Mickey and Surprises and Doctors...oh my!

Day One

On Sunday our adventure began.  My mom took a connecting flight from Abbotsford and we met up at US Customs to all take the same flight to LA.  We were heading to Disneyland for 5 days of fun!  The stand-by loads were tight so I was a bit concerned but we all got on and we were on our way.

Yay!  We're on the plane!

We took a ride to our hotel.  I used the Super Shuttle because they were the cheapest van service.  I liked the idea of the van service over the bus shuttle because you only shared the ride with one other group so it cuts down on the amount of stops.  We had an interesting driver named Vinnie - or so his ID tag stated.  He managed to do the entire trip without saying a single word.  Welcome to America.  We arrived at our hotel, the Quality Inn on South Manchester.  The people at the check-in were super nice.  The hotel was old and a little run-down but it was ok. After getting settled in we headed to Downtown Disney to walk around.  Avery was acting a little out of sorts and asked Phil to take her out of a store and kept complaining how cold she was.  We chalked it up to a long travel day.

A Chip N Dale Hat - LOL

The Minnie Mouse Club

The Doors to the LEGO store

LEGO Woody

A two-storey LEGO giraffe!



"His smile is like watching a baby bunny sniff a tiny flower." - Tina Fey

So here we are stuck in a -25 celsius deep freeze and my children have 10 days off school...year-round school seems like such a good idea in theory: vacations when everyone else is at school, shorter summer = less whining about being bored but this vacation gets us every year!  February is typically a "poor" month around the McNeil house so there's not alot to do.  Today I decided to take the girls to the Justin Bieber movie.  They were eternally grateful even before we went because they know that every time one of his videos comes on family channel or a song on the radio I roll my eyes and walk away mumbling under my breath. (Speaking of poor - 2 Child Admissions, 1 Adult Admission, 2 Kids Combos, a regular popcorn and regular pop = $71.85!!!  But that's another rant for another day).  So you are now subjected to my review of the movie and the singer...



I was pleased to learn this little international sensation is from a town fairly close to where my family and Phil's family are from.  You know how Canadians are, "Hey my gramma lives 3 blocks down from Justin Bieber's grand-parents!  No kidding eh?"  Very cool to see that even though his mom was a teen mom she had a lot of support from her parents but also took on parenting very seriously.  I also found it pretty intersting that he was a "sensation" long before being signed to a label or making a record; all due to You Tube - amazing how social media has changed the world. 

A couple of things worry me though.  There was one 10 second clip in the entire movie that showed him sitting at a table with a bio and chem text book.  This kid's 16 years old and he's making a huge movie being shown to kids all over the world - I would have liked to see a bit more focus on his education.  I'm not even sure my girls caught the clip and am pretty sure they're seeing his life as sans-school and pretty awesome right about now.

Something else that bugged me the whole way through is that every single person surrounding this kid is an adult!  There was one scene where he returns home to Stratford and sees a couple of his friends but it sounded like that's not a very common occurance.  On this last North American Tour he did 86 some-odd shows and other than Will Smith's kid in New York there was not another kid anywhere.  That worries me.  How can a kid be a kid when he is surrounded by adults all the time?  There are scenes in the movie where he ends up walking into a group of girls, he gets totally mobbed and falls down.  I can't imagine how scared he was but it's either that or be totally segregated from society.  Is it really a good plan to put a child into this kind of situation - no matter how entertaining he is?  Then I see this:



Excuse me?!  For a second there I'm channeling Tina Fey in the SNL skit ("He's like a dreamy Christmas Elf.") and it's kind of funny but once again I have some sobering thoughts...HE'S A KID!!  I'm ok with "Teen" and "Tiger Beat" (yes those mags are still around!!) splashing him all over the front and quizzes inside to determine if the Tween/Teen reading is "..his perfect girlfriend." but this magazine is made for and marketed to women my age!   

 Now I know all my friends are shaking their heads at me considering my love for Taylor Lautner but when this cover shot of the Biebs was taken he had just turned 16.  The pictures are clearly composed to be somewhat seductive and again, this is a magazine directed at women intelligent enough to want to read an article on Warren Buffet and the Wikileaks scandal. 

