ReGeneration Who 2: The Adventure Continues

March saw the second annual ReGeneration Who. I went with a friend of mine last year. This year, a group of us went together. My friend did a much better job blogging about this year's con, and you can read that here.
 

Dave and I are cornered by a Dalek.

We took in the whole con, from Friday to Sunday. It was great! The Fifth and Sixth Doctors were there (Peter Davison and Colin Baker), and I very much enjoyed listening to the 5th Doctor- both in his own panel and in the panel on the 5-ish Doctors story.

Sophie Aldred (Ace) is always great, too. She ended up jumping down into the audience, taking someone's Ace jacket, and posing with someone dressed as the 7th Doctor.

Sophie Aldred

And there was a Dalek panel with Nicholas Briggs that was fun. Here he is standing up, pointing at the Dalek in the first photo in this post, telling it in the Dalek voice that its plunger is on the wrong side. Because someone made that Dalek.

"You are a bad Dalek."

But the real highlight for me was the attention focused on the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton. I went to two different panels with his companions, and they were fantastic. In addition to the companions, his son was in the first one.

Michael Troughton, Deborah Watling, Frazer Hines, Anneke Wills, Wendy Padbury, and the ASL interpreter

The second one focused on the companions of the 60s. Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury portrayed two of my favorite Doctor Who companions, Jamie and Zoe, and I was thrilled to be able to hear them talk about their time on Doctor Who.
 

Wendy Padbury, Frazer Hines, Anneke Wills, and the moderator

Frazier Hines is delightful and hilarious. They all were funny and told great stories.

I had a fantastic time with my friends, too. They're great people, and being at the con with them made the weekend more fun. See you next year, ReGeneration Who!

Weyerbacher brewery

Dave and I went to the Weyerbacher brewery this past weekend. It's a local brewery, and I'm a big fan of their beer, even though they discontinued my favorite one, Verboten. I found this out this past weekend. No wonder it has been so hard to find lately.

The tour was short but sweet. We hung out in the tap room before and for a bit after.

Dave doesn't like Weyerbacher. He won't drink most beer. I won't shame this blog by saying what beer he drinks all the time. *Shudder* Needless to say, it's embarrassing to see it in my recycling bin. :) The point is, he was a good sport for coming along even though he wasn't interested. It was even his idea!

We went in the afternoon, and by the time we were leaving, it was getting crowded. I'd like to go back and try more beer. The one in the photo, QUAD, is 12 ounces, but they have four ounce pours that are great for trying things out. And now that I've gone to the page for QUAD, I see that it is seasonal. Sigh. I better get it while I can.

Grasshopper cake

I've been wanting to try this cake for some time. It's grasshopper cake, from the cookbook Baked.

Sadly, this was one of those cakes that my family liked but I thought was meh. I was disappointed by the buttercream.

I brought this cake to my parents' house. I tend to do that so my husband and I don't eat entire cakes ourselves. The chocolate cake was good. The mint chocolate ganache in between the cake layers was very good. But the mint buttercream was not good at all.

I've made buttercreams before, and they've turned out excellent. This one used a different method involving flour, and I wonder if that's just not to my taste. The texture and the flavor both seemed off to me. Oh, well.

Morristown National Park

Last month Dave and I went to Morristown National Historical Park. Washington and his troops stayed here during the Revolutionary War, and there are miles and miles of trails as well as a museum building/visitor's center.

It was great! Although, I wish there was more Washington stuff. I adore Washington.

They had a neat section with Revolutionary-era pamphlets. This speech is the one that Washington gave in my favorite Washington story, so it was really cool to see a printed version from the time.

We headed off to Jockey Hollow, the section of the park with trails. This is where the troops camped. The trails were cool, and I'd like to go back and explore more.

And of course, I had to get my passport stamps.

There were stamps at both visitor's centers- the headquarters museum and Jockey Hollow. But the headquarters stamps had the wrong date and also one didn't have the year! I stamped one upside down, too. Haha. That's okay. It was a fun day. 

Best wedding cake ever!

Check out this wedding cake.

It's my wedding cake! Dave and I went to Hawaii for two weeks in January, and we got married. We didn't tell anyone about this until we got back. I will blog about the Hawaii trip at some point.

My mom wanted to have a party for us, since we didn't have a reception. I vetoed this idea but suggested my parents could have a cake for us at Easter dinner.

I knew the cake was going to be a caramel cream cake from Sweet Eats, but I never expected it to be the most perfect wedding cake Dave and I could ever have, including both of our favorite ships from Star Wars (mine = Millennium Falcon, Dave = X-Wing).

My parents special ordered the topper with our names and the date of the wedding, and they bought the little ships and put it all together themselves. Sweet Eats just wrote "Congratulations Jen & Dave."

Dave and I were completely surprised and floored by this amazing Star Wars cake. I couldn't have come up with something this good if I had done it myself.