A full Sunday

Michell treats Jade to a yummy Lemon birthday cake

Sccoping up the potatoes

Wild ride with Olivia

Being silly with Madeline

Asia loves baby Madeline

The Rizos, Anthony doesn't appear to be thrilled with my camera!

Aaron, Heather and Madeline

We stayed with Heather and Aaron, and then headed to Rizos for a yummy lunch.

San Diego!

We pulled into the Kona Kai on Shelter Island at 4:30. We let the girls go for a swim in the 62 degrees but heated pool. Mom on the phone with Dad said it was 72 in Denver! But what a table we scored at Anthony's. The only parking was at the Midway aircraft carrier. On the way back to the hotel Jade cleaned the back windows with Pepsi, she said she was cleaning the crayon off. Then we headed to Heather and Aaron's.

Las Vegas to Barstow

This is what Asia thinks of Barstow!

Barstow is good, ck out the size of the jawbreakers!

Barstow main station an interesting place. Historic, and the people watching is very interesting.

Breakfast at the IHOP in Vegas with Jo's good friends

Jade thought this van said Honk we have Hiccups!

Breakfast at the IHOP

We met Jo's friend's for breakfast and gave him the Samuri swords. After you enter California you have to stop for the Agriculture where you are not supposed to bring any fruit/ag stuff into CA. Usually most people hide their stuff and but we decided to confess all our fruit, we pulled out bananas, a bag of grapes and where looking for the apples when we pulled up and told the Ag police...but, they said keep it. So this had the girls asking questions for an hour why we were going to give those guys our fruit.

Then at Barstow, alot of seedy characters with bad teeth. A Historic place that kinda gives you the creepies. A sign outside this Barstow station said, no panhandling.

Viva Las Vegas...trip day 1

The girls loaded

Good to have a big vehicle

We had to take a couple of sword with us for self defense! Kidding! Jo promised these to her husband's best friend.

Rachael and Asia waiting for loading

Aunt Dianne

7 Chinese girls

Since we are heading for Dazzling Destinations here we are with the vehicle.

The Utah border, Jo and my mom were not excited about me wanting to take every states picture. It was dark for Arizona and Nevada...so we will just have to catch those on the way back!!

Although we all hate Las Vegas, we were soooo glad to see those bright lights. The bliss ended when we screached a stop due to construction....it was already 10pm, we just wanted to be at our hotel! It all started at 7:30am when my mom showed up and then over to Jo's to pick her gang up. We finally told the girls at 7am they were going to California and Nei nei was going with us. Then something came up about Nana Kelly living in California and I said, no she moved to Alaska. So, from then on Jade thought we were going to Alaska! So she kept asking when we going to get to Alaska, mixed in with about 10, "Are we there yet's"! We were on the road by 9am, got to Glenwood at 11:30am had lunch with aunt Dianne and Jo's friend Bonnie who has 3 girls from China. We stopped many times so it took a while.

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Road trip anyone? Leaving on Friday...not telling the kids!

Sorry about not posting, I did find out why I haven't been feeling energetic. I have Pneumonia! I am on drugs now and feeling much better. I better feel better by next Friday...because Jo, her girls, my girls and I are driving to San Diego...won't that be a hoot! I am certain I will have some good stories. We are leaving early Friday morning and I hope to be in Vegas by 9pm. Then we will have a calmer day on Saturday. We will rendezvous at the Kona Kai with her brother and then we hope to water taxi over to Anthony's for dinner. My girls and I will then head to the Myers for a couple of nights. The girls and I will head to Disneyland early Tuesday am to breakfast with Minnie and get into the park early and we will do a longggg day....maybe as long as Jade doesn't go into meltdown stage 4! Wednesday we relax and pick up the boys flying into Orange County, hope to head to Mrs. Knott's for her Fried ckn dinner, biscuits and boysenberry pie! Thursday we will go to Universal Studios with all the kids, if we get done at a decent time we will head to Westwood for some Diddy Riece ice cream sandwiches. Friday I have reservations at the Beachcomber Cafe, Newport coast for Drew's birthday breakfast overlooking the Pacific ocean. Then we will do an evening Birthday Party on the Beach at Corona Del Mar, I hope to score one of their fire pits so we can roast hot dogs and do sm'ores...if not it will be sub sandwiches and cake! Early Saturday I will make sure the boys' flight takes off and then Jo and I will head back-whew! Care to come?!! The kids don't know about this yet, and big daddy vowed to never drive to CA again... I will tell the boys on Thursday night after their sisters are in bed and asleep...the girls, I will wake them up Friday am get them dressed and pop them in the car. This is all to stop Jade from having me insane by asking 500 billion times a day, when are we going?!!!

Science Fair and a naughty mom

I am very greatful for scientists, I will try and put some enthusiasm in my voice when I suggest to my daughters to take up a scientific career. But I will sadly confess that I hate science, I took Astronomy in College because I really don't care about this subject! Somehow when the boys were in the lower levels I always got volunteered to help with everything science until I put my foot down in Drew's 2nd grade and made sure I signed up for reading. So, to encourage our daughters they now participate in the Science fair to earn a medal and a rootbeer float. Because I am naughty, I have learned that you can do this as a group...which means less work :-). So Tami's job was to find the easiest thing we could do a science project on ... the winner was "What is a bird's nest made out of" Then I just had to take the pictures of the girls pulling it apart. Then we had to answer the questions. So, being the best scientist on earth I started with the Conclusion and worked all the questions backwards to the Hypothesis, which was amazingly proven true! Remember that very busy weekend when Domenic and Olan were here and it was Chinese New years, we were doing the science project while Domenic cooked the Pizza. Drew walks in and looks at the "google" on my laptop which reads, What is a Hypothesis for what a nest is made out of...Drew says, Mom you can't do that, that's not how you are supposed to do it!

You are cheating! Yeah I told him, I hate science and that is as good as it gets...hopefully the girls weren't listening! Or Domenic! He chuckled from the kitchen so I know he did! I just hope no one from the neighborhood reads this!

The Fort for Tami's Birthday

The famous Chili chocolate cake

Tami proudly displays her buffalo head!

The waiter adorns the birthday girl with an assortment of dead animals

The Denver restaurants do Restaurant week the last week of Feb. Since Denver is a mile hi 5280 feet, the restaurants charge $52.80 per couple. So it is always my challenge to score a coveted reservation, this year it was 7:30pm for 6 at the Fort on the Friday night . I haven't been to the Fort since I was a kid, back when they used to have Sissy the bear. The Fort is probably Colorado's most famous restaurant because they hosted the G-8 in 1997 and they serve all sorts of game. We liked everything except I know I could have done without the quail, it was just ok.

Here was the menu

First Course
The Fort’s Dinner Salad, a mix of seven crisp greens topped with pickled ginger, diced jicama, toasted pepitas, and a peppadew pepper. Served with freshly baked pumpkin walnut muffins and freshly baked sourdough rolls topped with Sam’s Traveling Spice.
Second Course
The most tender of all, a savory bison brochette and The Fort’s famous teriyaki marinated quail, served with roasted shallot-white cheddar mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables.
Third Course
Fire Roasted Apple Cherry Cobbler - Topped with an oatmeal streusel served hot with vanilla ice cream and a lime-caramel sauce.