Fake Cake Float: Giraffes & Franzie's Backyard, Webster, NY

Marni is creating a project where she has to pet atypical animals and we had every intention of visiting the Buffalo Zoo prior to Niagara Falls to pet a giraffe. She did some research to discover that if we brought crackers that would work if they were near the fence. We learned the night before that the county fair has giraffes that will wrap their tongues around your arm when you feed them carrots. That sounded far more promising than the zoo and we opted not to go. We did, however, visit a fantastic craft store where I made Marni pet a giraffe in some capacity until she waits for September's fair.



In turn she had me hold a "gerbil":



I also did a little diorama research and know what to purchase for desert ground cover:



and learned a little bit about painting by numbers:



I also had plans to meet my old friend from grad school, Franzie Weldgen and his wife Shannon and daughter Zazie in Webster, NY. When I learned that they had a giraffe kiddie pool, I knew the 3-tier had to be repaired and thanks to Franzie's glue gun, it held together for one more shoot. Then I dropped the topper (so ignore the cracked neck, missing elbow, and hand realignment) and meet Zazie Weldgen with her new pool:



In addition to giraffes, Zazie and Marni have something in common... they are both excellent cake wranglers:







Right before leaving, Zazie gave me the tour of her painting studio that she shares with her dad and produced this brilliant replacement topper for the 3-tier:



Next up: A taxidermy elephant and suicide letter in the George Eastman House and Lake Ontario...