The PowderPuff Pinewood Derby

Today, Sarah entered her car into the Girl Scouts PowderPuff Pinewood Derby.

Here is her car.


They had the track set up in the MPR room at the middle school and here is her car being lined up for her first race.


And the finish!!! 2.639 seconds!!! A great first run!!!

After three more runs, she finished 5th place out of 43 cars! It was great!


Here she is with her ribbon and car.

Scooter's Jungle

Emily was invited to a birthday party for one of her preschool friends and this is what happened... The kids had a blast. It's this indoor jump house place near our house. They had a huge slide, a smaller bounce house slide, and a zip line.

Ah, what to do with a 3-day weekend...

Well... let's see...
We spent Saturday in downtown Ventura and visited many shops and just walked around...





Then we headed to the beach. When we turned off the car, it said 76 degrees AT THE BEACH IN JANUARY!!!!
Here are come great shots of the kids trying to keep this sand shelf from falling into the ocean.




At some point, the shovel got washed away in the tide... but it showed up a few yards down the beach... Emma was very happy to find it.


Shannon found a really round rock... Ben called it a cannon ball.

Then on Sunday, we just hung our around the house and Grandma came for a visit.

Monday we headed to Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. We went into many shops and had Korean BBQ for lunch. Here is Ben with his straw/chopstick creation.


Here is a pic of Shannon and Sarah with the Ninomiya Sontoku statue... It really reminded her of her stay in Japan many years ago...

The Tooth Fairy will be visiting TONIGHT!!!

Emma just lost her first tooth! She's so excited and she put it under her pillow right away! I could barely take her picture before she darted off to her pillow... singing and skipping, "the tooth fairy is going to visit me tonight..."

WICKED and the Trains

Shannon and Sarah tried again for the "Wicked" lottery on Saturday. That's where you go to the theater and stand in line for a chance to win tickets to see the play.

That left Ben, Brandon, Emily and Matt to find an adventure of their own. They decided to go to Pasadena. That way, if Shannon and Sarah didn't win tickets, they could meet the rest of the bunch there. Once Matt and the kids arrived in Pasadena, Ben recognized a Johnny Rocket's hamburger place so we had lunch.



They sat a the counter which was a fun experience.


Emily had Matt put clips in her hair. He wasn't sure what to do with them but, keeping her hair out of her face seemed like the practical thing to do so he went for that.


While they were having lunch in Pasadena, Matt got a call from Sarah. She WON tickets! They got to see WICKED from the front row center orchestra seats!! Since Shannon and Sarah weren't going to Pasadena, Matt and the kids decided to head over to Griffith Park to visit Travel Town.


The kids enjoyed climbing through the trains.


On the second Saturday of every month they have a walking tour through the passenger trains. This is an old dining car. All the cars were in need of restoration and repair.


This one is an old parlor car called "The Little Nugget."


It was great fun to see all the old trains!


Sarah's favorite part was the "Popular" number... Here Galinda teaches Elphaba about being popular and how to toss your hair. "Toss, Toss with no hands!"

After the WICKED performance, Shannon and Sarah stood in another line outside the stage door for autographs! Sarah got her program signed by Glinda the Good! She was very nice and just as perky as she is on stage! They waited for Elphaba, but they said, she couldn't come out... maybe getting all that green make-up off takes some time!!!

Matt's Big 4-0 Birthday!

We had a birthday party for Matt... It was the big 4-0!


Sarah wanted to make cupcakes for the party. Here Emma is helping...


Then Emma and Brandon wanted to eat the batter.


Here are her cupcakes in these little feet cups that we got for Christmas...