Treasure...Me Heartys

Tonight was Isaac's Feller Cake Bake fundraiser for Cub Scouts. This event is a "guys only" event. The scout has to find a guy to make a cake with...no help from moms. He and Dad made this fabulous treasure chest cake. It was made out of Devil's food cake, milk chocolate frosting, milk chocolate drops, root beer licorice vines, milk chocolate coins, and Hershey's Nuggets for the handles. It sold for $21. Yippee! In all, the Cub Scouts raised about $600 in cake sales. Other scouts' cakes were race tracks with cars, monster truck races, Yosemite mountain (very well done...sold for $55), a ladybug, a turtle, Spongebob, a popcorn container (another one very well done), and many others. We combined our bid with our friends, Darla and Kyle, to win the monster truck cake for $45. Wow! At least it's for a very good cause. I think Isaac had a lot of fun making this with his dad and really enjoyed the auction.

Easter at Dar's House

Happy Easter! Well after keeping Grandma C up til midnight last night, we went to Dar's house for Easter lunch. Everyone had to find the egg with their own name on it and then five more eggs. And the added bonus was that Dar hid two money-filled eggs, one gold with $10 and one silver with $5. I was the lucky gold egg finder. Unfortunately I had to give my money to the boys. I guess this is the life of a mom. Aireyelle found the silver one. Yay for the girls! Grandma found her own egg and the boys ended up helping her find the rest.

Jeff's brother, Jack, called in while we were there. It was raining in Eugene, Oregon. Kind of wish that happened here. It had to be at least 80 in Huntington Beach. The chocolates in the eggs started to melt. I also talked to Yvonne and she said that it was around 30 degrees when she woke up. She's hoping for our warm weather to drift her way. Lunch was great and for dessert we had Isaac's trial run of his Feller Cake for Scouts. It wasn't too bad. I'll be posting the final cake in a week or so when he enters it in the Feller Cake Bake.

Egg Hunt at Grandma C's

We celebrated Easter today at Grandma C's house. We all enjoyed a great lunch and each other's company. Our family keeps growing every year. We have now adopted Grandma's caretakers...Abigail, Janee with her two kids, Hollin and Hope, and Shawna and her baby Dexter. We had Katy hide all the eggs for the kids. We even gave Hollin an egg to find with $20 in it. I figured that would make a teenager happy to play with all the young ones. After the egg hunt, the kids broke open all the eggs for the candy, chocolate, toys and money. Some of the toys were stretchy flinging bugs. Here's a photo of Katy trying to shoot it at me. That one is a little trouble maker! Isaac actually shot one at me and almost knocked the soda can out of my hand. He's lucky he didn't. Grandma would not have been happy about that! Overall the day was great and we all had a good time.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

Well these actually didn't but that's okay. We had fun playing in the exhibits at the La Habra Children's Museum. I even talked Michelle into going with Alex. Lucky I did...I had car trouble and she saved the day by taking Grandma C back home til the night shift girl came on. Great...now I'll owe her. Hee hee hee.

I thought having two boys running around a museum was crazy. Try adding our family joker to the mix and it's nuts! Alex, always the ham, enjoyed the museum to the fullest. I was surprised to get him to settle down enough to have this photo taken. I think the boys liked the Supercity Jobs exhibit the best. They were able to dress up as policemen, veterinarians, city mayor, firemen, sanitation engineers, and postal workers. Pretty funny seeing Mayor Max with his coat jacket and gavel at the City Hall meeting. Alex and Isaac made great firemen and put the house fire out promptly. And Grandma's favorite area, of course, was the Nature Walk area filled with at least 50 taxidermied animals. I have to say the moose was magnificent!

Philippe's French Dipped Sandwiches

I have to tell you that this restaraunt has fed our family for at least 50 of the 100 years it has been open. The Chilvers Family loves going to L.A. for Philippe's French Dipped sandwiches. Forget that the drive is at least 25 miles from Mom's house and traffic usually rough. Just holler "Let's go have Philippe's for dinner" and we're off! My favorite is lamb with bleu cheese on it. Annette usually swaps half of her pork sandwich with me. Charlotte goes for the beef. And we ALL love the fabulous purple pickled eggs! We all went up to L.A. for dinner to meet up with Katy (my sister Yvonne's oldest) and her friend Kamie. They are out here from Denver for the week on vacation and hitting all the sights. We all had a great dinner, even Tim (Charlotte's boyfriend), who had M&Ms dropped in his beer by Maxwell (aka Bathman - he decided to wear his bathrobe out to dinner). Funny thing is...Tim finished the beer with the 8 dissolved M&Ms in it. Eeew!