I am reminded of something my husband said to me a while ago about Taylor Lautner, "If I was swooning over a girl that age I'd be considered a perv, and possibly sent to jail." at the time I blew him off and laughed about gender equality not being all it's cracked up to be.  Today I really got to thinking about it.  No one in their right mind would have a 16 year old girl on the cover of Maxim, and if someone were that silly there would be huge public outrage.  Why is it different when it's a 16 year-old boy on the cover of a women's magazine?  And why is his marketing machine ok with this?

I worry about these kid stars.  I realize no one let's their kid go into an entertainment career with hopes of becoming thisLindsay Lohan, or even worse: Corey Haim.  But what are they doing to stop it?  Show me a child-star that hasn't ended up in disaster.  Heck, even Miley and Billy-Ray aren't talking to one another anymore! I hope someone's got this kids back, cuz it sorta feels like watching a train-wreck a la Britney Spears.  Good luck little man!

On a side note, I'm sure mom's of Tween and Teen boys everywhere were happy for this little development:  Good-bye bangs!



More Creativity

We're leaving for Disneyland in 30 days!  I am attempting to see exactly how cheap I can do this visit to the Magical (money-sucking) Kingdom.  I remembered when we were there last time (Emma was 6) she loved her autograph book.  We bought a book there that the characters would sign on one side of the page and there was a little piece of plastic on the other side that you could slip a pic of the child and character into.  6 years ago the books were $15.00, who knows how much they are now!  So I decided my girls would be taking custom autographs with them.  Here's what I came up with:

Avery's book

Autographps

I mean Autographs...yep there's a spelling mistake there...sigh.

scrapbook page protectors cut to fit - perfect size for a 4x6 photo

Place for Character to sign

Back cover

Emma's front cover - at least it's spelled right!

Emma's back cover

Now I just have to get them bound together.  Shelley lent me her coil binder but neither of us were too sure how to use it.  That'll be my project for my next day off!

I win!

YAH I DID IT!!

White Cake, Milk Chocolate, Rolled in Oreo Crumbs



I made Phil a football!



Cake Pops 1 : Jesse 0

Hello Everyone!  I hope you've all been well.  I know it's been a long time since I posted and I'll fill everyone in on what I've been up to later, today's post is about Cake Pops.  Have ya heard of them?  There is a new book out by the amazing Bakerella.

Last night we had dinner at my bestie's and Shelley and I got to talking about the Cake Pops.  You ever have one of those moments of cockiness where you say, "I can totally do that!  Doesn't look that hard.  Yep I'm gonna make those."?  Well that was me last night.  I fell asleep with visions of Cake Pops dancing in my head.  Bakerella has managed to turn these into a new baking sensation, she's on TV (she was on Martha Stewart!) has a book out, tours the country doing book signings...yep I could do this!  Her first batch of Cake Pops were a simple cake ball and I thought that would be a good place for me to start.

Bakerella's Simple Cake Balls



So I got up today, did some puttering around, went on a lunch date with my hubby and headed to Michaels with my littlest one.  I came home pretty stoked.  The cake baked while I was out.  I remembered Shelley and I talking abut making sure the cake was fully cooled before starting, so I stuck it in the freezer for good measure.  And the adventure began:

I cut off the sides of the cake as I remembered her saying it would look better not to have the brown bits mixed in with the crumbs.

I began crumbling the cake, I was thinking it was pretty moist, but how bad could it be?

This is where things started to go down-hill.  I added 3/4 of the can of icing all at once.  Looking back I should have added a bit at a time to see how moist it really was.  I started rolling balls but they are soooo wet!!

Tried some football shapes, having high hopes for my artistic abilities

So now I melt the chocolate.  I've never tried to make anything with the Wilton Mini Melts.  Shelley makes gorgeous chocolates for all kinds of occasions.  I remember her saying it's hard to work with a lot of it at a time because it starts to stiffen up pretty quick.  The instructions tell me to melt the chocolate in the microwave for about 2 minutes on power level 2.  I have a huge piece of junk of a microwave and 7 minutes later I start to get some melt-age.  I was really concerned about over-cooking it or burning it so I tried using it then.  I think it still needed to melt more.  I dropped the balls in the coffee cup I was using, spooned chocolate over the top then tried to scoop them out.  Sometimes the spoon would poke the bottom of the ball making a mark, or crumbs would mix in with the chocolate.  I had melted half the bag of chocolates and had only managed to cover about 6 balls...and they were U.G.L.Y.!!

