Daniel's Birthday Weekend

This year, we surprised Daniel with a weekend at a cabin on Lake Granby, just outside Rocky Mountain National Park. The first night we saw the Supermoon blood moon. It looked HUGE!

The second night I woke up in the middle of the night and went outside to see a partial eclipse. Crazy.

Everyone got to do some of their favorite things. Fishing was high on the boys' list. Check out the huge fish Jack caught the first day--right off the dock in a net! It must have been beginner's luck because the boys didn't catch anything else the rest of the weekend.

We paddled, read, and relaxed in the hot tub.

A cute boy decided to brave the icy water.

For his birthday cake, Daniel asked for eclairs. I had to get all fancy and make a croquembouche--which is basically a pyramid tower of cream puffs glued together with caramel and wound with decorative spun sugar. It is traditionally served at French weddings.

Here's a very unflattering picture of me sweating bullets. I made the cream puffs, pastry cream, and a chocolate ganache dipping sauce at home, and I piped them at the cabin. The caramel should have taken 15 minutes to make. An hour later, it was still crystallizing every five minutes. You can see the thick layer of crystallization in the pot in this photo. I forgot that I always have problems making caramel in Denver (at 5,000 feet). The cabin sits at 8,000 feet. Daniel broke the rule book and kept adding water which seemed to stop the crystallization but it took over an hour to make. I was pretty worked up but Owen, my loyal sous chef, stayed by my side, and Daniel had to help assemble his own birthday cake.

It was delicious but the caramel was so hard it kept getting stuck in our teeth. We were laughing hysterically. This video gives a sense of the party ambiance. My apologies for the operatic attempts.

It's rare to get to canoe on a lake in Colorado. Our morning canoe ride was such a treat. It doesn't hurt that Lake Granby backs up onto Rocky Mountain National Park so most of the shoreline is national forest.

We paddled across the lake to a small island.

My dudes. I love them desperately.

Birthday breakfast for the (very loved) birthday boy. We adore you, Daniel!