It's All About the Food

Michael and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary earlier this month by going to Las Vegas.  I still wanted to do something special on the date so I made this Lemon Cheesecake by Cooks Illustrated.  It was delicious and came out perfect.  We even let Jacob stay up a little late to enjoy a piece, it needed to cool for 4 hours before slicing.  Here's to 12 more years.

Las Vegas 2012

Our second trip to BLT Burger and we still love it. The Kobe beef burgers are delicious. We tried a shake this time and we are now fans of Nutella shakes.

We went out for Japanese food at Raku. The staff could not have been nicer and the food was great. And we were the only diners in the place who were not taking photos of our food, I am not kidding.

Micheal takes me only to the best places, Tim Arnold's Pinball Hall of Fame. A very cute not-for-profit museum where you can play pinball for a quarter. If we lived in the area I think it would make a great birthday party location. (picture from their website)

Luv-It Frozen Custard. You can see our trip was centered around food. I was happy that the only decisions I had to make were where my next meal was coming from. A relaxing Vegas vacation.
(picture from their website).

Nanotechnology

Today we went to the California Science Center for their exhibit on nanotechnology. Jacob learned about ferrofluid, thin films and static electricity. He impressed the students with his knowledge of science. I am glad that those Mad Science classes are paying off.

When I asked Jacob what he liked best about his day at the museum he said the Ecosystems. Oh well so much for nanotechnology. We look forward to seeing the Space Shuttle Endeavour when it makes its permanent home at the California Science Center.

Easter Wrap Up

Origami egg holders.
Jacob received an Easter basket from Aunt Thea. He decided to list everything that he received in his basket and he is checking things off as he eats it. You can see this is a "must do!"

Boeing Family Day

On March 4th Boeing opened their doors again to families for a tour. It had been about 12 years since the last time they did this so families were really excited including ours. One of the employees told us they were expecting about 10,000 people to come through their doors that day. We were glad we signed up for the first shift at 9 AM. It was pretty interesting seeing satellites in various stages of completion. It took us about an hour and a half to go through the tour. Michael took us to where he works. I got claustrophobia seeing the rows of cubicles, give me a busy open nurses station any day. Cameras were not allowed inside but they did set up a family photo station which I made my family participate. They also had nice goody bags which included a beach towel, Frisbee, cookies and water bottle. A good time was had by all.

Little Tokyo

We went to the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo because they had a new exhibit opening today about origami. Jacob was beyond excited especially since we told him we would take him shopping.

We learned a little about the history of origami.
Jacob took some notes along the way on pieces he wanted to try and make.

I particularly enjoyed the owl in the center of this display.

Our last photo before we were told there was no photography allowed in the exhibit, oops.

We recognized one of the artists from the video Between the Folds that Jacob has been watching many times. We introduced ourselves but Jacob was a little shy beyond saying "hi".

The exhibit was impressive and well worth the visit. Jacob bought some new origami paper at the gift shop. The museum has a couple more Target Free Family Saturdays coming up so I think we will come back.

For lunch we had Japanese food of course. We ate at Mr. Ramen. I had a bento box which was great but very filling. I did not finish my lunch. Jacob had ramen noodles for the first time and loved them.

After lunch we walked around town to do some shopping. Jacob picked out some more origami paper, origami paper case and he picked out two origami books. Little Tokyo is the best place to look at origami books, they had the best selection we have ever seen. Many of the books were written by the artists we had seen on the video Between the Folds.

We enjoyed our little vacation day in downtown LA and look forward to going back soon.

Good Deed Winner

Jacob became the "good deed winner" for his classroom this week at school. Each week one child is selected from each class. Jacob is pictured with the other winners and the principal. Jacob is really having a wonderful 3rd grade year.

His next goal is to get a perfect attendance record for the school year. The principal gives out trophies for perfect attendance and Jacob really wants one.