Calling all Super Scouts

Mike and I have been serving as Cubmasters in our ward for the last 5 months.  I knew next to nothing about the Cub Scouts program before starting.  One of the many things I've learned about CS is that the most dreaded month of the year is February.  Why?  Well, because of the Blue & Gold Dinner. 

I've never had to plan dinner for 40+ people, and it was seriously intimidating.  Luckily, I work with some really great people who I couldn't have done any of this without.  We ended up doing Hawaiian Haystacks, which the parents enjoyed, but the scouts wouldn't touch it.  We ended up with plenty of left overs for everyone to take home.

Our theme was "Calling All Super Scouts" and we had a member of our bishopric come talk to the scouts.  He gave a really great talk and at the end, held up a picture of a Cub Scout wearing a scarf and a uniform and the caption of the picture was "You can't judge a hero by the size of his cape."  It really tied in nicely with our theme!

 I even made centerpieces for the occasion, which is also uncharted territory for me!  I used up all of my creativity and craftiness for the year, so don't expect any more of me until 2014.

At the end of the night, we had a Super Hero obstacle course where the boys had to put on over-sized clothing, run to a Phone Booth to change into their super hero cape, crawl through a box tunnel, navigate their way through rope obstacles, and finish by smashing through a wall of boxes.  They might not have liked dinner, but the obstacle course was a hit!

The only picture I got of the obstacle course.

It was a great night, and now I can relax again until next year's Blue & Gold.

Kinder Eggs

Over the years, Mike has collected quite an impressive collection of Kinder Egg Toys.  He lived in Germany as a kid, and then spent 2 years in Italy on his mission where it became a goal of his to add to his collection.  Mike's mom gave us these wooden houses/display cases and we finally got around to painting them. 

This is only a small portion of his collection, mind you.  These are the full sets he was able to collect.  We had fun painting the houses together and they make a nice addition to our apartment. 

Monkeys

Trees & Flowers

Magic Collection

Little Crayon Dudes

Haunted House Collection

It's beginnig to look a lot like Christmas

We had a great, albeit short, Christmas break up in Utah. 

Ellie's first time sitting on Santa's lap.  She doesn't look like it, but she really enjoyed meeting him!

It's a little colder in Utah than it is in Phoenix.

 Mike's parents took us to Midway to go on a Sleigh Ride to Santa's village!

Making Sugar cookies with the Higbees

On Christmas Eve, Grandma & Grandpa took all the grand kids on the Polar Express.

Showing off their bells.

 We spent the rest of Christmas people, with Grandma Mona & Grandpa Ken.

Grandpa Ken's funny glasses

 It snowed so much while we were in Utah, so Ellie had ample opportunities to play in the snow!

A nice action shot of Tilly.  She liked the snow too!

 We also got to go to a Fun Center in Layton with the Trowbridges.  Ellie loved riding down this slide, and I got to play Laser Tag for the first time in my life.

 

We spent a night with Dave & Tiffany.  Mike and Dave passed the time in the garage with Dave's home-made forge.  They made a knife out of a railroad spike.  Very impressive!

 We also made it to the Natural History Museum up at the U.  It was a really nice museum, and we all enjoyed ourselves.

 Thanks to family and friends for making it a great trip!

I have 3 fingers!

You can tell how behind I am on my blog...

Ellie turned three in December!  When we ask her how old she is, she enthusiastically replies, "I have 3 fingers!"

As always, she had two birthday celebrations: one with my family, and one with Mike's.  

In keeping with tradition, here are a few of the things we LOVE about our 3 year old:

1-  She is OBSESSED with Super Heroes.  I blame it on our babysitting group, which consists of 4 little boys and Ellie.  Every day she is someone new: Batman, Spiderman, Superman...  Even when I get out her My Little Ponies, they immediately become Super Ponies and Bad Ponies.  Some days, she'll only respond  to me if I call her Batman. 

2- She loves music.  One night she woke me up around 3:30 to help her go potty.  She's sitting there taking care of business, eyes half-closed, and starts singing "Hey!  I just met you.  And this is CR-A-A-A-ZY.  Here's my number.  Call me maybe." 

