Popcorn Prizes

Tonight Zachary had a Cub Scout meeting. He's still working on the requirements for the Bobcat badge. Hopefully he'll be able to earn that soon because he isn't able to work on anything else until he earns that.
He received his rewards for selling popcorn tonight. He sold $575 of popcorn. The Lego he chose was not available so they replaced it. Jason thinks the new one is much better. Zachary also received his participation pin and the patch for meeting the goal for military sales.

Baking at the Ronald McDonald House

This afternoon our Girl Scout troop baked brownies and cookies for the families at the Ronald McDonald House at Rady Children's Hospital. The girls are too young to cook and serve a full meal, like I did a few months ago, but the baking was perfect. They made 10+ dozen treats and left them for the families to have for dessert after their meal tonight.

Resolution

Today I ran in my first race of the new year; the Resolution Run. It was only a 5K. I didn't want to overdo it with the half marathon coming up next weekend. I was aiming for under 30 minutes, which I thought I had done (according to the pace on my Fit Bit), but I can in at 31:09.

This afternoon Kailani's Girl Scout troop participated in the service unit's cookie kick off. Cookie sales officially begin on January 24. We're gearing up for another successful cookie season.

Kailani and Kaia tasting the cookies.

 

El Nino

We are being hit with a winter storm as a result of El Nino. Although we need the rain badly, it is unfortunate that it supposed to rain every single day this week (our last week of winter break). During a break in the rain today we took the dogs for a walk. Here is some of the aftermath of last night's storm. Supposedly today is going to be worse.

The kitties are regulars on the first floor now, particularly the two young ones. They don't seem to be bothered by the dogs at all.

I braved the rain tonight to go to a friend's house for another freezer meal prep event. She made the menu and did the shopping for all 12 of us. We ended up getting 6 meals for $48! These will come in handy next week when we all go back to school.

Helping Others

We heard that a local restaurant created a donation wall for jackets to help those in need during the cold winter weather (as cold as it gets in San Diego). Since the kids grew out of their winter jackets from last year, they decided to hang theirs up for someone who might need them.

There happened to be an article in the newspaper about this tonight:)

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/jan/04/wall-encourages-strangers-to-give/

Rose Bowl

Today we drove up to Pasadena (a little over 2 hours) to see the Rose Parade floats on display. It was so awesome to see up close what you see on TV. The floats were amazing!

The National Park Service was at the event and the kids collected stamps at several of the floats. Once they collected all of the stamps, they were sworn in as a junior ranger.

After we saw the floats, we took a special holiday tour of Rose Bowl Stadium. We learned a little history about the stadium. We saw the first locker room from the 1920s, that was so small it was only used for about 5 years. We went into both current locker rooms, which look exactly the same. Since there is no official home team, neither team gets a better locker room.

Finally, we were able to stand out on the actual field, which was still filled with confetti from yesterday's game. This is the part of the tour Zachary was waiting for. As soon as he stepped on the field, he ran a ball 100 yards to the other end. 

On the way home, we stopped at Famous Dave's for lunch/dinner. 

Overall, we had a great day.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! The pork and sauerkraut is in the crock pot and the Rose Bowl is on TV...a normal New Year's Day for us.

This morning I joined the YMCA Trail Runners on a 7-trail run in Eastlake. It was a great way to start off the new year. It was a tough trail, with a few really big hills, but it felt good when it was all over:)

The scenery was beautiful.

After the trail run, I ran 4 more miles with two of the Fit Miss girls to get a long run in this week. Two more weeks until another 13.1!

I joined a challenge to run/hike 1,000 miles this year. Today I posted my 1 mile pic. Only 989 more to go!