce or hear her message?"  So appropriately humbled, Mike and I headed downstairs to the basement. We watched Joyce from a wavy screen, heard the vibrations of the music from above our heads while listening to only a handful of voices praising God down below. We were sitting with those bused in from the homeless shelters, others that may have lingered too long checking their children in too, and those who did not know the service started at 10 instead of the usual later time.  But what really choked me up was that the ushers were also locked out of their own service. They exuded joy and were more than gracious to us the two suburban white visitors.  We felt honored to receive the message we heard that day and went on to tour north county St. Louis and photograph more cakes.   Each cake found has an adventure and memory attached to it.  However, the decision to visit Ferguson Missouri cake before church that morning cost me.  It cost me disappointment.

In light of the recent escalating violence resulting from the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, I consider myself lucky to have captured this little neighborhood in St. Louis County before the riots and the looting.   I thought about my boys who both spent their morning as the only white children in their Sunday school class. Yet neither mentioned or even noticed that they were of a different skin color; instead they talked excitedly about the games they played, the pictures they made and the snacks they had.  Michael and I mused about the idea of racism. When does skin color become an issue? Is it taught?  Who can know what is inside the heart of man.  Only God knows what was going on in the mind of the officer and Michael Brown the night of that fatal shooting.  It would benefit both sides to stand down and pray for peace. The story is still unfolding and no matter the outcome, there are no winners in the situation.   The little cake that put Ferguson Missouri on the map for me and my family, is no longer a cake that stirs up disappointment when I look at my photographs, instead it reminds me to have hope. Hope for peace and hope for good to come out of an awful situation.

100 more to go~ but who is counting?

Today's cake finds were a bonus of sorts. My youngest and I set out this morning to have an interactive music hour at the local library and  afterwards spend the rest of our morning at the zoo.  We have just over a month to use umpteen train tickets and parking passes.  So we spent the hotter part of our day trucking around the zoo checking out bees, ants, birds and a tiger- while waiting in line for our train ride around the zoo. This was about all T could take after our busy morning schedule so we headed to the car.  As only the true cake addict can testify, you feel the pull to locate just one more.  Promising yourself that tomorrow it won't drive you, you just need your fix for the day.  It's always there in the back of your mind, calling to you, "where is the next cake?"  Just my luck, there was a cake that had eluded me.  Two months ago, I had followed the GPS route 1.2 miles from the zoo to the designated cake spot and was instead bewildered by the community college staring back at me.   This time, I decided to turn early and attempt to trick the GPS, it didn't work but luckily my youngest had his cake eyes on and he saw a spot of blue and yellow just ahead nestled between two luxury apartment buildings.  Odd location for a cake titled St. Louis Arena. However it was a great place for T to cool his jets and for me to claim victory over the elusive cake.  After this one as he was conked out from all the fun of the day, I picked up one more cake on the route home to bring my total to 150 cakes.  Only 100 more the go but who's counting?

The candle is ignited

On one of our many trips to Chesterfield valley, we saw another silver cake from the road and I pulled over to investigate.  It looked like a superman symbol.  Payton ran out and we grabbed a few pictures in front of the Kemp Auto Museum, stopping to admire the silver cast of an older model Mercedes.  At this point, I still had no clue what the cakes were for or why we were spotting them. 

The lights didn't come on until driving home from the Magic House down Lindenberg Avenue, we see a cake at the Kirkwood Train Depot and then just a few miles down one upon a hill.  The boys and I turn around and grab a few photos. I began to wonder "why all the cakes?"  I figured the other places were just fun places to take children, but why these? These two cakes were the pivotal point in peaking my interest enough to actually begin “caking” as we have begun to call it.

That was not very lady like

We took a trip to the zoo on a chilly spring day in March.  As we were entering through the south gate, we found another cake.  We climbed up, took the picture and moved on.  

In my usual fashion of running away from the household chores and seeking adventure instead, I decided a trip to the Wild Bird Sanctuary might be a fun trip for the boys and I.  We walked along the wooded path to see eagles, hawks and other large birds in cages and tethered to poles.  And on the way back we even crawled into a replica size of a massive eagles nest.  Of course, we see another cake here and the boys climb up to get their picture, one of many for the day.  Taylor finds a lovely lady bug and watches as it crawls around his fingers.  Unbeknown to me, he brings it in the car with him, and as we are pulling out, I hear an animalistic scream coming from the seat behind me and Taylor is flailing his hands with long streams of tears rolling down his face and screaming  "Lady bug bite me, lady bug bite me!"  His crying was so uncontrollable that I pulled over on the side of the road to soothe him. After 15 minutes of rocking him (secretly taping him) and assuring him that lady bugs don’t bite, I googled and found out that "yes indeed they do bite when they feel threatened".  Not to be easily coaxed back into his seat, I noticed Lone Elk Park just across the road and we drove through as Taylor eventually feel asleep from pure exhaustion.  It is there at the visitor center, that I spot another cake.  I park and send Payton out with my camera.  He runs down to take the photo and we drive home with birds and wild elk, as well as a traumatic encounter with a lady bug, as our memories for the day.  

A little magic goes a long way

On a trip post birth date to celebrate Payton’s 5^th birthday, we happened upon a cake at the Magic House, our first cake sighting.  Payton was excited, thinking it was there to mark his birthday.  Sure, why not? I went along with that scenario. The kids scrambled up to get a photo with Payton’s 4 foot tall cake.  Little did we know that this cute photo op would lead to an adventure that would change the course of our summer and become an inspiration for exploring our new city.