(root) beer me.

i've been looking for a good reason to bust this out:

so when i found this recipe for root beer float cookies that i'd saved on one of my pinterest boards ages ago, i figured i'd give it a shot.  since the recipe yielded a silly amount of cookies - we're talking 3-4 dozen here, with only four of us in the house - i decided to make half a batch.  the dough came together pretty easily, and was really goopy.  just a little thicker than cake batter, but a lot less firm than regular cookie dough.

they baked up nicely in about ten minutes, and they were nice and puffy.  smelled good, too.

after letting them cool for a few (and swatting the bean's not-so-sneaky paw away more than once), i mixed up the root beer-flavored buttercream frosting and started smearing it on top.

but they looked so...plain.  blah.  luckily, my well-stocked baking pantry yielded the perfect decorating touch:

a little sprinkle was all i needed to jazz these babies up just a bit.  looks a little more interesting, right?

although she had yet to have dinner, i relented and let the bean act as my little taste-tester.  she was only too happy to oblige.

i got a "mmmm!  these are really yummy, mommy!  you're the best cookie maker in the whole world."  this kid is slightly biased, though, and besides - if i make it, it contains sugar, doesn't have any visible fruit or anything green...she always thinks it's delicious.  don't get me wrong, i'm definitely not complaining, but her feedback doesn't always provide a clear picture, knowwhatimean?  so i picked one up and popped it in my mouth.

final verdict?  well, although the texture is lovely - really soft and cakelike (reminds me of those soft frosted sugar cookies at the grocery store that are so good...and so bad), i couldn't really taste the root beer flavor.  i'd even doubled the amount of extract in both the batter and frosting.

but the hub liked them, as did the teen.  i guess they're not a complete fail.

we love the land.

with the teen's birthday and mother's day just a couple of days apart, we made some good use of our disneyland annual passes over the last week.  you're shocked, i know.

now, although all four of us have passes, the hub's is a little different from the rest.  because he doesn't necessarily love the land as much as we girls do, he opted for the lowest tier of the four pass levels.  this means that he has a shitload of blacked out dates, which include just about every weekend and the entire month of july.  so damn near every time i try to rope him into joining us for a trip to the happiest place on earth, he can't.  last week after suggesting that we go for a few hours and getting shot down by one quick glance at the blackout calendar, i said to him "dude, your disneyland pass BLOWS."  we both got a good chuckle out of it and moved on to the next topic of conversation.

when i picked the bean up from school on friday, i told her that we were going to head down for a little disney fun and threw in that "daddy's coming with us, too!"  i turned around to see her reaction to the news and caught a super confused look on her little face.  when i asked her what was wrong, she said "but i thought you said daddy's pass exploded."

it was my turn to be thoroughly bewildered by her comment for a few minutes until i remembered what i'd said just days before.  in her mind, "blows" = "exploded."  oh em gee, i still crack up whenever i think about it.  kids, man.  their mind processes stuff in such comical ways sometimes.

just inside the main gate at california adventure, the teen stopped at the guest relations center to pick up a birthday button.  i was given a handful of these to pass out to the rest of the group:

the bean and the hub spent some quality time together while the teen and i headed off to enjoy a few "big kid" attractions that we don't usually get to ride.  a few hours later, we all met up at wine country trattoria to have a nice dinner.  after spotting the birthday buttons, our server surprised the teen with this:

we sang the birthday song really loudly, and then the bean waited anxiously as her sister spent an inordinate amount of time making a wish before finally blowing out her candle.

parking on the very top level of the gigantic "mickey & friends" garage really sucks...unless you time your departure to coincide with the fireworks extravaganza.  nobody does pyrotechnics quite like disney, and we were treated to a pretty fantastic view with zero crowds to contend with.

two days later, on mother's day, with the hub called away to work, we decided there was only one way to celebrate.

the disneyland resort agrees.  both parks were stocked with these, for all of the mamas in attendance that day.

it was a stupidly hot day - we're talking in the 90s here - and we managed to talk the bean into trying something new:  the grizzly river rapids ride.  she was pretty hesitant, but since the time on our fastpasses was several hours away, we eventually managed to wear her down.

but first, we did a few of her favorite rides and then headed over to bug's land to cool off with a little waterplay.  she got good and soaked here, along with a ton of other littles.

i don't know if it was the holiday or the heat, but it was surprisingly uncrowded at the parks that day.  we were able to squeeze a pretty decent number of rides into the five hours we were there.

and then, it was time.  those fastpasses cut our wait time to less than half, and before we knew it, we were strapping ourselves into place on a raft.  doesn't she look excited?

she clung to me for dear life through the entire ride (which, of course, only lasted a handful of minutes).  we both managed to get soaked to the skin, which felt lovely after all the sweaty walking we'd done.  and while she admitted later that the majority of the ride had been pretty fun, she absolutely hated the drop at the very end.  it wasn't actually a very long drop at all, but it was enough to scare the shit out of her for 3.2 seconds.  and yet she managed to muster up a smile for a group pic.  that's my girl.

to cap off a super fun day, we swung through the drive-thru at the hat for some dee-licious grub.  i despise the thought of going out to eat on mother's day - overpriced food, overcrowded restaurants, overworked servers.  no, thanks.  and so our celebratory dinner consisted of piles and piles of thinly sliced pastrami sandwiched into a french roll dipped in savory au jus, plus thick-cut fries with gravy for dippin'.

just the way i like it.

there goes my baby

wanna hear something that'll blow your mind?

