Plum Cake

Look at the yummy cake I made!

Here is the recipe if you want to try it (I found the recipe online).

Ingredients

3 eggs

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp lemon zest

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cups plums, pitted and sliced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour one pie pan.

2. Separate the eggs. (Do not discard egg whites or yolks)

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Beat in the egg yolks and lemon zest.

4. Stir together the flour and baking powder and then beat the flour mixture into the creamed mixture.

5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. There will only be a little over an inch of batter. Arrange the plums attractively over the batter.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes or until cake tests done.

Closing out the Semester

With the end of the semester Christian's ROTC detachment had its official change of cadet leader ship. When this happens they have a big flight field review thing (I don't actually know what it is called and Christian isn't here to ask). Anyway they marched around on the field and gave out flight awards. Christian was the guidon bearer (Just as a review: the guidon is the flight flag and so the guidon bearer is the one who carries it. They had to use uniform guidons so this one was different than the one I already blogged about). Here are some pictures from the event.

Please take note of that little yellow ribbon hanging from the guidon. Bravo flight was named the honor flight. Later in the evening Christian and two other cadets received Commander's Coins for their roles in the Arnold Air Society Candidate Service Project. The service project was an interactive science fair headed by the AAS Candidates and completed in conjunction with three other ERAU organizations: the Society of Women Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Silver Wings. They had twelve booths that highlighted s topics in the areas of science, math, engineering, technology. All of the booths incorporated demonstrations or activities that the kids could participate in. It was really a great event. Here are some pictures.

Candidate Initiation Dinner

Last night we attended the Arnold Air Society Candidate Initiation Dunner. Christian and his fellow AAS Candidates completed their training. There training has included middle of the night workouts, lots of memorization and testing, a service project, and a fundraiser. They even had to carry around identical candidate binders everywhere and all the time. They were expected to be at all ROTC events 15 min early and to be meticulous in performance and attire at both ROTC and AAS events.
Last night that all ended at a formal initiation dinner, hosted by the candidates themselves. From 10:00 am to 3:00 pm we had candidates over at our place cooking for the dinner (main dish: Sun-dried tomato chicken alfredo). While that was going on another group was setting up at the hall.

At the dinner the candidate (now referred to as initiates) hosted the Colonel of their ROTC detachment, the guest speaker (Major Joshua Flatley of the Air National Guard) and his wife, as well as the active AAS members in the squadron. It was fun to see the initiates present humorous awards to their training staff and see pictures from the past two months of training.

There were two highlights of the evening. First, when the candidates were officially accepted into the society as their individual mentors took off their own AAS pin and fourragere (the cord that goes around the arm) and placed them on the initiates to wear for the remainder of the evening. The second highlight was when Christian was presented with the award for Honor Candidate. He was consistently ranked at the top of his candidate class throughout the training. With the award he was presented with the framed second lieutenant bar of Steven M. Sherp to safe guard and pass on to next years recipient. (Steven M. Sherp is the individual that their squadron is named after. He was the first cadet to be commissioned through the ERAU ROTC detachment. He was killed in a plane accident early in his military career) Christian was not aware of the award nor that he had been ranked so highly by his class.

It was a wonderful evening.