The Day That Wouldn't End

I've always sworn that we wouldn't try to schedule too many activities in any given day for the boys.  I like have one or two tops because I like to have some flexibility in the schedule.  Today, we deviated from that just a little bit.  We had three events to attend and it's been a really, really long day.

First, we headed over to LAFD Station 61 for a pancake breakfast.  It was rather foggy and misty as we walked along the street to the fire station.  This really excited John quite a bit.  We got to the station at about 8:15 and they were still cooking the first batch of pancakes.  We headed over to the fire trucks to see how many cool things we could see.  The boys really loved the old fashioned fire truck with the hand cranked siren.  They were also excited to sit in the modern fire truck.  Their friend set the siren off as someone was making a speech.  The firemen were kind enough to say it was ok and didn't make the kids exit the truck.  As we were leaving, several of the firemen thanked us for visiting and invited us for visits at any time.  They said that we were always welcome to visit and tour the facility.

So, that really started the morning with a bang, but that was followed by a Halloween party at a friend's house.  They both wore their costumes for a short time; however, they both eventually took the costumes off because it was much easier to jump around in the bounce house in their regular clothes.  There were all sorts of fun activities, but all they wanted to do was jump around.  A bounce house is all you need for a children's party.  Aside from that, they were able to enjoy all sorts of candies.  AND, John disovered that he liked bagels with cream cheese.

We headed home to get changed and have a little lunch before we headed down to the Larchmont Family Fair on their favorite boulevard, Larchmont.  As we walked past the booths, Maureen kept on running into all sorts of friends and stopped to talk to them.  John was very frustrated because he wanted to see his friends and go on the slide.  Well, we eventually made it to the slide, but not before we picked up sno-cones.  After some fun slide and bounce house time, we headed over to get some food.  John asked for a bagel and cream cheese.  Nicholas asked for cotton candy.  Maureen and I had tacos at Pinches Tacos .  I must declare those tacos to be the best I have EVER had.  As we waited for the tacos, the boys were trying to sing along to the music playing in the background.  They tried to sing Cielito Lindo even though it wasn't playing.


Finally, we headed home and we are headed for an early bedtime.  I'd go on, but it has just been too darned long.

Dinner with Grammy

Saturday, October 26th, would have been Grammy and Grandpa Dick's 50th Wedding Anniversary, so we decided to take Grammy out to dinner.  At first, we were headed to Fiddler's Bistro or Lulu's because we know the boys like either.  We decided that we needed to make it a special dinner, so we decided to surprise Grammy by taking her to Tony P's in Marina Del Rey.  Grandpa Dick was quite the sailor, so we thought it would be nice to have dinner by the water.  John wanted to keep it a secret until we got to our destination.  Nicholas kept trying to blurt it out, but John would stop him in time.  As always, it was a lovely dinner and we even got to take a walk along the boats.  I'd say everyone had a great time.

On a side note, the wait staff at Tony P's is the best ever.  They always cater to our every whim and need.  And, believe me when I say the boys require tons of extra special attention!

Halloween Prep Work

As Halloween approaches, the boys get ever so excited about decorating the apartment.  They just love creating art at school and putting it up on the walls/windows.  They are especially excited when they get to carve a pumpkin.  Earlier this week, Maureen and the boys took our pumpking and created a jack-o-lantern through their creative natures.

As if decorating and carving a jack-o-lantern weren't enough excitement, the boys were invited to a Halloween party this morning at their friend's house.  Costumes were optional, so the boys decided to wear their costumes; however, they eventually took them off.  They decided that it was best to jump around in the bounce house in their regular clothes.

By the way, Nicholas' costume was the hit of the party.  Many of his friends were so impressed and wanted to know where to get it.

Happy Birthday Mama

Today was Maureen's birthday, so it was a day where we had to do everything and anything that she wanted to do.  She had three wishes:  1.  Go to Sunday Mass; 2.  Go to the Fall Festival at the Farmer's Market; and 3.  Have dinner with Grammy.  Since those three wishes were pretty easy.  We accomplished them all.

