Multi-purpose cake

Sunday was a special day at St. Raphael's.  We both celebrated the return of one of our favorite and most active families and wished two of our members farewell as they each move closer to family (interestingly, to me, one went to California and the other to DC...).  As is typical of our parish, it was decided that we would celebrate with cake.  This brought on a tough decision for me--How does one combine "yay, you're home!" with "boo, we'll miss you!"??

After much thought, it dawned on me that the best way would be to play into St. Raphael (for whom our parish is named).  We have a parish logo that references the book of Tobit, and particularly the idea of a successful journey.  Since we're a parish who pray for and celebrate all kinds of travelers, it seemed reasonable to use our logo and that verse.  Here is the final product:

This was actually a fairly easy cake to put together.  We wanted to do a half-sheet cake, and since I have some weird issue with single layer cakes, I was able to make two half-sheets--one chocolate and one white--then cut each in half and stack them for a double-layer half-chocolate/half-white half-sheet cake. Then, it was just a matter of frosting and decorating.  I should have evened out the layers before frosting, and definitely regretted that, but in general, I think it turned out okay!