Swings, Slides, and Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

Last week was my birthday. I turned 31. It was a lovely day and I wanted to share a little bit about what we did.

We woke up to a beautiful day - not only was the sky very blue, but it was also supposed to be pretty warm weather too, so after breakfast with the fam, we all piled into the car to go to a park and let the kids play. There is a park that is near our house but it typically is pretty busy - in fact the last time we went, there were so many kids going down (and then climbing up) the slide that Audrey wasn't able to enjoy the slide much at all... because all of these same kids were a little older and a little bigger and have not yet learned how to take turns... and their mothers have not yet learned how to pay attention to their bratty kids that kept pushing my little Audrey out of the way so that they could go down the slide first... and these same kids also have not yet learned how to listen to the one angry mother of the child they kept pushing (who was paying attention), who kept yelling at them to be nice and take turns....

Have I said too much?

It was awful.


Can you tell it still bothers me?



I'm working on it.



And alas, we decided to try a different park, that was a little farther away. We pulled up to the playground, and it only held a handful of young children with mothers who seemed to be there to watch their children and not just chat up other moms while their kids bully smaller children. We were feeling hopeful. I put Audrey in a swing and Adam put Luke in another.



They were having such a good time...




asking to be pushed some more, looking at each other and smiling... and laughing... and asking to be pushed some more, etc.



It was great and I was beginning to think that I couldn't ask for a better birthday.


We'd only been enjoying the swings for 2 or 3 minutes, when something terrible happened...



I heard an unmistakeable noise, a noise which clearly got Audrey's attention....


It was the rumble of a big school bus. And not just one. Four big yellow school buses pulled into the parking lot near the playground of the park. And almost as soon as the bus came to a stop, the doors were opened and hundreds of screaming, excited children came pouring out of those opened doors, careening around the fronts of the buses at break-neck speed toward the playground... and us.

Audrey and Luke literally started to tremble with trepidation.


So many kids.... So much bigger than us.... Why are they screaming so loud?

(I imagine to them it was like that scene out of Braveheart, when all of the kilted, blue makeup wearing Scottsmen are running full speed towards the English, with furry in their eyes, murder in their hearts, and massive weapons in their hands.)



So, we did what any sane parents of young children would - and went to a different park.

The next park was calm, with only a couple of clusters of young children playing. Ironically, it was the park that is nearer to our home - thankfully not as busy as usual.

The kids were able to play on the swings and the slides.

(Luke getting ready to go down, Adam ready to let go.)

Audrey and Luke had so much fun "racing" down the slides, seeing who would get to the bottom first. And then they added the fun of climbing up the slides, too. (And, just for the record, there were no other children who were waiting to play on the slides - because if there were, we would've taken turns and let them have fun on the slides too!)

I think Luke might actually like the slides as much as the swings!

Here's a short video of some of their time at the park:




It was a fabulous afternoon!

But my birthday only got better with a few gifts and blowing out candles - with Audrey's help, of course. And one of the best parts of the day was the cake.

The Cake.

Can we take a minute and talk about the cake?


First of all, for the record, Adam offered to make my birthday cake. I politely declined. Because a few years ago I let him make my birthday cake and...


well, let's just say that it didn't quite turn out...

let's just say that somehow he managed to burn the cake on one side and leave the other side runny and raw...


we're still not really sure how it happened, but it did. I ended up having to throw together a cake mix really fast, so that we'd have something to serve the guests we were having over that night. This also made it so that I am ok with making my own cake. Afterall, I do like to bake, so I don't consider it a chore to do it on my birthday. And this year was no exception. I even knew exactly what I wanted to make. I found the recipe about a year ago on a food blog that I frequently visit. And I had just been waiting for the right occasion to try it. I figured my birthday was a fitting special occasion.

It is called a Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake. And it's as delicious as it sounds. It goes something like this: the bottom layer is a flour-less dark chocolate cake - moist and substantial, not gooey like a brownie. The middle layer is a milk chocolate mousse - light, airy, rich, and smooth. The top layer is a white chocolate mousse - again, light, airy and smooth; but it also balances out the dark, richness of the bottom two layers. And we're not even done! To top it all off (literally) is chocolate curls - because they add a nice, fancy touch... and they are delicious... and you can, so why not?!

It was DELICIOUS.

It was DECADENT.

It was DEVILISHLY DELECTABLE!


I neglected to take any pictures of it - we were simply too busy eating it to be bothered with picture-taking!


But, here is the link to the recipe/blog that I found it on. You should make it. But only if you love chocolate that tastes more like heaven-on-a-plate than just regular chocolate.