Hello Summer!

The excitement of graduation and the end of school has passed away into lazy days. Today is the first official day of summer. The last week has been busy with graduation, celebrations and turning in all of our school books.

My daughter's graduation was beautiful. It was one of those moments when we could not have been more proud of the person she has become. I managed not to cry which for me is a huge accomplishment. It seemed like she had just graduated kindergarten and here we were embarking on high school in a couple of months.

Father's Day brought a day of relaxation and a special preview of Disney's Cars 2. It was a very cute movie. I am not sure if I preferred the first one or this one. They were so different that each is very enjoyable in their own right.

Today is Tuesday and in our family it means only one thing. Well, maybe two things. Our local "cheap" theater is even cheaper at $1.00 a movie and that Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors has $1 scoop night.

Today my daughter and I went to the movie theater and saw Rio. We both really enjoyed it. It is from the creators of  Ice Age and a fun family movie. Movies have become so expensive that I just can't bring myself to go to the regular theater most of the time. You should check to see if you have a discount theater in your area. It's a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours without breaking the bank. Now, the refreshments are full price but it doesn't hurt quite as much when it only cost $2.00 to get us in to see the movie.

Tonight was our weekly trip to 31 Flavors for our $1.00 scoop night. Again, 31 Flavors is one of those places that I love. Let's be honest, if its ice cream - I love it. But at the regular cost, it just doesn't make sense to me. $1 scoop night is a perfect way to have a little treat without breaking the bank as well.

A little late but today was free admission to National Parks. There are remaining days this year. September 24 which is Public Lands Day and November 11-13 in honor of Veterans Day. Our parks are beautiful and you should visit one if you can.

Enjoy your first day of summer!

An 8th Grade Graduation Trip

This week has gone by so quickly. Tonight is my daughter's 8th grade graduation. I know that  a lot of people do not see it as a big deal but I do. Any celebration of a milestone has always been a big deal to me.

I only have one child and so anything that she goes through, I don't get another opportunity.

To celebrate this week, we chose to take her and her best friend to the Disneyland Resort for a couple of days with a stay at the Paradise Pier. My daughter could live at the Resort if we let her. They wore silly hats and graduation buttons and had a pillow fight in the hotel. Watching them you could not help but think about when we were that age.

We left the hotel in time to arrive at pratice for tonight's graduation. It seems like I just sat in the audience for her kindergarten graduation. I realized in watching her pratice that I only have 4 more years of having her "ours". Not that she will be done with school in 4 years or that she won't be ours - just that she will be an adult and we will be watching her graduate high school and be on her way. The phrase "it goes by fast" is an understatement. I know that I want to make the most of her high school years. To help her achieve her goals and to love every moment that she can.

Her Dad and I are so proud of her and I know that she will continue to make us proud!

There is a blog that I love to read. It always makes me laugh. They have some special cakes today in honor of graduation. Check them out!

Cake Wrecks

Today is National Marriage Day! Do something special for your spouse to let them know you appreciate them and are thinking of them.

Happy Birthday Mom!

The cake didn't turn out half bad. Of course, that could be because my daughter ended up making most of it. I am really proud of her.

Here it is:

I was thinking today about how nice it was that my daughter and I were making a cake for my Mom's birthday. I wondered how long it would be that my daughter would want to make cakes with me. She is a teenager but still seems pretty okay with hanging out with me. She has no choice on the schooling part but the rest of the time that she has a choice still seems as though she is happy to be there.

I was thinking about the birthday cakes my Mom used to make for me. As kids, we all had our favorite. Mine was a pink cake with pink icing. Every year for as long as I could remember I would request a pink cake with pink icing. All of my presents were wrapped in pink wrapping paper. Luckily it was a nice pastel pink and didn't look like someone vomited Pepto Bismol all over my birthday. I am not sure how my Mom managed each year facing the pink cake with pink icing. It wasn't strawberry - I just wanted a cake dyed pink. In later years, as I became a teenager and an adult, I would on occasion get a pink cake with pink icing as a humorous nod to my younger fascination with the color pink.