Crumbs all mixed in with the chocolate

A confirmed Epic Fail

A smart girl knows when to accept defeat

The best looking one of the bunch

Why is there lines in it?  Why didn't it go all smooth?  Bakerella's look like she uses fondant on them they're so smooth.  I'm guessing cuz the chocolate wasn't melted enough.



Tasted pretty sick.  Like very undercooked cake dipped in way too much chocolate.







Catchin' Up.

Hello everyone!  Well the holidays have come and gone and now we slog through the cold days of January.  I hope everyone's holidays were as wonderful as ours. 

The weekend before Christmas we bravely took stand-by flights to Abbotsford, luckily there was lots of room and no storms so we made it there fine.  It's been quite a few years since having Christmas at my mom's and I was quite excited for it.  On the Sunday we went to my sister's church where we listened to my hilarious nephew, Elijah, and all his little buddies sing Christmas songs.  As soon as the performance was done Phil and my Brother-In-Law, Dan, headed to Seattle to catch a Seahawks game.  Although they lost miserably they had fun.  Phil really enjoyed getting to spend some "man" time with Dan.

Emma, mom and I made a quick trip to Bellingham for jeans and American treats at Target.  We went to Van Dusen gardens for the beautiful light display.  We had a wonderful Christmas morning opening gifts all together and making breakfast.  Christmas night we had a great dinner at Dan and Carly's, complete with Christmas Goose! 

Happy New Year everyone!

A Tribute

Today was the day we celebrated the life of Mama L.  I was asked to share a few words of my memories.  Here's what I had to say:

What an honour it is to have some of my thoughts and memories of "Mama L" shared with you all.
From the age of 12 I was an almost permanent fixture in the Lundeen house. I would show up whether Sharon, David and Heather were there or not, I even had my own key. Mama knew the struggles in my heart and my home and warmly opened her heart and home up to me. Looking back I’m sure there were times she walked in the door to an extra pair of shoes at the back and thought, "What is this? A hotel?" but if she ever thought that it never came across to me. Oh she made it clear, "if you’re one of my kids, part time or not you will be treated like one. Now go clean the bathroom."
I hope she knew how her unconditional love affected me. I saw that she disciplined but loved her children, which definitely molded my parenting skills. Her marriage, and the love between Mama and Papa, showed me what true love looks like and how wonderful a happy marriage could be. She took me to fancy tea houses and taught me about using the correct utensils, a skill which has come in handy several times as an adult trying to impress business associates. She taught me it was ok to take a break sometimes but with God’s grace and a lot of prayer you get back into the game of life even when you just want to hide in your bed...especially when you want to hide in your bed. She taught me to accept the things I can’t change, change the things I can and always ask God for help deciding between the two. She helped me nurse my first broken heart, and even though the offending boy left much to be desired, I never felt her judgement. When I found the perfect boy some years later she was so excited for me. She threw me a beautiful wedding shower and worked almost tirelessly with my mom to make my wedding day perfect. When I was in labour with my first baby she was there, flitting about, so excited. She knew the pain I was in would soon be replaced with enormous love for the gift God was giving me. And plans for a baby shower were underway almost immediately. When my second baby was born with a birth defect she was there right away. Reminding me how precious my baby was, that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, and praying constantly for my whole family.
I must admit that like many adult children I haven’t seen her as much in recent years as I’d like to. When I went to see her at the hospital a few weeks ago I sat beside her, showing her pictures of the girls and I felt so comfortable, cuddled up against her. One of my comforts is gone, but finally she is comfortable. I imagined her running up to her son and her grand-daughter, who she didn’t get to have time with here on earth, and thinking about how she will spend all eternity with them now. She will see us all again and she will embrace each of us. How can I be sad thinking about that? From now until I see her again I will continue living out the lessons she taught me and always be grateful for my memories of her.