3- She has mastered the art of negotiation, and she knows exactly what I want.  "Mom... can I have some candy, and then we can snuggle on the couch?" 

4- She is one of the kindest people I know, and I hope she never loses that.  We were at a baptism and during the intermission where the people were changing clothes, she decided that she wanted to share her Teddy Grahams with each of the 20+ people in the room.  As she handed one to each person, you could see the joy in her eyes as she learned that giving of yourself brings happiness.

5- I can give her a paper and some scissors and she'll blissfully entertain herself for hours.  She'll cut up the paper into tiny pieces and dump them on the floor so she can collect it in our dustpan and dump it in the garbage. 

6- The girl is left-handed.  She has sort of switched off hands up until just recently, but she has now definitely committed to her left.

7- She loves babies.  She's had 3 new cousins born in the last few months, only one of whom she's met, but... she loves making faces at babies and will work determinedly until she can make them smile. 

8- She's very independent now.  She gets deeply offended if I try and help her do something that she can do herself. 

9- One of her most frequently used phrases is, "Oh, I LOVE (insert name)!  Her so cute!"

10 - She licks her lips all the time, to the point where her upper lip becomes red and chapped.  I'm trying to break her of the habit so it won't be so painful on her lips, but I'll be honest... it's so cute, I think I'll miss it when she stops. 

We absolutely adore our little Ellie, and feel so lucky that she's our daughter!

 

 

 

The delicious Red Velvet Cake my Mom got from Nothing Bundt Cakes

The My Little Pony Cake, made by the lovely and talented Tiffany!

This was a seriously delicious cake!  And I loved the frosting!

What?!?

I have a blog?
Please accept this embarrassing video of Ellie as a promise of things to come.
(P.S. - Why yes, this is how I teach Ellie Korean!)

Do you have 9 minutes?

Every now and then, before turning in for the night, Mike and I will listen to a song or two as we're lying in bed.  Last night, we stumbled upon this one and it brought a smile to my face and it warmed my heart.  I just had to share it!

Just in case you don't know who they are, Flight of the Conchords is a comedy duo/band.

They were asked to write a song for a sick children's charity in New Zealand.  If you've seen their show, there's an even longer version on youtube that has a clip with Murray in it, which is funny.

Oh, and Bret McKenzie (the bearded one) wrote a few of the songs on the Muppet Movie, which they reference in this video, just FYI.   

Anyways, you should watch it.  You'll laugh and you'll... feel inside... and stuff like that!

Long Beach

We had some time to kill between summer and fall semesters, so we decided to make a spontaneous trip to California.  We didn't do much in the way of planning.  We just improvised as we went, and it was a great trip!

First, I have to say that the drive from Phoenix to LA is one of the ugliest, most boring drives I've ever taken.  But it was definitely worth it to see the beach and enjoy the cooler weather!

We stayed in Downey, about 20 minutes north of Long Beach and 20 minutes south of LA.  We ended up spending most of our time in Long Beach and fell in love with it!

We'd gone to San Diego about a year ago, and Ellie wasn't a huge fan of the beach.  But this year she loved it! 

There's a really nice shopping area called The Pike right along the coast where we spent our first evening walking around and enjoying the beach.

We decided to buy a discount bundle of tickets for both the Aquarium of the Pacific, and the Queen Mary. 

The Aquarium was awesome! 

There was a netted-off area where you could hold little cups of nectar and these birds would land on you and eat right out of your hand.  Ellie loved it!

My favorite part was seeing these Comb Jellies.  They have these tiny cilia lining their bodies that allow them to move.  But those cilia also refract a rainbow of light as they propel themselves through the water.  They were beautiful to watch, and almost hypnotizing!  You can see some cool videos of them on YouTube. 

They also had the standard aquarium tidal pools where you could pet certain underwater creatures, but these creatures were so much cooler than other places we've been to!  We pet sharks, and sting rays, and even jelly fish!  I've never pet a jelly fish before and it was so cool!  The volunteer at the jelly fish pool was telling us that with this species, our skin is too thick for them to sting us, which is why we can pet them.  They were a lot more solid and jelly-ish than I pictured them being.  They look so fragile when you see them swimming around, almost like a plastic bag floating in the water.  But these were dense!  It was really neat!