Sunday Mass at St. Brendan's was quite an adventure.  First, we got a late start, so there was no room in the parking lot by the time we arrive.  We had to park two blocks away and Nicholas complained the entire time.  Then, he got really bored in Mass and spent a good 20 minutes lying on the floor beneath the pew during Mass.  He did shape up enough to get a donut after Mass, but just barely.

After that, we headed over to the Farmer's Market to see the Fall Festival.  We were hoping for something that would top last year's "The World's Biggest Potato", but we were disappointed.  There really wasn't much to do aside from the petting zoo and the pony rides.  We headed over to Dylan's Candy Bar to pick up some lollipops and ran into one of John's old teachers.  John was quite surprised!

Finally, we had a lovely pizza dinner at home with Grammy.  We had origianlly planned on heading to Village Pizzeria for an early dinner, but later, we decided to stay home and order in.  Rocco's has great specials after 4 PM every day.  That's our standby if we're too tired after the long day at work.  The cake was surprisingly good.  I picked it up today at Ralph's and was quite pleased with the taste and quality.

Good Luck Next Year

John is kind of sad that the Dodgers lost last night, but he's happy that Uncle Rick Upshaw and Johnny the Mailman are happy (they are Cardinals fans).    Every so often, he asks if we can go play baseball in the courtyard or in the larger park across the street.


We headed out two weeks ago to practice our hitting. There are times we hit off the batting tee and there are other times I just pitch it to him.  He's pretty good at connecting about 50% of the time when I pitch it.  Nicholas is still learning to connect, but he gets about 30% of the pitches.  When they connect, they both yell "HOME RUN" and start running around the "bases".

They both love playing a game that involves throwing the ball past me so that I'll have to chase after it.  That is ever so fun.

Lunch at the Kmart Little Caesar's

While they were at Kmart, John asked if they could have lunch at the Kmart cafeteria.  It was too early, so they stuck around and looked at the toys.  Maureen took many pictures for Santa to reference at a later date.  Around 11:30, they headed to the lunch area for their fantastic meal of Little Caesar's slices and Icees.  Now, they've had good pizza, so they know the difference between good and bad.  They still love Little Caesar's.  I cannot explain it  The quality is rather poor, but they don't seem to mind.  Then again, they love Domino's and Papa John's.  The one pizza they don't like is Pizza Hut.

But, I digress.  I'm told that they were quite good during lunch and John even started singing "Halloween Spooks" for the rest of the patrons.  They even posed with a really big standee of the Icee Bear.  Who knew there were so many fun things to do at Kmart.

Halloween Spooks at Kmart

As Halloween approaches, we are always concerned with the following question, what will the boys wear?  Last year, we had two fifths of The Village People.  This year, we have a bit of a Disney theme.

On Sunday, we headed to Target to pick up a few things.  Of course, we had to head over to the Halloween section to see all the fun things.  Nicholas zeroed in on a Dusty from the Planes movie costume that was exclusive to Target.  We did wind up buying it because he really wanted in and it was all he was talking about since he first saw the costume earlier in the week.   We asked John if he saw anything he like and he was just very wishy washy and said he didn't want to be anything.

Yesterday, Maureen took the boys to Kmart to see if there were any good costumes for John to look at.  They played with really cool pirate swords that made sounds (we'll go back the day after Halloween and pick them up for 90% off)  They must have spent quite a bit of time reviewing the costumes until John decided that he wanted to be Woody from Toy Story.  BTW, it's the same costume that his cousin Marielena had when she was younger.  I think the cowboy hat is still floating around Mami and Papi's house.

Breakfast This Morning

Nicholas woke up this morning and came into our bedroom at the ungodly hour of 5:15 after rolling around in our bed for about 10-minutes, he headed back to his bed for a little more rest.  John popped in around 6:15, but then headed out to the living room.  I went out there to ask him if he wanted anything special for breakfast.  He said, "I know.  It's a lovely day to take a walk and have breakfast outside.  Let's go to the coffee cart."

