Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

It's Memorial Day Weekend and we are off to Portland aka the new LA according to a few friends who moved there. Our good pal, Montez is getting married at EcoTrust. Must be a cool place because another Portland friend is getting married there in Ocotber.  Got up at 3am today to prepare for our 7am flight. With two carry on bags we jumped on the flight. I love the relative ease of travel through the Burbank airport verses LAX.  It was sort of weird to be up but at least I had Facebook and all my friends doing the 24 hour 60th Disneyland Anniversary Event to follow.  I had wanted to go but it was so overcrowded Disney closed the gates in the afternoon. A friend who attended said it was cool but "it felt like she was stuck at Disney." If you left you couldn't re-enter.   Hubs drove down early Friday morning to pick up some special diamond encrusted Vinylmations. He took Penny and she came home with a $35 dressed up Minnie Mouse stuffed animal in a beautiful blue diamond...

I've never been to Portland before and o can't go to our second friend's Portland wedding in October because I have another friend's wedding that both Penny and I are in on that very same day. So I did a bit of research and made a list of things to do.  We landed at noon. Hubs didn't want to rent a car instead opting to try using all public transportation. So we found the Lite Max Rail and for $2.50 we were taken into the city. Penny immediately noticed how "green" Portland was compared to the drought ridden Los Angeles.   Our first stop was Grassa, recommended by Montez, where they handcrafted all their pasta. Penny had fun watching the guy make tagatoni and she had more fun eating the handful he gave her! When we were done eating our pasta was brought to the table and boy was it ever good!! Perfect for the cast over day and it warmed us up! After a hearty lunch we decided we needed dessert as in donuts! Montez said the best donuts in town were not VooDo...

I saw "Tomorrowland" this past Tuesday, at a special press screening at the Disney El Capitan in Hollywood. I get the feeling the press is going to kill this one as box office expectations are fluctuating all over the place this week, which isn't a good sign. Plus, all my Disney boards are freaking out about a review by the LA Times which was released this morning. This all equals hesitation which equals poor box office results. I hate to see this happen to a movie because millions of dollars go into the thing only for it to be killed online. To be fair, "Tomorrowland" wasn't amazing but it was a good film, perhaps 20 minutes too long but a good film in the family sense. In the style of past Disney family fair such as "Swiss Family Robinson" and "Pollyanna" which by the way, weren't critical hits for Disney but in their own right good films. So it's very sad for me to see this movie starting to tank when in essence, it is not...

I had no intention of seeing Pitch Perfect 2 (didn't see the 1st) but it was really fun and I can see how it over performed at $70M. Lots of lol jokes. Um, Universal, maybe you want to make a sing along cuz, um, I could have sang out loud.

I've was hankering Dim Sum all day long...good thing we live minutes away from ChinaTown...mission accomplished…and a gigantic boba included. I was hoping it was still tasty all those hours later because normally you want to eat Dim Sum in the morning or afternoon, not at night. We drove to our favorite place, that Toby introduced us to years ago, CBS Seafood but they were closed so we drove around the corner and found another place that was open 24 hours and still selling Dim Sum. It's probably a good thing to try new things as we took home (for $12.10 mind you) a whopping order of Orange Chicken and most of our favorite Dim Sum pieces. The fried chicken wings (5 for $1) was tastier and less greasy than the ones at CBS'! Heck the chicken wings were so good they didn't even make it home. I ate them voraciously out of the container in the car with Moses watching my every move! The Sesame Balls with bean curd, which is another favorite of mine were smaller and not s...

Apparently, we've spent enough money on swim lessons to garner ourselves the Silver status at Penny's Swim Club. Hubby notes that it cost his parents $0 dollars to teach him to swim (they had a pool in their backyard). My response "Penny is a big city girl who gets charged big city prices." Aka the advantages of being the only child with two parents who work.  P.S. If we ever get to Diamond Elite status just shoot me. Lol

Took Penny out for sushi at our place Glendale. I'm thinking she might like it since she likes fish and rice but alas, I forgot she doesn't like to mix her foods and she really doesn't like Siracha. The waitress delivered a fried tuna roll with a dollop of Siracha on it. She grabs a roll before I can get her and tastes the entire dollop of Siracha. Yeah, no more sushi after that. However, it was fun watching her play with chopsticks and eating rice out of the small soy sauce bowl. 

Earlier this year, Penny made friends with Haley in swim class. After weeks of playing in the pool us moms decided to switch info for a non-pool play date. Turns out we live right down the street from each other! There youngest child, Connor had a pirate birthday party this weekend and none other than Tinkerbell showed up. Penny walks right up to her and asks how she got out of Disneyland. I about laughed my head off.  I didn't really know anyone at the party but still had a good time. 

Caught up with my girlfriend, Caroline tonight. We met up in Highland Park on the strip of York Street that is becoming quite the hipster place due to gentrification. We had dinner at Ba, a French Restaurant. Sat out on the enchanting back patio with glasses of wine and shared an absolutely amazing mushroom and cheese appy, shared steak and frites and then for dessert walked over to Donut Friend which is an absolutely amazing donut shop and found these babies to take home. (Note: My favorites were the Mango Chile-Lime Donut and the Lemon Donut sporting all the fruit). Meanwhile, Daddy and Penny went out for a milkshake at Lolli and Pops.

TBT - 2004 I surprised Brian with a long weekend trip to Walt Disney World. His first visit. Our first vacation together.

Flash back...watching Flushed Away with Penny, a movie I worked on almost 10 years ago, remembering a billboard in the UK with Sir Ian McKellen's name on it I chased for a month...note, he does not like to be known as "Sir" in any movie advertising and he especially doesn't like seeing it in Piccadilly Circus.

My last Mother's Day treat was a trip to the circus, a circus with no animals! Despite no animals it was a fun time and I was especially impressed but the two death defying acts which were just out of this world!

Hand dipped Popsicles from the Stick-Station. Hey, wait a minute,it was take mom shopping day but somehow Daddy and Penny ended up with shopping bags. Hum? Lol Daddy went home with a new hat and Penny went home with 5 new summer dresses from the Gap.

Carbs delicious carbs for me! — at Il Fornaio Cucina Italiana Pasadena.

Mimosa for me and sparkling water for the girl. After swim class we headed over to One Colorado where they were hosting a small event for Mother's Day. There was 10 minute massages, a photo booth, cupcakes, giveaways, crowns, roses, and of course, my favorite, mimosa's! Happy Mother's Day indeed!

After sleeping in I woke up and checked FaceBook and this image was waiting for me.

Just spent the last 30 minutes in Big Thunder Ranch with an entire cast of characters...hidden non-crowded gem of Disneyland.

Penny has just discovered earphones and that they work really well with her iPad...could this be a gift from heaven for mom?

Protein, it's what's going in the belly tonight.

In the last week, Penny has insisted that all toys be in her room for some kind of store...works for me...the house is starting to look real good.

I treated the girl and I to the works this afternoon...someone left with HELLO KITTY nails and a big smile!

There is a lot going on in the world today but in Penny's world it's all about Hello Kitty.

I think one of my favorite things to do as a kid was to make cookies with my Mom and now one of my favorite things to do is make cookies with my daughter. #yum