THE TEEN IS NOW LEGALLY AN ADULT.

holy shit, right?  she's totally responsible for her own actions now.  i don't have to sign permission slips and waivers on her behalf anymore.  i could send her out to buy me lottery tickets if i really wanted to.  next time election day rolls around, she can vote!  hell, she can get married.  and she can buy a monkey, for the love of poop.  heheh.

she spent a good chunk of the morning and afternoon over at her dad's, which left the bean and me lots of time to scurry around and get ready to surprise her with some fun stuff.  a trip to party city yielded this giant balloon and other fun decorations:

and the bean baked her beloved sister a birthday cake.  i measured stuff out for her, but she did just about everything else - poured it all in, cracked the egg, stirred it all up.  i did spray the pan, pour the batter in, and pop it in the oven, though.  and she was so, so, so proud of herself.

it turned out beautifully.

she chose the frosting color and spread most of it on, i did the sloppy handwriting job, and then she had fun with the sprinkles.  i thought she did a fine job.

when she heard the garage door open, she made the hub and me hide in the kitchen.  we all jumped out and yelled "surprise!!" at the teen, who was super amused at our antics.  and then the hub lit the candles and we sang at the top of our lungs.  she was a little less amused at this part.

present time!  because i'd asked her to give me links to the specific items she wanted, none of them were a surprise.  it's safer that way, and still fun to unwrap...right?

i crack up at the bean's expression in this shot, just before the teen sprayed herself with her new perfume...right into her face.  oops.

so what if we hadn't had dinner yet?  cake is good any time of the day!

because she'd gotten stuck in traffic on the way home, we ended up having to go to plan B for the evening.  the hub got us a table at katsu-ya at the americana, which was crazy packed with last-minute mother's day shoppers.  we managed to have a good time anyway.

and what was plan A, you ask?  i'll answer that in a couple of weeks, after we actually get to do it and i have fun stuff to report.  you'll either think it's awesome or awful.  heh.

the heat is on

the EIF revlon 5K fell on the teen's birthday this year.  i made sure to get her blessing before i registered to run it again, and since she was going to spend the morning and afternoon at her dad's anyway, it was all good.  i was doing it solo this year, though, since my friend kelley is down in san diego now.

i somehow managed to wake up a solid hour before my alarm was set to go off, and after 30 minutes of trying unsuccessfully to fall back asleep, i gave up and got ready.  good thing too, because although there was zero traffic on the way to the coliseum, i ended up spending 45 minutes sitting on vermont avenue trying to get into the parking lot.  bah!

last year, i froze my ass off until the race started.  this time, the sun was out in full force with temps in the high 80s forecasted.  ick.  but it was a beautiful morning.

i'd somehow managed to put off doing laundry and completely missed my chance to sport my team superhero singlet at this run.  i settled for my hollywood half shirt and hat instead, but i don't think that counts.  oh, well.

the race wasn't set to begin until 8:45 - super late compared to most other runs i do, so i had time to kill. i strolled through the expo and checked out the various booths, but i couldn't pick anything up because i sure didn't want to tote anything for 3.1ish miles.  and as i spied this awesome headgear, i thought of my friend ashley - she hates shark week.

i followed the crowd to the start line and maneuvered my way to the front, where the runners were cordoned off to begin the race a few minutes ahead of the walkers.  the national anthem had just been sung and the race directors were up on the podium thanking everyone for coming and introducing the various celebs who were "hosting" the event.  this year, it was brooke anderson from "entertainment tonight," "modern family"'s julie bowen and andy garcia.  oh, and halle berry was supposedly there too, but she didn't make an appearance before we were released.

look at the giant crowds behind us!

confetti guns went off at the start line.

you can't see them, but the hosts (minus halle) are standing up there.

so...although the roped-off area i was in was supposed to be designated for the runners, i was still stuck having to weave around a bazillion walkers who strolled along five abreast.  ugh.

check out this crazy dude running in a full-on red bodysuit.  and it was HOT, yo.  i was extra sweaty just looking at him.  hell, i damn near passed out from heat exhaustion just watching him trot along in that thing.

despite all that, i somehow managed to run the first mile in under ten minutes.  i was about 15 seconds behind the gun time, so mile 1 was about 9:45.

amazingly, i managed to maintain that pace through the second mile too.  but then the heat got to me and i had to slow down for the final stretch.  bah.  i still jogged past the abc-7 camera, though.  too bad i didn't actually see me on the screen.

the course wound back around the way it had started, and there was a shitload of walkers just beginning their journey as i was making my way back towards the coliseum.

natural history museum!

the heat was really getting to me at this point, and i was on a walk break when i heard someone coming up behind me encouraging everyone to keep it up.  she inspired more than a few of us to pick up the pace, especially as she proudly wore a sign that proclaimed her cancer-free for four years running.  awesome.

the pulsating beat from these drums were helpful for that final stretch, too.

finally!  i remembered how much i loved running through this tunnel into the coliseum last year, and it was no less thrilling this time around.

just around the bend was this kick ass sight, along with the finish line.

well-deserved blingage.

i grabbed a bottle of water and made my way up the stairs towards the exit, but stopped for just a second to turn around and take a look.

on my way to grab my t-shirt and goodie bag, i came across julie bowen and her friends.  she was drenched in sweat and i overheard her joke loudly about "never coming back!  just like gwyneth at the met gala.  i'm never coming back!"  heh.

the volunteers handing out the goods were standing out in direct sunlight, and i was miserable on their behalf.

interesting sample freebie.  uh...yeah.

on my way back to the car, a different view of the drumline.

and hey, there's that newsvan again.

i'm not sure if i'll do this one again next year.  it's a great cause, a fun course, and 5Ks with finisher's medals are always good.  but it was just so damn hot.  push back the start time by an hour and i'm there.  we'll see.