Make yummy banana bread for bento.

 
Watch 4 year old daughter feed banana bread to ants.

 
Walk away thinking that your girl is a sweetie for sharing the dessert part of her bento.. even if it is with the bugs!

We’re home now from our awesome family-packed vacation!  I will be putting my new panda bento box to use ASAP!  Well… after a nap that is… YAWN.

(more…)

My Grandma, doing what she does… taking care of everyone. 

Ara caught up on sleep with a marathon nap in the middle of the day.  Ahh vacation.

We were treated to dinner at the Sushi King.  Everything was delicious! 

Ara had tempura and teriyaki chicken.  She ate it all and even mastered the kid chopsticks!

Ara was fascinated with this dish… it’s pretty mesmerizing.  I thought he was looking at me until my aunt ate his eyeballs.

My aunt and uncle enjoying the feast.

My bento, the California rolls were the best I’ve had!

It’s so great to be on vacation but even 2 nights away from home I miss it!  We miss Alex.  We haven’t been able to talk to Alex yet and probably won’t today or tomorrow.  Between all three of us we only have one cell phone and it’s here in California.  The plan was to talk to Alex via Skype but I can’t find any networks at my Grandma’s house so we have to wait until we’re at my Aunt’s.  Which we won’t be for the next two days at least… an eternity!

I need advice about my suitcase.  Southwest gave me 3 options; 1)Trade my bag right then and there for a new black Coleman.  2)Dump the contents of my bag into a plastic bag and accept compensation in the form of a $100 travel voucher.  3)Write a letter to corporate to either have them replace or fix my bag.  This particular suitcase cost at least $250 when I bought it, which was a LONG time ago for my one and only trip to Europe.  Something like 4 countries and I came home with not even a scratch on it.  One 2 hour flight to CA and it looks like someone took a circular saw to the side of it.  I’m pretty attached to it, which is silly.  I probably should have taken the travel money.  I just didn’t want to dump out my suitcase into a plastic bag and I kept thinking $100 won’t get me anywhere, and where would I go alone anyway?  So now I have 19 days to write to corporate but of course, I don’t have an original receipt.  I didn’t think this through.  I could’ve at least come away with a new little suitcase, cheap but new.  I wish there had been a fourth option where they didn’t saw off a piece of my bag and I didn’t have this headache lol. 

Oh well, enough bag talk.  We are off to San Francisco!  China Town shopping and then the beach!  My aunt said there aren’t usually any shells to find so she’s going to bring some to hide for Ara to discover!  I love it!  My baby girl has plans to find shells to decorate her room at home with