My daughter started out all in pink as it is one of my favorite colors. She is now the anti-pink and prefers blue. I guess I should be thankful she has never asked me to dye a cake blue. I am not sure I could handle that.

Today is National Yo-Yo Day! It is in honor of the birthday of Donald Duncan Sr. The worlds largest yo-yo weighed in at a whopping 256 pounds. Even as a kid, I couldn't get a yo-yo to work well for me but I do remember swinging it around like a lasso. I guess I am lucky I survived to have another pink cake with pink icing.

Today is also National Gardening Exercise Day - get out there and excercise with your plants! No, you don't have to weight lift bags of manure. It is just a day to celebrate the benefits of gardening.

Our Girl Scout troop started a community garden a couple of months ago. As I started it I was hoping for a few things to grow so I felt like my effort was worth it. In the 2 months since we planted the garden, I felt like it has exploded. As being new to gardening, no one told me to only plant one zuchinni plant. I planted two. I have more zuchinni then I can use. Some has gone to the girls in the troop and some will now go to the local food bank. We also have cucumbers and beets. The tomatoes are now coming in and the strawberries are taking over the garden. My daughter wanted a pumpkin plant. I did not believe that you needed 8 feet. I was wrong. Overall, I couldn't be more pleased with the garden. Some days though I feel that at any time, an Audrey II will come forth.

The garden about 2 weeks after we started it. Check out the zuchinni, cucumbers and tomatoes to the right in the foreground.

 Same plants exactly 31 days later:

The pumpkin that is taking over the garden about 2 weeks after being planted:

And the strawberries and peas in the garden. The peas were grown from seeds and I was not aware that I planted them to late in the season. The packet said May and I have now been informed that May is for back East. So we shall see what happens to them. They are now taller then the trellis and all over the place.

Make sure you spend today baking something with a loved one, learning a new trick with a yo-yo or doing some exercise with your plants. It will make you smile.

Stick a fork in me...I'm done!

Today we celebrated my mom's birthday. Well, part one of the celebrations. Tomorrow is her actual birthday and I will be making her a cake. As much as I love to cook and bake, cakes are not my strong points. They taste just fine but decorating is just not it for me. I would love to know how to decorate and every time I am going to take a class, it just seems like it is so expensive for the few times I make a cake. But I am wandering...as I said, we celebrated her birthday today and we celebrated by going to brunch. I love brunch...I love the thought of brunch...I do not love the feeling like I ate so much that I will never eat again. I know, I don't need to eat that much but there is so much yumminess! (Is that even a word) It's not the dessert table as sweets are not my thing....today my thing was the carne asada. Yum!

We went to a great brunch at the Pomona Valley Mining Co. They had a Mexican food station, omelets, fruit, salad, the usual bacon, eggs etc. Not badly priced at $26.95 and with a coupon I had for $5.00 off, I thought definitely worth it. My family had a great time and we would definitely go back.

Once we rolled out to our car we headed home only to find myself restless at home. I think because I am home so much, I felt the need to get out. But the question is...what to do? I love to people watch. I toyed with the idea of walking the mall (I am not a big shopper but like to walk) or heading over to Downtown Disney and people watching. In the end, we decided to go play some trivia at a local restaurant. I love to play games and trivia is one of them. We enjoyed our late afternoon competition between my sister, my daughter and my husband. Not much people watching going on but it did get me out of the house.

Now today's special day! It is National Gingerbread Day! I know.. you would think that would be in December but it's not.

Recipe for Old Fashion Gingerbread:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup hot water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 inch square pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the egg, and mix in the molasses.
3. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the prepared pan.
4. Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan before serving.

Thank you to Allrecipes.com for the recipe. I love their site. It is one of my favorites.

Allrecipes.com

I could probably manage this cake. There isn't decorating going on except some whip topping. I think I could manage that. My husband and I were watching something on television the other night (what it was I can not remember) and they were showing things from the 70's. One was a birthday cake that was baked, frosted and decorated in the 9 x 13 pan. We were laughing so hard we had to explain to our daughter that most of the time, that's how we got our birthday cakes. We didn't always of course but we remembered the "cake in the pan" cakes.

