I am one of the lucky people that loves spending time with my daughter. Whether it’s watching my nephew Matt play hockey, riding in the car listening to her music, or pizza parties at her Aunt Jane’s, it’s always a fun time.
On Saturday, Brenna and I had the opportunity to take part in the Cupcake Fun Day at Value Village, an event in its fifth year that raises money for a local charity.
This year, the recipient was the Friends of the Animal Shelter.
It’s a great, fun and delicious event, with dozens of different cupcakes to choose from. It started several years ago in the staff room with a few cupcakes being sold for charity, and grew to a main floor cupcake-palooza the next few years.
Donna Giroux, manager at Value Village, challenges the Girl Guides troop locally to bring on the sweets, and the troop members looking for community service badges rise to the challenge.
Judges, like Brenna and me this year, and Bruce last year, are brought in to admire and sample some of the works of art that are created and choose a winner, with prizes to the top three entries.
The enthusiasm and pride of the Value Village staff and the Girl Guides is incredible, and the public quickly gets in on the fun. We got to look at 22 entries, pick the top five based on creativity and amount of effort, and then the magic started.
With four judges, we split the cupcakes into pieces for tasting and enjoyed every single bite.
The winner was a strawberry white chocolate cheesecake effort that was beautiful to look at and delicious. Second place went to an elegant creation of spiced apple cupcake with apple filling that I would be proud to serve at a wedding, and third place went to a Cookie Swamp Monster cute cupcake with a tasty cookie filling inside.
Being able to go with Brenna and spend time together is the highlight of my week and I hope the enjoyment we get out of it never changes.
Sure, half the time, at the hockey games especially, she laughs at me because I tend to get a little excitable if the other team gets chippy (I would NOT make a good hockey mom; thank goodness she loves dance). But the end result is we get to spend time together, do and try different things and connect as mother and daughter. Sometimes I worry Bruce feels left out of our girl time, but he manages to carve out his own daddy/daughter dates and that’s all that matters.
Finding time to spend with your teen gets harder the older and busier they get, but it is worth every second if you make it a priority.
