Free form apple tart

My favorite summertime dessert is fresh fruit, and my second-favorite summertime dessert is baked fruit with some kind of dough. We love fruit pies, fruit tarts, and fruit crumbles - especially when topped with vanilla ice cream! While we do buy them occasionally, I prefer making and baking them, especially when all the fresh, sweet summertime fruit arrives at our local farmer's market. I'm not very good at making pie crusts, but crumb toppings are easy-peasy, and I have a go-to sweet pastry dough from food blogger Jennie Perillo, so I can whip up a fruit crumble or tart whenever the whim strikes me.

Muir Woods: Best place in the Bay Area for a beginner's hike

Redwood groves are all around Northern California, and they're great places to take family and friends. One of the easiest to get to, is Muir Woods. It's just 12 miles north of San Francisco, but when you get there, it's like entering another world. We spent a couple of hours at Muir Woods over spring break, and it reminded me of how lucky I am to live in this area. The redwoods are truly majestic, amazing, awesome, and every other superlative adjective you can think of.

10 Things on my To-Do List for the Disneyland Diamond Celebration

There's never enough time to do everything I want to do at the Disneyland Resort. Next week I'll be there during their 24-Hour Celebration, but even with all that extra time in the parks, there's no way I can experience all the special events and celebrations they have planned.  I have the full list of 24-Hour/Diamond Celebration happenings and goings-on over at Bonggamom Finds, but I have to prioritize and decide which of them I really want to do.

So, after much agonizing, I've come up with a Top 10 List of things I have to do during our visit to the Disneyland Resort next week.  I'm not talking about eating a Dole Whip Float -- that's something I do on every visit.  These are things I'll only get to do during the 24-Hour event and during the Diamond Anniversary Celebration.  Without further ado, here's my list:

Travel Tuesday: Boomerang Bay waterpark at Great America

When I first visited Great America in 1994, I loved it so much I wanted to go back every year.  That lasted about 3 years -- I could only ride Top Gun (later renamed Flight Deck) and the Drop Tower so many times.  Even when I returned with The Pea in 2002, I wasn't eager to make it an annual ritual.

The arrival of Boomerang Bay changed all that.  Great America added Boomerang Bay in 2004 (it was the first theme park in California to have a water park), and we first visited Boomerang Bay in 2012.  Thanks to Boomerang Bay, I love visiting Great America once again -- we even splurged on season passes this summer so we can visit again and again!   Much as I love roller coasters, I could go four or five years without riding the ones at Great America (the kids will probably disagree with me!), but  Boomerang Bay is like a community pool with the added benefit of a few thrill water rides.

5 European cities I simply must visit

Whenever we visit Alfie's parents, we stay for at least 3 weeks.  Alfie's family is small, and there's only so much visiting of relatives you can do for 3 weeks, so we like to use Marlborough as a jumping point for smaller trips. We've done day trips to London, Stonehenge, Birmingham, Maidstone, and many other places around the UK.  We've also gone on longer trips to Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

There's no shortage of wonderful places to visit, so it's always tough to decide where we want to go next! I could easily list 100 cities I'd love to travel to in Europe -- but as always, time and money are limiting factors, so I've narrowed my list down to five.  Here are 5 cities that I'd really love to visit on a family trip in the near future:

Jelly Belly Factory Tour

We've done the Jelly Belly Factory tour in Fairfield many times, but knowing practically every twist and turn of the tour doesn't stop us from visiting once a year or two.  It's fun, it's free, and it's less than a 90 minute drive from where we live.  Plus, they give out free jelly beans!  What's not to love?

Keeping cool at the Disneyland Resort

How crazy is this mid-summer heat wave??  Triple digits on the East Coast, wildfires on the West Coast... it makes me want to retreat to an air conditioned bedroom and stay there until school starts.  But summer is also the time to travel and do fun things like visit the Disneyland Resort.

There's no question that the searing summer heat is one of the disadvantages of visiting the Disneyland Resort during the summer.  But for many families, summer time is the only time they get; besides, the parks are open later and most of the rides are open, so visiting the resort in the summer does have it's advantages.   You can make the most of your visit by planning ahead and taking steps to beat the heat, including:

I survived the Monstrous Summer All-Nighter at the Disneyland Resort

Disney always throws the best parties, and over Memorial Day Weekend they threw the best party yet: a Monstrous Summer All-Nighter to celebrate the upcoming Monsters University movie!  What better way to celebrate Mike & Sulley's college days than with an All-Nighter, right?  Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort were open for 24 hours, from 6:00 AM on Friday May 24 till 6:00 AM on Saturday May 25.

I was at the Disneyland Resort that week to see the premiere of Mickey and the Magical Map, so I decided to join the fun and see how long I could last.  Even though my college days are long gone, I like getting into the parks early to avoid the long lines anyway, so I arrived at the park gates by 5:45 AM.  The plaza between Disneyland and DCA was already filled with bright-eyed, eager parkgoers (no doubt fueled by coffee, Red Bull and god knows what).

Pin trading at Disneyland

Every time we go to Disneyland, I like to buy the kids a Disney themed t-shirt.  This time around, we found that the shirts I got them for our previous trip still fit them, so I decided to buy them some pins and lanyards instead. 

