Happy birthday, Shalon!

Our friend Shalon celebrated her 29th birthday with a party at an indoor "inflatable party zone" in Oakland that featured two rooms of bounce houses and obstacle courses. We took the place over with a large group of people probably far older and bigger than the structures were designed for. The staff of 17 year olds tried to play it cool as we promptly broke every rule in the orientation video.



Despite all of the bruises, scrapes, friction burns, and even Shalon's self-inflicted black eye, it was a ton of fun. It also made me feel incredibly out of shape; jumping and running around while trying to keep your balance and not get slammed in the face with over-sized boxing gloves and balls is a lot of work! All of the sweating was balanced out by a ridiculous amount of treats.

3-layer chocolate cake with peanut butter caramel and peanut butter buttercream, by Shaudi.


Strawberry cupcakes, by Shaudi.


Mini-funfetti and mocha cupcakes, featuring a super decadent chocolate frosting recipe that I'm working on. I think I overloaded the cocoa this time, so the texture was a little off, but it's getting closer!


Shaudi also made coffee cream filled cupcakes with ganache, and Molly and Krisi brought amazing chocolate chip cookies with oats and chewy snickerdoodles, that I enjoyed for breakfast the following day. I'm going to need to get those cookie recipes!

5 comments:

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Dang, that looks like an awesome party! Every single one of those treats should get in my belly.

B.A.D. said...

Everything looks beautiful! Nice work on the sweets.

Anonymous said...

Jumped over here from the "Vegan Cupcake Fiasco :)" on another site. I am not a vegan...am in fact a meat-eater (pastured, antibiotic free, etc..only) but I must say that after looking at all the food here...my curiosity is definitely peaked. It all looks delicious! I might have to try a recipe or two.

Very nice blog!

Anonymous said...

What beautiful treats. I am especially in love with those strawberry cuppers. Yum!

I so want my birthday at a huge bounce house. I think we have one here too. That sounds like it was a blast (all except the black eye part)!

Anonymous said...

Wow, nice spread! It sounds like it was a great party... You know, aside from all the pain and such.