Beware the Ides of March!

We went to visit Grandma Lamb on her 91st birthday...March 15...the Ides of March. She looks great! We enjoyed carrot cake and visits from other patients at the rehab hospital. Grandma Lamb fell a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully she didn't break anything and is undergoing physical therapy to strengthen her legs and arms so she can get around her house a little better. She doesn't like to do the exercises but in order to go home she'll have to be stronger. We had a good time and enjoyed seeing her on this special day. Aunt Doni (shown in the picture) and Uncle Randy are the ones who care for Grandma and visit her daily to keep her up to date on everything going on. They are doing a fantastic job of it. The boys received their Easter present from Doni and Randy...Moon Sand! They've been bugging me for a year for this amazing product. It's moldable sand that never dries out. How do they do that? It is obviously an outside play activity.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharoahs

We went back to the California ScienCenter in L.A. to see more of the exhibits we missed in December. This time we saw the IMAX film on mummies. Both of the boys were scared that the film was about mummies that come to life. They obviously watch too much tv at home! The movie was really interesting. The mummification process has been lost to the egyptians after the last pharoah died. Scientists are trying to recreate mummification in order to see how to extract DNA from them. They have successfully done this...the DNA that is usable is found in the bones of mummies. They are looking at ways to fight malaria and find a cure for it. After the movie we went to see all the exhibits in the World of Life. Here again were stamping stations for Isaac and Max to check off their maps. Not sure if they were more interested in finding the stamping centers or seeing the exhibits. Grandma's favorite was the stuffed bobcat. She had me take a few pictures of it so she could draw it. The boys' favorite area was the Discovery Center for little kids. They had a puppet theater in which they put on a show. I scared them half to death with a snake puppet that they weren't expecting to attack them. Isaac loved the treehouse with giant binoculars. While he was up there watching us, Max was with Grandma and I at a table "matching the poop" to the animal it came from. Isaac wanted nothing to do with that.

Maxwell Checking Out The Bat Ray

The boys and I took Grandma C to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. I am hoping she survives this month with the boys. Isaac wanted to push her in the wheelchair and was heading toward the elevators. Then Max said he was going to push the button for it. Well Isaac wanted to do that too and raced him for it. Now what he forgot was that Grandma was still moving in the wheelchair and proceeded to crash in to the elevator wall after he let go of her. Holy cow! I'll have to buy her a crash helmet to keep her safe. The aquariums were amazing. Isaac was able to read the map in the brochure to guide us through the exihibits. He especially loved the stamps he could press onto each page to show that we saw that specific exhibit. Maxwell's favorite exhibit was the touch tank for the bat rays. He wanted to touch one so badly but was scared at the same time. It was funny seeing him trying to call the bat ray over then freak out when it came up to see him. The jelly fish were fabulous. I could watch them for hours. If I ever bought a big tank I'd have them filled with these. They remind me of a lava lamp...just gliding up and down the tank so smoothly. We all enjoyed the sea dragons and sea horses. The sea dragons remind me of the "sea monkeys" that we could buy when I was younger. It is amazing how these creatures are camoflaged for their environment.

Adventure in California

We kicked off our Grandma Tours at Disneyland Resort's California Adventure. And what an adventure it was! We started off at the MuppetVision 3D attraction where the Muppets perform silly antics and end up being blown up by the Swedish Chef. The boys' loved it! Our next stop was to take Grandma C on Soaring Over California. This attraction's pre-show is of historic photos of various planes and pilots. Grandma enjoyed reminiscing through the line. We then got on a flight simulator that makes you feel as though you are on a hang glider and actually soaring over different areas of California. Grandma really liked it. We then took Grandma on another flight...the Golden Zephyr. These are giant silver rockets and spin around high over the ground. We decided to give Grandma the best time of her life today. She felt as though she was at The Pike again. Yee Haw! After a brief stop for lunch we continued on to Bug's Land to see the Bug's Life 3D movie. Max did not like this one at all after the termite (aka "the Terminator") spit acid (water) all over him in the dark theater. He pretty much cried the rest of the movie because it just got scarier and more realistic. However, Isaac loved it and that seemed to be the only opinion that mattered from there on. After a few more kiddie rides in Bug's Land we finished our day and headed home for the day's highlight...my nap! I always seem to work that into my day. That's probably the only thing that I actually do that my mother taught me. Hee hee hee!