Disney's World of Color lights up the night

Disney's World of Color never fails to give me goosebumps.  I love the light-up characters, the Bellagio-style fountain show, the Disney movie music that brings back wonderful memories of childhood.  I didn't think the show could get any better, but I was wrong.

California Classico 2012: SJ Earthquakes vs. LA Galaxy

City derby matches always produce the most intense and exciting soccer matches.  The most famous ones even have their own name:  think Manchester City vs. Manchester United (Manchester Derby), Liverpool vs. Everton (Merseyside Derby), Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Dortmund (Deutschland National Derby) and Real Madrid vs. FC Barcelona (El Clasico).

London 2012, here we come!

We've been visiting the UK once every 2 years for the past 10 years or so.  Since Alfie's parents have a guest room, we stay with them, and being the brave souls that they are, they're happy to host us for at least 3 weeks each time.  With such an extended stay, we've managed to squeeze in some side trips while we're in the region -- to Amsterdam, Ireland, France, and places around England.  Each trip has been great-- but this year is going to be truly special, because we're going to the London Olympics!

From Hollywood, a Side Trip to Scotland

I'm the kind of person who likes to plan every trip down to the last minute (bathroom breaks are scheduled every 2 hours), and when you have limited time and lots of opinions, sticking to a schedule usually works.  But sometimes the best experiences aren't planned; if you're willing to take the opportunity when it arises and go with the flow, you can end up having a great time.

A taste of summer: berry cocktails

I've never been a big alcohol drinker.  I like to say it makes me the perfect date and perfect party companion, because I don't like expensive drinks and you can always count on me as the designated driver.  It's not that I think alcohol is the devil's work or anything, I'm just not overly fond of the taste of alcohol. I find beer too sour, wine too strong and spirits too bitter, but I occasionally enjoy white wine or dessert wine, and I'll happily down sangria and most fruity cocktail drinks.  This berry cocktail, served at the McDonald's Taste of Summer event I attended last week, was tailor-made for me.

A taste of summer: Currant, Cilantro & Almond Barley

I love going to blog events, but I can't help but spare a guilty thought for the family I leave behind.  I get to fly somewhere nice, eat great food, meet great people and learn interesting things, while Alfie has to be a single parent, juggling work and afterschool schedules, and the kids have to eat the so-so-school lunch and get farmed off to playdates whether they like it or not.  Having just arrived from a great two days of food at fun at the McDonald's Taste of Summer Event, the least I could do was cook a kickass-awesome meal for them.

I know what we did this summer

Tomorrow the kids will start school, and as soon class starts they'll be asked, as they always are, the question:

What did you do over the summer?

Backyard Water Games

The Pea came home from summer camp today all bubbly and excited and full of stories about how much fun she had playing all sorts of water games with her friends. They were such great games that I decided to write them all down and share with everyone, because while really, all kids need to have some backyard fun with water is, well, water, these games are a great way to supplement the random splashing and spraying, especially during summer parties and playdates. The folks at Galileo Summer Quest have taken some popular games and cleverly modified them for water play. Just like those Kool-Aid mixes, all you have to do for instant kid-approval is to add some water!

A job I love

I've worked for The Savvy Source for almost 3 years now. It has been something of a dream job for me: it's part time, I can work from home, and I get to leverage the knowledge and experience I've gained from living in the Bay Area for almost 17 years, 10 of which I've spent searching near and far, high and low for places to entertain my kids. Over the years I've done all kinds of writing for them, from site reviews to book reviews to event listings to community moderation to general preschool topic writing.

My latest job incarnation involves editing the Savvy Savings and Scholarship deals that subscribers get every week; I especially love editing our local offers because I get to know about some really great offers before they go live! I'm also writing a lot of local articles with my choice of top places to go and things to do, which I love even more because I get to share my favorite places with the people who need them most: parents with young kids who want to entertain and educate them.

Check out my latest article: Five Spots for Swimming and Splashing in the Bay Area.


I'm so lucky to be doing something I love!

How to Make the Perfect Potato Salad

I love potato salad, but when I make it myself I usually just squirt some mayo and mustard onto boiled potatoes and season with salt and pepper. It's good, but not great. This weekend I learned how to make not just great, but Great potato salad, from none other than Food Network star Tyler Florence. He was the celebrity chef at Safeway's World's Longest Picnic Table event, where he demonstrated how to make a couple of easy picnic dishes. This was one of them. Even more valuable were his tidbits of information on how to make the perfect potato salad. I'm sharing Tyler's tips here with you, but don't tell anyone else or I'll have to silence you:

How to Make a Foghorn

A couple of years ago we went to a free craft event at our local art center where a local artist taught the kids how to make a foghorn from a cardboard tube, a rubber glove and a straw. It was an instant hit with the kids! 3Po, Jammy and The Pea loved the low, moaning foghorn sound it makes when you blow into it. The only problem was that the cardboard tube kept bending and crumpling from being repeatedly doused by overenthusiastic kids' spit. To solve the problem, we replaced the cardboard tube with a plastic tube, and the rest is history.