So, we decided it was a good day to head out.  When we stepped out of the building, John said, "Oh, it's so nice to get some fresh air, isn't it?"  What 5-year old says things like that?  Anywho, we walked until we reached the coffee cart and made our orders.  The boys each got a muffin and shared a milk.  Maureen and I had croissants and coffee/hot chocolate.  I must say I was impressed with the fancy hot chocolate.  I'm used to Swiss Miss or Carnation instant.  This was freshly brewed by the coffee cart guy.  He was a little nervous.  It was his first day.  He did a great job and even gave the boys a little whipped cream and with chocolate sauce in tiny cups.

What a great way to start the day!!

The King of the Pumpkins

Nicholas decided that he was the King of the Pumpkins and created a song to celebrate his ascension to the throne.  All Hail Nicholas I, King of the Pumpkins.

We Love BHPD & LAPD

A couple of weeks ago, the Beverly Hills Police Department had its annual pancake breakfast and open house.  The boys were so excited because they love pancakes and Beverly Hills, not necessarily in that order.  Anywho, we were quite excited to pull up and see all the vehicles from the standard police cruiser to the SWAT vehicle (we event went inside of that one).  The boys were happy to wait in line for their pancakes that were catered by the Beverly Hilton.  Let me tell you, free pancakes, any free pancakes, are great, but these were restaurant quality pancakes.  Nicholas even got to try their chocolate chip pancakes.

After breakfast, we headed off to see the exhibits.  John was quite intrigued by the police dog.  It was some sort of Belgian breed, but his partner spoke to him in German.  I always tell Maureen that you can speak to any dog in German and it'll understand.  Since a tour of the police station was on the menu, we headed up to take it.  This was a great tour because it took us all over the place from the shooting range to the actual jail.  John is fascinated by jails, so he was particularly excited to visit.  We got to see the drunk tank, a real jail cell, and the padded cell where they put the violent criminals.  We also saw that there was only a drain where they can go to the bathroom if they need it.  The boys didn't quite understand, so we didn't push it.  All in all, it was quite a nice visit and we warned the boys that this is the only time they should ever be in a jail.

Today, we headed over to LAPD's Wilshire Division for their open house.  We went there last year, so we thought it would be fun to go again.  This year, the boys participated a bit more than last year.  They particularly liked the trailer that simulated a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.  They liked watching the stuffed animals fall down.  They also liked the special Mexican popsicles this year.  Last year, they both said, "Ewwww, those aren't popsicles."  This year, Nicholas probably got his first serving of fruit in a long time

when he ate the strawberry paleta.

Another benefit of going to this open house is the free Pink's hot dogs.  Thanks to the Pink Family for donating their wonderful product to such a great experience.  It's always good to have a Pink dog, but it's even better to have a free Pink dog.  We skipped the tour this time since we took it last year and the boys didn't want to wait for it, but we did check out Reed & Malloy's crusier from Adam-12.  That's always a hit with the boys and me.

As we were leaving, John affirmed his desire to be a police officer.  Nicholas chimed in that he wanted to be one as well.  John pointed out that Nicholas wanted to be a daddy artist, but we told him that he could be a daddy artist police officer.  It's good to have dreams.

Papi's Boys

As everyone knows, Papi loves his bread.  He really, really loves french bread in particular.  The boys seem to take after their grandfather in this respect.  They both insist on picking up at least one loaf of french bread at the market.  A couple of weeks ago, Maureen went to the Miracle Mile Farmer's Market and picked up two fresh loaves of bread.  She was so excited to bring them home and was going to freeze one after getting instructions on how to do it from the baker. 

Well, she went to pick up the boys at school shortly after her trip to the farmer's market and still had her produce and bread.  While John was showing his friend his new booster seat, Nicholas climbed to the front of the car and proceeded to start eating the bread.  When John became aware of this, he also asked for a loaf.  Needless to say, Maureen didn't get a chance to preserve her bread in the freezer.  Oh well, the boys enjoyed a fine snack on their drive home.