I had the thought yesterday that I am truly getting old or at least I feel old. My daughter is at the age where she questions what we had when we were little and really understands what is different now.

I took my Girl Scout troop to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour yesterday as a celebration for a great cookie season. This is a new Farrell's as the ones of my childhood no longer exist. The menu is the same and everything looks the same it just isn't the same. We ordered the zoo (which is still delivered the same way which is why I love it).

The Farrell's Zoo:

So huge it takes two strong people to deliver it to your table. Four flavors of our famous ice cream: three fruit flavor sherbets, four delicious toppings, whipped cream, bananas, nuts & cherries.

It says that it feeds 1-10 people. Luckily we had 10 because we still had a bit left over. They run through the restaurant with sirens and drums to deliver this thing to you. All I can say is after eating it; I felt the need for anything that wasn't sweet! The girls had a great time with it though.

Before we ordered the zoo for the girls, we ordered a little treat that we told them they had to share. Behold the chicken dinner!

We thought it looked great and the girls gave me a look that told me I was crazy until they realized it was all fake! The "mashed potatoes" were a scoop of vanilla ice cream with caramel "gravy", the "chicken nuggets" were a Butterfinger type candy and the "peas and carrots" were candy peas and carrots.

I think they enjoyed it almost as much as the zoo.

Well, I think it's time to sign off. After all, I have a cake to mangle bake tomorrow. But I assume it's like a gift, it's the thought that counts.

Where I left off....

Well..the craziness of cookies was really crazy. So much so that I failed to return to my blog. Recognitions just arrived and were handed out and I am officially done with cookies 2011. Cookies truely takes me about 4 months to complete all of the paperwork, cookies and recognitions. Of course, I still have the award ceremony in July to recognize our top cookie sellers but that is the easy part!

Some fun facts about our area this year and cookies sales:

Number of girls selling cookies in our Neighborhood - 288 girls
Total number of boxes of cookies sold  - 45,646
Top 3 sellers sold over 4000 boxes between them.

I am proud to say that my daughter reached her goal of over 2000 boxes sold.

Our Council had over 1 million boxes of cookies sold this year. The girls did an amazing job!

Since I last posted we have had cookie sales of course. We have also school - lots of school... and the end of school. My daughter's last day of school was Friday, May 27th. She is offically on summer vacation. She loved my dedication that I wrote her in her yearbook and is looking forward to her graduation ceremony this coming week.

I hope everyone's final weeks of school for the year are good ones! I know it is a crazy time and it goes so quickly.

Ok...so today is National Trails Day! When you can tell someone to take a hike and it can't be considered mean (well it could but I guess  it depends on how you use it.) So get out there and enjoy nature!

And finally...when I left off in February....I was awarded the "Stylish Blogger Award" from Just Call Me A Crafty Frog! Thank you so much.

In order to accept this award, I need to link back to the person who awarded it to me, share 8 things about myself, pay it forward to 8 bloggers that I love visiting, and contact those bloggers and let them know I have given them the Stylish Blogger award also

 8 things about me:

I am celebrating 12 years of married happiness this year to my best friend.
I feel incredibly blessed to be able to teach my daughter.
I love playing board games.
I am a huge Tinkerbell fan (ok - so that's not a new one)
I love mysteries - books, television - haunted tours etc.
I love to travel.
If I wasn't a travel agent, I would love to be a professional chef.
I enjoy several reality television shows.

Here are 8 blogs that I enjoy following. Some are creative and some are inspiring and some are just fun! I hope you will enjoy them too!

Just Call Me A Crafty Frog
Cool Beans by LB
In This Wonderful Life
Gabriella's Heart
Disney Cruise Line Blog and Fan Site
Dis Unplugged Blog
The Disney Blog
Day Tripping Mom

Enjoy your day and remember .. make sure you tell someone to go take a hike!