Culinary Adventure

The girls and I went on a culinary adventure in the valley today. It had been quite awhile since we ventured out with hopes of treating our taste buds to new flavors, so we rallied up friends and googled Best Cheap Eats in Los Angeles. Our search led us to try banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) at a tiny little place in Alhambra.

Everything on the menu sounded delish, but all of the pork sandwiches had pâté, so ew. I went with the beef banh mi and it was the right choice!

What makes banh mi so yummy are all the layers of flavor. Mine was filled with marinated beef, sweet Asian slaw, jalapenos, peanut sauce, and house made mayo. So many flavors were represented between my baguette: sweet, salty, spicy, and cool. It was so tasty. The best part though? Every sandwich cost $3. So worth the trip out of town! 


There are so many great places to eat here in LA, there's no excuse for me not to try something new every week. My summer bucket list has several more culinary adventures planned. If you could dine anywhere in Los Angeles, what would you try?

Pool Days

Our neighborhood pool opened last weekend and I think we've been swimming everyday this week! The girls are little fish, they love to swim and are brave to jump off the side of the pool into the coolest belly flops ever seen. It's going to be a great summer with these two!

Disney Days

At the first of the year, we bought Disneyland season passes with Christmas money from my family. I knew it would be a gift that the girls (and I!) could enjoy all year. Boy have we had fun!

We have been to the parks (Disneyland and California Adventure) every week since January, except for the the 2 weeks we were in Tennessee. It has been a blast exploring and getting to know every square inch of the happiest place on earth.

JD bought a pass on my birthday and he has been using vacation days to join us for the past few weeks. It has been great having him with us. I typically take the girls by myself and while there are some definite challenges as the only adult, it's doable and we all have a great time. But having daddy with us means more roller coasters and less stroller pushing for me!

JD is learning what it means to be a Disney season pass holder. Basically, getting at the park 30 minutes prior to opening and staying until close, never eating during traditional mealtimes because ride lines are shorter then, and being ready to ditch the stroller anywhere to sprint to the rides with the shortest lines. He gets better each week.

We are about to be blocked for the busy summer season so this week's trip is probably our last until the fall. We made the most of it by staying late and riding many rides that we skip due to the long wait times. We had a great time and will be sad to take a break.

10 tips from this seasoned season pass holder:

* Bring band-aids and ibuprofen. Headaches plague me nearly every trip and one or both of my girls scrape a knee more often than not. Be prepared!
* Watching a show is a great way to escape the sun and heat and get off of your feet for a bit. Some of our favorites are Muppet Theatre, Peter Pan Story Time, and Turtle Talk with Crush.
* Download wait time apps on your smartphone so you know which rides have the shortest waits. This saves you from wasting precious time walking around when you could be riding!
* Skip the parades to ride the most popular rides. There will probably still be a wait, but it will be much shorter with most park-goers watching the parade instead.
* Get there early. The whole parking and entering the park process takes time. The earlier you arrive, the less crowded it will be and the more RIDES you get to ride! We rode 4 within the first hour yesterday!
* Pack all your meals. Disney can be (relatively) cheap. Most trips we buy nothing at all. I pack tons of food and a giant gallon jug of icy lemon water and we spend nothing all day.
* Eat lunch/dinner on rides! I am sort of hardcore about using our time wisely while at DL. Any wasted time not riding something is a source of frustration for me so we eat on trains, steamboats, and on the monorail. Not every ride allows this and obviously you don't want to eat on a turbulent ride, but find the slow-moving ones and chow down. Once it's over, you'll have plenty of energy to sprint to Indiana Jones!
* Bring sunscreen and a change of clothes for everybody. I love the water rides, but walking around with wet underwear all day is miserable. Bring lightweight changes and stash them in a plastic bag at the bottom of your stroller/backpack.
* Figure out what your most comfortable pair of shoes are and wear those. Tennis shoes kill my feet after wearing them all day. For me, TOMS are the most comfy. Wear what makes your feet hurt the least. You will be walking miles.
* Likewise, put shoes on your kids that they cannot remove! I've seen more discarded toddler shoes than I can count where some kid, bored in their stroller, kicked off a shoe while their poor mother was oblivious.

Disneyland is really fun and we are blessed to live so close. What's your favorite thing to eat/ride/see at Disney?

Spiders

Do you want to know a fun fact about California? It's overrun by spiders!! How awesome is that?!?!

It's actually not very awesome. There are spiders in our bushes, spiders in the railing on our porch, spiders in our grass, and spiders in our house. Webs cover the landscaping and porch corners. We clean them off, but California spiders are ambitious arachnids and re-web everything by morning. Awesome, right?!

The worst spiders of course, are the ones found in the house. I find them behind toilets, under furniture, on walls, in the bath towels, and on window sills. Most of them are harmless, but I have found several brown widows on our outdoor toys and 1 in our laundry room. Brown widows are poisonous, just like the black variety, so... EEK! 

We go through spells where there are more spiders in the house than not, but there are always spiders in the house. And that has me a bit on edge, as you can imagine. I'm always on the lookout for 8-legged terrorists. After 2.5 years of being surprised by them, I now walk into rooms scanning the walls, floorboards, and ceilings knowing they are there, waiting to be discovered.

And sometimes they are there. I am brave now and can make a weapon out of most anything. Shoes, books, toilet paper, trash cans, and the mail are some favorites! I don't enjoy killing, but these spiders are out of control. I'm just doing my part for population control. Plus, there is a huge spider problem outside of our house, so releasing them just contributes to that issue. Murder is the only way!

