Tuffet: Bridge to Nowhere

We were all watching TV together which is a rare thing in this house. The kids had just woken up from their naps and were still a bit groggy. I'd been watching my favorite channel while nursing the baby and Jay decided to take a few minutes off from his schoolwork. My show ended and Food Network Challenge came on. It was the Cereal Bridge Challenge. The contestants had to re-create a famous bridge made entirely out of rice crispie treats. That got everyone's attention! The kids were mesmerized watching the rice crispie treats, (some of which were covered in chocolate.) and Jay and I had something to critique. Which, I must say, is something we do quite well, owing to our vast expertise in every field imaginable. 'That section is going to need more support,' 'the chocolate is going to make that way too heavy', or 'there is no way they are going to get that tower to stand upright'.

We decided that these trained pastry chefs were complete idiots and could not believe how much trouble they were having with a little ole rice crispie treat. I thought to myself, 'that doesn't look hard, we should TOTALLY make our own bridge!' Jay liked the idea and went off to the store to get supplies. He came back with the giant box of rice crispies, 3 bags of marshmallows, fruit roll-ups, and those stringy twizzlers. And, thus, this was born. . . . . . .

Masterpiece of Edible Art, no?

Um, yeah. Man that crap is hard to work with!!! We had planned to model it after an actual bridge, but when we saw how hard it was to work with that plan went right out the window. I'm actually a little shocked we were able to have any roadway suspended at all. And there were going to be a lot more 'suspension cables' but at that point we were a little sick of the project. The kids did absolutely LOVE seeing the whole thing come together. They thought it was amazing and that Jay and I are engineering gods! So it was totally worth it.

I've been wanting to make these little guys ever since I saw them here. They were a HUGE hit! The kids were amazed when they saw them. (They needed an outside break and we whipped the penguins up while they were gone.) This particular species of penguin is, I'm sad to say, extinct. Their entire population was wiped out by ravenous predators in about five minutes.