Pa Kua

Yesterday k went on a field trip with her Daisy Troop to a Pa Kua studio located in the Orange Circle.  The “master” is married to one of the kindergarten teachers at k’s school.  He was great with the girls, and they seemed to have fun doing all of the exercises.  I was surprised that k willingly participated in all of the different drills.  I really like how Girl Scouts is exposing k to a lot of different activities/places that she might not have a chance to explore.

Downtown Brea & Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour

On Saturday k attended a birthday party at the Michael’s store in Brea.  As part of the gift, I sewed up tote bags for the twin birthday girls.

We don’t find ourselves in that part of Orange County very much so we decided to take the opportunity to explore downtown Brea a little after the party.  It is a nice little upscale-ish area.  For dinner we ate at Flame Broiler with a BOGO coupon. 

We saw a line of people along the main street and wondered what it was for.  It turned out to be Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour, so we decided to see what the fuss was all about.  Ninety minutes later (yes, 1.5 hours!) we were finally seated.  The only other time when we have waited that long for a restaurant was when D and I were in Chicago and decided to go to Rick Bayless’ restaurant without a reservation.  I wanted to give up at around 45 minutes, but by then, you feel like you’ve already invested so much time, you might as well stick it out.  That concept from Econ 101 of “sunk cost” just never made sense to me. 

It was kind of fun to watch the sundaes being made.  This one had 30 scoops of ice cream!

What was maddening was to see a lot of empty tables.  The turnover seemed to be really slow.

D had grabbed a menu while we were in line so we knew exactly what we wanted: Ice Cream Nachos.    

“Think crispy tortilla dish, except we use waffle cone pieces for dipping into mint chip, chocolate malted crunch and vanilla ice cream.  All topped with hot fudge, caramel, blue berries, whip cream, almonds and a cherry. Olé! $8.99”

We told the waitress to hold the almonds, and she asked if it was just a preference or allergies.  When we said allergies, she said she would make a note of it, which I really appreciated.  (We have had an incident with a contaminated ice cream scoop before). 

It was good, but how difficult is it to scoop ice cream on top of waffle cone pieces?  I think the main appeal is the party atmosphere and friendly service.  Everyone just seemed so happy, wearing balloon hats, singing, etc.  I really liked the chocolate malted crunch ice cream, though.  And n REALLY enjoyed the whole thing.  On the way home, he said, “That ice cream was SO GOOD.  This was the best day of my whole entire life.”  That comment right there made the whole experience worth it.     

Date Night @ The Lost Bean

Last week I got sick and it really wiped me out.  That partially explains the lack of blogging ‘round these parts. 

One outing I meant to blog about a while back was when D and I went to The Lost Bean in Tustin.  Back in our dating days, we hung out at cafes/bookstores a LOT.  Back then, we usually had studying to do.  I cannot even tell you how nice it is to just be able to read books/magazines without worrying about studying. 

This was our first time visiting this café.  The seating area was smaller than I imagined, I think because they recently cordoned off half of the space to The Lost Vine, a wine bar. 

We ordered a raspberry mocha, which you can’t really see due to the whipped cream.  It was a Valentine’s Day special, and not overly sweet.  It was a nice space for conversation, a little dim for reading.

Outside, there was a cute display of the shopping center, including the Lost Bean!  D really wants to try Christakis, a Greek restaurant in the center, someday. 

More KBF

D took a half day off work on Friday so we went to Knott’s again. 

We’ve become pretty familiar with all of the rides in Camp Snoopy.  The kids can ride the Timberline Twister, a mini roller coaster, by themselves.  There is actually a height maximum of 5 feet 9 inches, which I’ve never come across before.  I’ve been on the ride a couple of times, but I guess D is not supposed to.

k is just tall enough to go on some of the scarier rides such as the giant swing and the dragon swing.  Meanwhile n is stuck going on the carousel, but he does not seem to mind too much. 

One new ride we tried this time was the train.  I was reluctant to before because I remember being traumatized by the real actor-fake hold-up part when I was little.  I prepared the kids, reminding them that it was all pretend.  However, they seem to have tamed it down a lot in the past thirty years.  D says that maybe I was just more impressionable back then, but I’m pretty sure it used to be more “real”. 

It was neat that the train actually originated in the nineteenth century.  Makes me want to take a train trip someday.  D’s dream is to take one across Canada. 

A Sweet Valentine’s Day

D and I celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year by going out to dinner at the newly opened Kickin’ Crab in Diamond Jamboree.  We enjoyed our two pounds of shrimp, but I personally liked Boilin’ Crab a little better. 

When I had the kids get dressed this morning I didn’t realize they were twins!

I remember l used to love Valentine’s Day in elementary school.  k’s teacher bought bakery boxes for the kids to take all 30(!) of their valentines home in. 

I had fun looking at all of the valentine cards/treats.  Some parents were quite creative.

That’s k’s valentine on the top.  It has a chocolate milk straw with a printable from here.  My sister gave the kids flavored milk straws for Christmas and they were quite the hit, so I thought this idea was perfect. 

For dinner at home I made chicken parmesan with spaghetti.  For dessert we had a berry chocolate cheesecake.

Although I have never been a fan of long-stemmed roses and teddy bears, I do like celebrating this day dedicated to love.

Silly Kids

I think that D definitely passed down his silliness to both k and n.  Here is some evidence:

D ran the Surf City Marathon last Sunday.  He was looking through his medals this morning and found his gaudy Disneyland 1/2 Marathon medals.  The kids had fun playing with the bling.

Celebrating National Pancake Day @ IHOP

Yesterday we went to IHOP for a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes.  The day before we went to Yogurtland for National Frozen Yogurt Day.  I have a renewed interest in celebrating national food holidays, which I pretty much only did in February of last year.  We’ll see if I can keep it up longer this year. 

How does IHOP make these beautifully uniform golden brown pancakes?  Is this possible to do at home?  Do I need to invest in a flat top griddle?

We took the leftovers home + I made eggs=breakfast for dinner!

Cheerios & Les Miserables

You may be wondering what one has to do with the other.  Specially marked boxes of General Mills cereal are now offering free movie tickets with purchase of two boxes.  That is a pretty good deal considering the cost of movies these days.  D and I rarely see movies in the theater.  The last movie we saw in the theater was The Lorax, through Mazda, and the one before that was Moneyball, I believe.  When I was provided with movie tickets through MyBlogSpark by General Mills, I knew I wanted to use them to see Les Miserables.  D wasn’t as keen on the idea, (mostly because it is so long, and he doesn’t do long movies in the theater) but he ended up enjoying it too.  It is such a haunting, epic movie…I still think about it sometimes.  It definitely left an impression on me, even more than the stage production. 

But, back to the cereal.  Cheerios has been a staple in our house since before k and n were babies.  It is the perfect easy go-to breakfast and take along snack. Sometimes I mix them up with other flavors, such as Honey Nut, so there is just a touch of sweetness.

Disclosure: The information, products and General Mills gift pack were provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark.