Greatest Cupcake Search

This last summer we decided that our family needed to go on a quest to find the best cupcake. I know, as quests go, it is not a hard one. But it is fun and tasty. I had meant to document this quest as we went, but here we are almost 6 months later. Oh well, better late than never.

Our first stop was at Chrushcakes in Santa Barbara. 7/10/2010

http://crushcakes.com/

We took our niece Rebecca with us. If you know Santa Barbara, you know what a trouble parking can be. But we lucked out.

They were good and average sized, but a little dry. The kids really enjoyed them. We plan on going to their new store in Carpenteria when it opens soon. I want to be able to compare them to the recent stops.

Stop #2 was Frosting Ink in Bakersfield. 8/11/2010 http://www.frostingink.net/charming_cupcakes.html

This was an unplanned visit. We were in town to pick up my mom at the Greyhound station on our way to Las Vegas and saw the store across the street. These were very good and a larger size than crushcakes for less money. They made a nice treat while driving through the desert and kept the kids occupied for a bit.

Stop #3 was The Cupcakery at the Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino. 8/14/2010

http://www.thecupcakerycorp.com/index.html

These were good, but I am not sure if they were worth the long walk from our hotel and then the maze we had to navigate to find the place. I think only one of my nephews noticed the scantily clad dancing girl above the poker table. We met some girls that were there for their bachelorette party. They had ordered a tray filled with little cups of the different frostings offered. Looked like fun and tasty. Might need to try that next visit.

Stop #4 was Babycakes in San Diego. 11/25/2010

http://www.babycakessandiego.com/diego.com/

These were the best up to this point. Very, very good! I really want to go back and try some of their other flavors like the blood orange. Actually, I want to go back and eat in their coffee shop. It looked wonderful.

Stop # 5 was The Cupcake Store in Mission Viejo. 11/27/2010
http://www.thecupcakestoreonline.com/

Yes, we went to two cupcake stores in one weekend. But it was so worth it. These were the best by far. They all come topped with a gumball and tasted wonderful!! They had some really cute holiday ones that the kids wanted to try, maybe next time.

Stop #6 was Sugar Bear's Cupcake Shake in Ventura. 12/4/2010

http://sugarbearscupcakeshack.com/

We never even knew about this little store downtown. They were small, but good. These are actually Christian's favorite so far and he keeps asking when we will be going back. Randy and I vote for The Cupcake Store as the best up until this point.

Back on Blogger

After some subtle hints from family members that I needed to post again, I switched to tumblr last summer. I did not like their format, so I am moving back to here. My goal is to give a brief look at what has happened in the 2 years since I stopped posting on this site.
Christian swam a lot, Andrea and I got our Masters, the twins graduated from kindergarten and we went camping.
We went to Las Vegas with all of the cousins, we visited family and we took the kids sledding and snowboarding. That is about it. So I plan on blogging more this year. I have missed it.
Take care!!

I have been on vacation for 3 weeks now and I have not posted - Bad Me!! So I will try to catch up over the next few days before we go on our family vacation.

But here is a picture we took yesterday at Balboa Park in San Diego.

We went down to pick up Christian. He had spent the week down there with his grandparents will he attended "Destination to Mars" camp at the Air and Space Museum.

We missed him so very much, but it did make it easier to take the twins to the Rose Bowl for Drum Corps and fireworks. He would have hated it. :)

Another Snow Day

What a fun four day weekend! On Friday I had a lazy day at home with the boys. Then on Saturday, Liz and I went to the Scrapbook Expo in Costa Mesa and spent way too much money. On Sunday her mom made us yummy waffles and then on Monday we took the boys back up to Mt. Pinos. They are really liking the snow. It was quite warm up there and then of course they love the pizza in Frazier Park on the way back.

Here is Christian on one of his many slides down.

Sebastian, hanging out before his turn.

Alexander, practicing on his bottom.

Randy, with one of the boys. Yes - I have no clue which on it is. LOL!

I just realized that it is Sebastian because of the red and black gloves. :)

I need to post!

I realized after reading my Aunt Jen's Christmas card that I am way behind in blogging. I have been so busy. There that is all the excuse I will make. :)

So, let's play catch-up. Christian is in the 4th grade and realizing that he might have to learn how to work when it comes to school. Everything has been too easy for him up until this year. Poor kid! The twins are in pre-school, the same one that C went to, so that is cool. They have a lot of fun and seem to be learning all that we have not taught them, so that is a God-send. Pre-School also helped with the potty-training during the summer, though Alexander went through a few days of regression last week - BRAT!!

Christian is very much into Lego's right now. He and Randy have a lot of fun with them. The twingles love all things Star Wars.

I did get a new camera for Christmas and since it has a snow setting, we went up to Mt. Pinos yesterday to try it out. So fun!! We are going to try to go up at least once more this season.

I will try to be better about posting, especially with my new camera. :)

DCI Finals

Before Randy, Andrea and I went to Finals this last Saturday at the Rose Bowl, we went to the Freelancer Reunion. It was so much fun. I didn't realize how much I missed these people. Dan even mentioned that it has been 20 years since our rookie season. Time sure does fly. I loved meeting spouses and seeing pictures of kids. It was a blast.


This is a pic of Randy and I with Al. What fun!!!

And here is Andrea & I with Tom & Lance.

Boot Camp

For those of you wondering, I did finish my first month of Adventures Boot Camp for Women. http://venturabootcamp.com/home.html
It was so fun, hard but fun. I really needed to get out there and just exercise and this did it. I am most excited that from the 1st Friday to the 4th Friday I was able to cut a minute off of my 1-mile run. I can't wait to see what I can do next month.

Do you have a person like this?

Someone who brightens your day with a smile. Not a usual friend or family member, just someone that you know and look forward to seeing during your day. For our family that is Beth. We met her about 3 years ago while she was bagging our groceries at Ralph's. She wanted to talk about the twins since she herself was an identical twin. I found myself always going to the lane that she was working in just for a quick "Hi" and "how are you doing" She always had a great story about her family. The stories were sometimes hard to understand due to disabilities from a premature birth. But worth the trouble. At 45 she and her sister lived together and were very close. I would see her riding her bike to and from work - always with her helmet on. And I assume that she was wearing it Friday night when some 20 year old guy ran a red light and hit her before driving away. Beth died early Saturday and left behind many grieving friends and family members. When I went shopping on Sunday I knew it would be hard. But seeing all of these sad people in black was worse than I thought. By the time I left the checker, the girl bagging my groceries and I were crying hard. They had a great write up about her in the paper that day, I learned so much about her and her activities. And it was a little comfort today to hear that the driver turned himself in.
We will miss Beth and her smiles.

Look Who Turned 3

Yes - The Twingles turned 3 last week. They are getting so big and talking nonstop. They have an interesting LOVE/HATE relationship going on. And they are off to pre-school in August.

I guess I should use this post to catch everybody up.
Christian turned 9 in April. He had a Pirate themed party at the fencing studio where he and Randy take classes. Here he is taking Captain Crook down.



They next day we took all of the cousins to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Fillmore. They had so much fun!


Then in May Christian made his First Holy Communion. We were very proud of him. He took it very seriously and understood what a great Sacrament it is. He also looked so good in his shirt and tie.





Today is my first day of summer vacation, so I hope to be better about blogging. So sorry to those who keep emailing me that they want new pictures. I promise to do my best.

This makes me laugh because I feel I never say the right thing.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Christian

I was going through the Easter pics tonight and came across this one of Christian. I love it! It is after the egg hunt and he has emptied his eggs into a bag. I am not sure why he has his book in his basket but it is so him. He always has a book out. Here he is surrounded by relatives and noise and he is content with his book.

Egg Hunting

Every year we say that we need to cut down the amount of eggs we hid. Over time most of the kids in the family are too "old" to hunt eggs. But with only 7 this year hunting, we still brought way too many. It is fun though. My sister Andrea bought the kids wax eggs that were filled with confetti. She then had her son Logan crack one on Randy's head. He waited hours to get her back, and you can see that she wasn't ready for it. What a fun day!

Egg Decorating

After we got back from feeding the horses, it was egg decorating time. The twins only wanted to do one each, which was fine. The bigger kids did 2 I think. Then the mommies and Tisha did the rest. I had fun trying different styles.

Easter morning

Easter started nicely with the twins sleeping until 7:30 - Yea! Then we had to look at all of the Easter basket goodies.

During the morning, Tisha(my niece) needed to pick up her prom dress from her mom's house. So she suggested we take the kids so that they could meet her horses. I had never been there, so I was excited also.

Here they are looking at the ponies.

Feeding them some hay with Tisha and Becca

Christian petting Romeo, I think. It could be Juliet.

Their favorite part was feeding the bigger horses carrots.