Thoughts on the Last Day of 2012

We are part way through the last day of 2012, and counting down the hours to 2013, a year that has tremendous meaning to us. Before we can appropriately make the transition to 2013, we honor the events of 2012 by reflecting back on an incredible year! The first half of 2012 was spent working on the book and making cakes for clients, with little to no social time to spend with our family and friends. We knew the demands of writing the book would be high as we went through editing and a final photo shoot, and had scheduled any work-related traveling for classes starting in June, as book commitments would be winding down.

As soon as June arrived, that is when our traveling really started, and it felt like we were always getting ready to fly for a trip, or just returning from one. In 2012, we logged 50,700 miles, approximately, and all but 5400 of the miles occurred in the last 6 months of the year! Those 50,700 miles pulled us away from home for weeks at a time, and on a few occasions, left us with only a couple weeks between trips.
We flew to foreign countries that we have dreamed about visiting our whole lives and took in as many new adventures as we could handle. In the fall, we met our publishing team at Clarkson Potter in New York City. Arriving at the Random House building and getting to meet the many special people involved with Extreme Cakeovers was exhilarating and easily one of the highlights of our year!

The weeks between trips were spent getting over jet-lag, making cakes, working on final touches on the book, and trying to stay sane! As crazy as life got, we wouldn't trade the experiences and memories we had for anything and feel grateful to all of Rick's students and hosts who have supported him sharing his craft around the world. We met cake friends from all over the world who will be in our lives for years to come. Rick taught 8 classes of his "Discover Your Inner Artist" series, and by the end of the year, there were a lot of students with beautiful clownfish and hibiscus cakes and hundreds of photos to document the experience. The traveling experiences were unforgettable but the schedule was pretty excruciating to maintain and after our last trip of the year, we were anxious to enjoy some down time before our next flight.

Our traveling is far from over. We have more scheduled trips and new classes for 2013, which we are really looking forward to! In 2013, Rick will be debuting his "Discover Your Inner Artist 3" two-day classes, starting in Austin, Texas, in conjunction with the cake show "That Takes the Cake", and ending in Boston, Massachusetts, shortly before our book's release. For a list of Rick's classes, please visit the "Classes" page at the top of our blog. In addition to the classes and the book's release, we will be busy making cakes. Rick has designed some amazing cakes for clients in 2013, starting just days after the new year!

2013 will be the year we finally get to make the transition from "writing a book" to "published author" and we couldn't be more excited about the release of our literary "baby", Extreme Cakeovers in the Summer! We have put our heart and soul into this book, ever since it was purchased in 2011. We probably lost a few years of our lives in the process of doing the book and had many near-sleepless nights because we were unbelievably excited, or stressed, or a little of both. We can't wait to present more content from the book once we are able to and will post information on the blog, website and social media as it becomes available. Stay tuned!

Finally, we want to thank everyone who has supported us this year and wish you all much happiness and success in 2013!