Bears & Baseball

This morning before we left for school, I had Autumn make a card for a little girl in her class that was diagnosed with cancer.  Ms. Michelle, Autumn’s teacher, asked that the kids make a card for Nevaya and bring something for her if they wanted, b/c Ms. Michelle is going to go visit Nevaya at the hospital tomorrow.  So, we found this teddy bear and Autumn wanted to give it to Nevaya.

This is the front of the card that Autumn drew.  She told me it was the teddy bear, and I think she did a pretty good job.  You can tell there’s a head w/ ears and a body and she made it squiggly to look like the bear’s fur.  I am proud of her for learning to give and share.  We talked about how Nevaya is sick and having a teddy bear to hug could help her feel better.  Autumn was so excited to give Ms. Michelle her card and teddy bear.  It was a very proud moment for me as a Mama to witness.

Today at work was actually a little stressful, so I went and got a gyro from my favortie gyro guy for lunch today.  I just savor each bite b/c it’s so dang good and makes me so excited to eat at Kebapci’s when I go to Slovenija in October.  KOMAJ CAKAM!

Anyways, I went and got little bug after work and we went over to Mom & Dad’s.  They were at a movie so we just had a bowl of cereal and watched TV until they got home.  Dad said he had a special surprise for Autumn…tickets to the baseball game tonight.  He asked if she wanted to go on a date w/ Papa and she was all excited, especially when he told her there were going to be fireworks after the game.  Mom made Dad a sandwich really quick before they left and Dad got out some Mexican olives to eat w/ his sandwich.  Autumn was so thrilled to see olives and wanted a little bowl of her own.  How many 3 year olds get excited about green olives?  I think they’re gross, but Autumn loves them (that’s what she’s holding in her hand in this picture and why she’s smiling so big).

Once they left, Mom & I tried to figure out what we were going to do since I was a free woman for a few hours.  We were both hungry and Mom had a coupon to this new restaurant in town, so that’s where we went for dinner.  It’s called Bistro Babusan.  It looked very cool and inviting.

Mom got a thai pad bowl w/ pork and I had a grilled pork sandwich w/ Thai fries.  We were NOT impressed w/ the food at all.  First of all, we said we didn’t want anything too spicy and my sandwich had raw jalapeno slices underneath the meat!  I took them off but it was still super spicy from the jalapeno juices that got left on the meat.  Then, the meat was super shady, and if anyone knows me at all, they know I can NOT handle shady meat.  Shady meat is anything that has gristle, fat, or looks questionable.  Even Mom said her meat was shady, and she’s not nearly as picky as I am.

It’s a good thing that we used our $5 off coupon.  The girl that rang us up at the register said it was going to be $19 before the coupon and then after we gave her the coupon she said it was going to be $9???  We told her that was $10 off but the coupon only said $5.  She said, “I know.  I am new and don’t know how to use this computer program to just take $5 off so I’ll just give you $10 off.”  That was a pleasant surprise.

So, the food was not very good and I will never be going back.  But, to leave my restaurant critique on a positive note, it had a really cool vibe and atmosphere.  I LOVED this wall of glass that had different boxes of spices.  That was my favorite part of the whole dinner experience.

After dinner, we stopped by the bank so Mom could deposit some of Nick’s checks into his account.  While we were sitting and waiting I noticed there was a place for an audio jack and I asked Mom what that was for and why anyone would need it.  We both tried to figure it out and said the only reason we could think it would be there would be if someone was blind and couldn’t see the screen and needed to hear what was appearing on the screen.  But then we thought that couldn’t be the reason b/c a blind person would not be driving a car to pull up to an ATM.  Does anyone know why they would have an audio jack on a drive through ATM?

We went into the grocery store to get a few things and to pick up two movies we had rented from Red Box.  We were going to go see a movie while Autumn was hanging out w/ Dad at the baseball game, but there was nothing we wanted to see.  But, we found two movies on Red Box we wanted to rent…Bounty Hunter & Leap Year.  We watched Bounty Hunter first, and it’s the one w/ Gerard Butler & Jennifer Aniston.  It was a pretty cute movie, although I wish Gerard had kept his sexy accent instead of using his American accent.  And, there were a few inappropriate parts.  It’s one that I really enjoyed watching and would probably watch again, but not one that I would buy.

After that movie, we made some pina coladas that Uncle Keith & Aunt Jana had made for Mom while she was in Utah a few weeks ago (they are non-alcoholic).  They were so rich and thick and incredibly good.  It only has 4 ingredients:

• 1 can of frozen Bicardi pina colada mix
• 1/2 of a 20 oz can of crushed pineapple (w/ the juice)
• milk
• ice

You just add as much ice and milk as you want to get it to the consistency you like.

Dad & Autumn got home from the game right as we finished making the pina coladas, which is good b/c this recipe makes a lot and we needed someone to help us drink the pina coladas.  Autumn was so animated in telling me about the game.  She got to take her picture w/ Daisy (the mascot), she got some pink cotton candy, she got to play on the playground they have at the ball park, and she got to see fireworks.  She had a blast and I’m glad she got to go do that.  She was starving and ate all of Mom’s thai pad noodle left overs.

After we finished our pina coladas, we started the second movie we got…Leap Year.  It’s the one w/ Amy Adams where she travels to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Year.  It was a really cute movie, but at times it was really hard to understand the main guy b/c of his thick accent.  Definitely a movie that I would watch again and would buy if it was $5 or $10.  By the time the movie was over, it was 12:10 am so we all went to bed.  Autumn had gone into Mom & Dad’s room at the start of the movie to watch “and Beast,” and she had fallen asleep so we just stayed at Mom & Dad’s b/c she was not a happy camper when I woke her up to leave.  It was a fun Friday.