In GRATITUDE of Cakewrecks

In case I don't get around to a Thanksgiving-ish post, I threw "gratitude" in there for good measure. Of course anyone who knows me, knows that it's heartfelt & sincere. [insert eye-roll from Mum] I ADORE Cakewrecks. It's my favourite blog, calendar & go-to birthday gift.

So last month, Jen & John of Cakewrecks came to my new town, Richmond to promote their new book, Wreck the Halls. WOO-HOO!  As if I didn't love these guys enough already, look at who is gracing the laptop:

<3 Hobbes. Brother Atlasta's 3 girls, 5-10 all LOVE Calvin & Hobbes. Youngest Marlene IS Calvin.  ;-)  "Daddy, when you were my age, was Calvin & Hobbes YOUR favourite book, too?"  "No, sweetie. It didn't come out until Daddy was in college."  "WHAT????!!!!"  She was suitably outraged. 

And this wasn't done intentionally, but look what they did on the cover of the new book:

*snort* PrEfessional!  This presentation was AWESOME. They need to put it on YouTube!

Shot of Glutonium (non-GF) cake with many homages to wrecks. 

Cupcake contest! Fans are invited to recreate their favourite wrecks:

V. appropriate for this T-day season. For originals, click HERE. 

Camo-wedding cake. I think this was the winner.

C-section cake. Ew. There was a little boy here who kept asking his mother what this was. She said THAT was going to make for an interesting convo in the car ride home! 

Ah, belly cakes!  See her matching finger nails to the one on the cupcake? 

This gal drove all the way from NC! 

john & Jen Yate. He took her name when they got married. And spells john with no capital because she's the head honcho of the Cakewrecks operation. These guy ROCK!

John & Jen stayed til the v. end. I was the penultimate fan (YES! Finally getting to use that 8th grade vocabulary word)!  right in front of Belly Cupcake Gal. So I asked Jen a few questions--now I wish I'd done something more official. While I was waiting in line, I called John Morgan and he asked me, "What are you going to ask her when she signs your book?"  I hadn't really thought about it. As a professional interviewer, he was the guy to give me some guidance. I asked him what he would ask. He said that one of the questions he asked any of the celebrities he spoke with was, "What was the first thing you bought after you made a lot of money?"

So I did a variation of that question and asked, "How did you know that this was bigger than just a blog that you did for fun?" Jen said the first time was when they'd been getting 200 hits a day and there was a review somewhere and the next day they had 50,000 hits. The second time was when they were on their first book tour where John landed in a Texas ICU with the plague. Kidding. It was pneumonia and the flu. They had just left the hospital and went to a laundry mat to do laundry because they were out of clean underwear. Cockroaches every where. John is still hacking up his lungs. And Jen's cell phone rings and it's her publisher calling to tell her that Cakewrecks is on the NY Times best seller's list. Cockroaches everywhere!  "It was the most surreal moment, standing there in a laundry mat, cockroaches everywhere and we're on the NY Times best sellers list."

I also asked about a calendar (no 2012, no time due to new book). I told Jen that I make cards out of Cakewrecks. This is my most recent one for my nephew, a die hard Cakewrecks fan:

So in this season of Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for Cakewrecks. :-)