Easter, Cesar Chavez, and Santa

We had a bit of a rough night.  The boy was not feeling well and we were not sure if he was going to be up to the traditional Easter Egg Hunt, family gathering, and celebration of the birthday of Cesar Chavez or not.  But he bounced back this morning, and we were back on track for our countdown to the Great Santa Easter Egg Hunt!

I should explain. My son has figured out (with my learned assistance) that if the Easter Bunny goes to every house on the same morning to hide eggs, then this bunny must have some special superhuman powers.  In fact, as we all know, the only person that has the power to visit every participating house around the world in one day is Santa.  We all also know that nobody just works one day out of the year.  My son strongly suspects that this "Easter Bunny" thing is just a costume/disguise that Santa wears while hiding eggs so he can work off-season.  He has his suspicions about the Tooth Fairy too, he says he thinks Santa has a tutu in that closet.

Anyway, to get back to my story, Logan had a two stage hunt this year.  The first part was a traditional egg hunt, providing eggs filled with jelly beans, chocolate candies, and tootsie rolls.  (including multiple easter packages with iTunes cards in them, and one with a spot of cash, that easter Santa knows what kids want!).  

Then, his sister and her fiancee, Joe, along with their friend Leeann had a clue driven hunt for him.  He had to decipher six clues, each leading to the next, to find his easter basket from her which not only had candy and treats, but two movies he has not see yet as well, Goonies, and Coraline.  I especially liked the twist on the final clue.  The basket was hidden behind Logan's iMac.  For the sixth and final clue, he had to "buy" hints from the adults using his candy as currency.  I told him his basket location would get him "all keyed up" for a tootsie roll.  His sister told him the present would be the "apple of his eye", this clue cost a chocolate.  Finally, his mom told him "once you go Mac, you never go back" for some Jelly Beans, at that point he figured it out and searched his computer desk, finding the basket!

Here are a few photos from today:



The geekiest birthday party EVAR!

What a fantastic birthday dinner and party!  Lauria cooked three different kinds of quiche for my birthday, from full-fat traditional quiche to a crustless non-fat healthy version, with a low-fat alternative quiche in the middle.  Unfortunately, I did not get pictures before we consumed them!  I tried each one, and they were all great.  We did kick around the idea of chopped jalapeños in the non-fat version next time.

The cake was great, a chocolate Ramone's Vellutini overdose.  It was so perfect to just use my @GregGehr on the cake too!  (1st and 2nd pic)

We were drinking a very pleasant California white wine, out of @Lauria's  new pre-chilled Fire and Light wine goblets, very nice (third pic).  

My presents were like mana from geek heaven.  I got the first two seasons of The Big Bang Theory, a bottle of some of the finest Nagori Sake, a R Crumb Blues calendar, tickets for an evening of Zappa plays Zappa with my daughter, and a coupon for an evening of babysitting that is worth it's weight in gold several times over. (4th pic)

We realized that every person at the party had an active twitter account.  However, we had no time to actually tweet during the party, we were too busy with Mario Kart and Katamari Forever on the big screen.  Still, I liked Joe's t-shirt, it was so appropriate (5th pic).

Thanks to @Lauria and @JoeEphemeral for the wonderful evening, and to @vurayav and @ifipaan for helping me have a great birthday!

Yet another night out...

Susan and I went out for the second of our six Center Arts shows, that are our anniversary present to each other. This time we saw Chick Corea, Stanley Clark and Lenny White. Three progressive jazz greats, that I have loved since high school in the 70s.

We had dinner at Cafe Tomo's first.

After dinner we went to Arcata Scoop and got some ice cream. As I ate my fudge ripple, I watched as the owner made the Lime Sorbet for the next day.

Then from there to the show in the Van Duser at HSU. We sat in the second row of the balcony for the first set, and moved to two empty seats in the front row of the balcony for the second set.

It was an excellent dinner, wonderful ice cream for dessert, and a great show. We should do this way more often. Of course if it was not for Ifipaan's sister, Lauria and her significant other, Joe, helping with watching Ifipaan, we probably could not do this at all.  Thanks Lauria and Joe!