Guest Blogger: Food For Thought: Apple & Banana Salad by the Dog Walker

Mom has asked me to write a post for her, because she figured that I remember that there was one thing that she used to do every Friday on her blog and that she hasn't done it in a long time: Food For Thought. She always tells everyone about her delicious recipes that she makes for the family and that she likes to share them with her followers who want to give them a try. For a long time, she thought that she got all of her family recipes posted on the blog, but I did tell her that there was one recipe that wasn't mentioned on this blog, Apple & Banana Salad.

I quickly made this salad for Mom's birthday party and everyone really liked it, just like they've always liked it. Mom will tell you about how her birthday weekend went.

This fruit salad is not like any other fruit salad. It's a very simple and quick recipe and it turns out very delicious that you want to keep eating until it's all gone. So this is how the recipe goes.

All you need is;
One stalk of ripe yellow bananas,
Five apples
Three containers of Cool Whip
Raisins (Optional, since mom likes to add those to hers)

1.
Chop bananas into round slightly thin and slightly thick circles

2. Chop apples into small cubes (Note: Makes sure you take away the core!)

3. Put the chopped apples and bananas into an appropriate size bowl.

4. Pour in the cool whip and stir it all up, until the fruit is all covered.

5. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to Me...

I was sort of watching the clock, my Christmas stocking I was stitching, my phone, and the TV all at the same time. Some of my kids are super competitive about who gets to make the first birthday wish. I was not surprised to see this cute wish from the Dog Walker at 12:02.

Teach was a close second at 12:16 with her fantastic emoji wish.

Happy birthday!!!!! 

Fifty-five seems to be a major birthday although I'm not sure why... because it ends in five? I'm feeling a little knocked around lately. I can't seem to get my body to obey me. As soon as I solve one problem, something breaks somewhere else.

Did I tell you I have a longitudinal tear in one of the tendons of my foot? I'm not sure when it all happened, but it's finally decided it wants to be fixed and that means surgery. I'm trying to hold off until after Jr. Jazz season is over. I don't want to let down my teams. But we only have a couple of weeks left after today's games and I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. It might be time to finally write it on the calendar.

Anybody out there ever have this surgery? Did it work?

Go San Diego - USS Midway and the Beach

Today is our last day in California and we couldn't leave without seeing the beach in the daytime. So right after we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel, we drove back over to Belmont Park. It was too early to walk through the park, so we parked in one of the side lots and walked back to the entrance to the beach.

The water was beautiful and cold, with big pounding waves. In the summer, it might have been full of surfers, but not today. We walked out to the water line, but not quite close enough to get our feet wet. There were a few random pieces of seaweed on the hard-packed sand. I was surprised that we didn't find any shells or much of anything really. At least these beaches were clean and well kept. It appeared that someone was making a movie a little way down from us (may that is why it was so clean!) In the opposite direction we saw a few couples walking on the beach like we were.

We finally left the water and drove down to the docks to we could board the USS Midway. This is a gigantic aircraft carrier that was finally decommissioned and turned into a museum. My sweetie really wanted to do this part of the trip and today was the day.

First, let me just say that we were astonished by the size of it all! They have little audio sets that tap each sign and then they have stories from the actual people who walked through the hallways. It was so interesting. I'm glad we planned to spend the rest of our time there until we left for the airport, because I think we could have gone another hour easily.

As it was, we were there over 3 hours, exploring as much of the carrier as we could possibly see.

The top two floors housed all the airplanes and the shops and simulators. They had elevators and were easily traveled by someone with a bad foot. The bottom floor was not, but it had some of the most interesting stuff: like the cafeteria and the laundry.

My favorite part was the top where the airplanes and helicopters were housed. I hadn't realized the nostalgia I would feel when I first saw the CH-46. Back in the day when I was working as a technical writer, our company made flight simulators for the government. The CH-46 was my baby. I modified all the documentation for two contracts.

See this flight panel? I edited and wrote procedures and troubleshooting documents, operations and maintenance manuals that included every one of those panels.

This helicopter could have had one of my books in it with the modifications from our company!

So weird. Once I even flew out to Tustin to see the simulator in action (I got sick on the simulator), but my sweetie did a great job!

When we were finally nearing our absolute time to leave, we said goodbye to the Midway and hurried to get gas, turn in our rental car, and take the shuttle to the airport. Our trip was over... but I want you to know how things worked out with our Go San Diego passes. We tallied nearly $600 for our 7-day trip and they only cost us half that. I'd say it was money well spent.

Go San Diego - Knott's Berry Farm

It's interesting that some of the Go San Diego attractions are not even in San Diego. When we first looked at the list, we had absolutely no plans to drive up to Los Angeles for Knott's Berry Farm. Even though we had driven past this park multiple times when we have been at Disneyland, we have never opted to go inside.

San Diego Temple out the window on our way to Los Angeles.

 So today my sweetie suggested we make the 3-hr round trip and check it out. We arrived sometime around noon and we were a little surprised at the number of people. It was almost like visiting on a summer day. I have no idea that a school holiday like Martin Luther King Day would be like that. We wandered around until we found a cute little cafe so we could have lunch.  I had been a little queasy all day, so I didn't really eat breakfast.

We waited in line forever and then we it was finally our turn. We were seated out on the porch right by the line of people waiting to get in. It applied a certain amount of guilt to the meal, but I enjoyed it anyway. My sweetie got some sort of roast beef sandwich and I got a sourdough bread bowl full of chili. The bread was so good that when we left, we took one with us to go without the chili.

My sweetie kept saying he just wanted to scope out the roller coasters to see if he wanted to bring the kids there, but we didn't ride any of them. We went a couple of times on the miner's track (I seriously have no idea of the name...) and we also rode on the big train around the park.

We eventually made our way around to the fiesta area and we rode the carousel. This was one of the most beautiful and different carousels that we have seen. We stopped at Johnny Rocket on our way back to the gate and had a shake and shared a batch of their amazing onion rings. That turned out to be our dinner after the hour and a half car ride back since neither one of us wanted to go again out after we had gotten cozy back at the hotel. 

Our super fun Go San Diego trip is almost over. We have chased around like crazy so we could get our money's worth and we are way over $500 on the activities we have attended. I think we really wanted to prove that these passes are a great value. The only downside is that in the wintertime, almost all of the venues close around 5:00 pm.