I wasn't always this lethal though. Some of these rascally spiders JUMP, so instead of quickly squashing them, I would scream, cry, call JD, call the neighbors, and call the police. The threat of a spider crawling on me is bad enough, but imagine one lunging off of the wall in my direction... you would become murderous too.

I've grown so accustomed to looking for spiders that I see them when they're not really there at all. A wad of thread on the floor in my sewing room? Spider legs. A discarded candy wrapper in the corner? Spider abdomen. Texture on the basement wall? Spider. Naturally, I go into full annihilate mode, for nothing. Basically, the spiders have made me crazy.

The pest control guy tells me there is no way to completely de-spider our house. We have a basement and spiders like cool, dark lower levels, so it's likely we will have unwanted housemates for all of our days here. Our best bet is to sweep away webs, kill the live ones, and make sure other bugs don't make it into our house. Other bugs = spider food. He says lots of Californians have spider problems in their houses, it's just a California thing.

Super awesome, right?!

Jesus Lives

Easter weekend was such a joyful time. It is my absolute favorite holiday and I love everything about this season. It warms my heart to know the name of Jesus is lifted high all over the world this weekend. He is risen and lives forevermore! Amen and amen!

Friday was spent shopping for new shoes, preparing Easter baskets, and crafting. I love teaching the girls about our faith and I take every opportunity to teach them about God. Penelope can tell you the Easter story like she is behind a pulpit. Watching my girls celebrate our risen Lord is the best.

Saturday was our neighborhood Easter party complete with egg hunt and petting zoo. It was freezing and windy with the scent of pony poop filling the air. I did not enjoy it. Thankfully we had church later that night. Church was awesome. It was a raucous party. The Saviour of the world conquering sin and death is no ordinary thing, you know! There ought to be some celebrating!

Saturday was also our 6 year anniversary. With all of the other festivities underway, we didn't have anything special planned. It was fine though, we smooched a lot and told the girls about our wedding day. I love being married to JD. He's a keeper.

Today we had Easter baskets, more egg hunting, and lunch/party with friends. We had a blast. We came home with full bellies and sunburns. Also, candy.

We had a blessed weekend! I hope you all did too. Happy Easter!! I hope with all my heart you know Jesus. He makes all the difference in the world.

Earthquake

This past Friday night, I felt my first earthquake! It was simultaneously super scary and kind of amazing. I was sitting on the couch crocheting, when the room started moving. It felt like the house was on a wave machine. The movement was smooth, rolling, and nauseating. It lasted at least 10 seconds - long enough for me to feel it and be totally freaked out.

My initial reaction was that JD was messing around with me. This was completely ridiculous and irrational considering he was upstairs putting Penelope to bed. When I realized he couldn't move our furniture from upstairs, I concluded someone was behind my couch, moving it. I'm serious, that was totally a reasonable explanation for me. I jumped up, fully expecting to see somebody hiding under the couch. Maybe I was in shock??? Then I noticed the chandelier swinging and the blinds swaying and deduced, oh my goodness, that was an earthquake!!!

I ran upstairs and said to JD, "did you feel that?!?!"
"Feel what?' he asked.
"We just had an earthquake! Come look, everything is moving!"
"You know what? I totally felt nauseated a few moments ago, like the room was rolling or something."

We both felt it. I texted friends and they felt it too. Soon, it was all over the news. There was a 5.1 quake about 30 miles from where we live. What we felt, the rolling waves, is typical for the distance we are to the fault lines where the quake occurred. For the next 24 hours, there were dozens of aftershocks, but we never felt them.

There have been earthquakes almost every month since we've lived in Southern California, but I've never felt one until Friday night. I've got to say, I'm excited to have experienced one, but I never want to feel another one again. Feeling the earth shift and move is unsettling (pun intended) and I don't really want to feel it again!

32, W

I had a birthday last week. It was one of the best ones yet. JD flew my best friend out for a week and then told us to spend a day doing something fabulous while he watched the girls. We booked a cabana at the W Hotel in Los Angeles and spent the day lounging, eating, and tanning.

It started out cold and cloudy, but shortly after noon the sky turned blue and the sun blazed. We fried. We stayed all day (8 hours!) and made it home just in time to eat homemade spaghetti and garlic toast. Thanks, honey!

It was such a fun treat for this mama who rarely gets any me-time. A pool day with my BFF? Best gift ever!

Hike Turned Picnic Turned Swim

Yesterday we planned a hike with friends. It was a beautiful day and we were itching for some fresh air and ocean views. We were supposed to meet at 11 so we packed lunches, just in case everyone got hungry along the way. We hiked along the cliffs down to a rocky beach close to home. All we had planned was a hike, but our hiked turned into a big beach picnic and an impromptu swim in the icy waves. In California, that's pretty normal.

The hike was pretty uneventful, but when we reached the beach, there were tide pools to explore, rocks and shells to find. We checked out sea anemones, crabs, and barnacles. We found every shape of rock and a few dried up sea creatures.

California is really awesome. You can be on a hike near the ocean and come upon a tiny ecosystem right before you eat a ham sandwich. Amazing! I hope my girls remember these adventures. Living here is such a blessing.

After lunch, the ocean called to the children. We couldn't keep them away.

What started out as wave jumping...

Quickly turned into scuba diving.

I wasn't prepared for this! I thought we were just going for a hike!

That's California for you!

We rounded up all the dry clothes and pieced together outfits for the swimmers to hike up the cliff in. It was the most eventful hike to date.