This was Ellie's souvenir from the Aquarium gift shop.  For some reason, she has always been obsessed with Sting Rays and every time we see them she yells, "Look!  It's my favorite!"  So we had to get her a stuffed one.  I suggested we name him Sammy the Sting Ray and she gave me a look and said, "No.  Spunky."  So he is lovingly known as Spunky now, and she sleeps with him every night. 

As I mentioned before, we bought a ticket bundle that got us into the Queen Mary, which is anchored in the bay.  It's an old cruise ship/WWII troop ship that functions as a hotel and a museum now. 

Apparently, it's also one of the most haunted places in the US, attracting hundreds of ghost enthusiasts every year.  The picture below is the longest hallway in the ship.  I had Mike walk all the way down the hall so I could take a picture.  He only went about 1/2 way, and you can barely see him, and I guess he looks sort of ghost-ish in the picture.  I can see why people might think they've spotted a ghostly specter.

We didn't know it when we bought them, but our tickets included a special tour in addition to admission to the ship.  The only tour with openings left was the "Ghosts & Legends Tour" which turned out to be a Haunted House of sorts, with special effects and strobe lights.  There were several small children who went on the tour, but we still worried that Ellie might be totally freaked out by the experience.  But she LOVED it!  The laughed at the loud noises and the flashing lights were "rocket ships".  She was giving her own commentary of what was going on that was making me, and some of the others around us laugh.  All theatrics aside, it was a pretty neat tour.  We got to see parts of the ship that you normally wouldn't be able to, like the 1st Class Swimming Pool, bunk beds where the WWII soldiers slept, and the boiler rooms.

One part of the ship I really wanted to see was the propeller.  They've built a large fresh-water box around one of the ship's propellers so it won't erode, and you can look down 30 feet into the water and see how big they are.  There's a big railing around it, but other than that, it's open water, and looking down into it was kind of scary.  It made me dizzy, a little like how I feel when I'm up high looking down. 

The propeller was down on the lower level of the ship, and you had to walk through the Engine room and up and down a bunch of stairs to get there.  Since we had a stroller, I left Mike and Ellie on the upper decks with the promise that I'd run down to snap a picture and hurry back up to them.  

Even the picture makes it seem kind of eerie, no?

After I saw the propeller, I kept walking through the Engine Room, thinking that I'd make it to the end of the exhibit soon.  But I kept walking, and walking, and walking.  I even got lost at one point in a circular part of the engine room.  Maybe it was the talk of ghosts earlier, or the lack of any other patrons walking around down there, but I started to get kind of creeped out.  After about 15 minutes running around the lower decks of the Queen Mary all by myself, I finally stumbled upon the exit.  When I made it back to the place I'd left Ellie & Mike, all I found was our empty stroller with no one in sight.  I laughed, cause this added to the spooky ambiance of the place.  Mike and Ellie surfaced about 10 minutes later and the only scare they'd encountered was when Mike almost dropped Ellie into the water in the propeller room.  Oh boy!  That would've been a good story. 

Riding the Ferris Wheel overlooking the beach! 

The next day we drove to Torrance to visit Mitsuwa Marketplace: a huge Japanese grocery store, gift shops, and food court.  It was awesome!  I stocked up on a lot of Japanese snacks and junk food and we ate lunch at their food court.  The food was incredible and very cheap! I was in heaven!

I love the plastic food displays in lieu of a menu.

Takoyaki: a popular Japanese street food with Octopus in the middle.

And then we spent the rest of the day at the beach!!!  It was so relaxing, the weather was beautiful, and we loved it! 

All wrapped up to stay warm!

We only spent 2 1/2 days in California, but we had a great time!  It was nice to get away as a family, especially since Mike's been so busy this summer.  It was nice to escape the heat too, but it made it horribly difficult to come back home to 110+ degree weather. 

At lunch on the way home we ordered a Bacon Sundae... it wasn't that great, but we got it for the experience!