Goofy's Kitchen

April 19-25, 2010

This past weekend was quite busy, which started off with the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) Carnival. The Kiwanis organization hosted this function and invited patients at CHOC and their family members to attend. We had no idea about the number of activities and booths created by different school clubs belonging to Kiwanis that took part in making this event happen. The objective for the kids was to collect as many tickets as possible through various games and trade those tickets in for prizes. Ashley had no interest in collecting tickets. She was all about face painting, tattoos, making crowns, stringing bracelets, etc. Alisha, on the other hand, ran from booth to booth to ensure her tickets accumulated while playing with pond fishing. She went from this weak girly toss and throw to winding it up for some of these games.

Ashley's 5th birthday was celebrated again in style at one of Disneyland Hotel's restaurant - Goofy's Kitchen. The celebration started with pictures taken with the sous-chef, Pluto. Then, we proceeded to help ourselves to the magnificent lunch buffet filled with awkward menu items such as peanut butter pizzas and Mickey Mouse shaped waffles. The buffet wouldn't be complete without the characters rounding each table for interaction and photo opportunities. Goofy, Baloo (bear from the Jungle Book), Chip, Dale, Jasmine and Snow White. We remembered to bring our Disney Princess signature book and the girls were so excited to fill all the blank pages with various signatures from the characters and photo holder with the various characters on the opposing page. The waiters and waitresses brought a cupcake with Mickey Mouse sprinkles and sang 'Happy Birthday' to Ashley. Although it was a special day for Ashley, Alisha was inspired by a 21-year old girl sitting at the adjacent table who is currently receiving more chemotherapy after battling cancer for 13 years. The girl had 54 MRIs, many rounds of chemo and radiation, but was surprisingly upbeat and positive. She encouraged Alisha to focus on the bright side and said that God has plans for each of us regardless of what happens. By the way, Goofy was chased and attacked by the kids, but he fought a hard battle playing swords with the girls. We visited the Lego store at Downtown Disney, checked out new sets of Legos and found the Grand Carousel set discounted due to the box being mangled. As a promise, Ashley received that set from the birthday monies she amassed.

On Sunday, we were invited to attend a quarterly function hosted by Kristie's Foundation. Here's a support group that meets every six weeks to get parents to interact and bond through common grounds while volunteers entertain the children. It is a wonderful organization that focuses on the optimistic side of the ugly childhood diseases rather than dwelling on the grim prospects. We met a family whose 4-year-old was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma, gone through surgery to remove the tumor and many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. During some of the radiation treatments, she remained in total isolation for a week while her parents can only see her through a reflective mirror. We are thankful that Alisha's treatment does not involve radiation and pray for full recovery for these other children. The girls made butterflies, picture frames, ran around the park and rode on the train at Irvine Park. Alisha even showed off her skills on the hula hoop. We can't wait for their next event! Alisha completed her ferris wheel Lego set, which spins around by itself with batteries.

Claire's 4th Birthday Party

April 13 - 18, 2010

Alisha is slowly regaining her strength with physical activities, but is still not able to keep up with other kids. Being home bound and sedentary for the last eight months, her muscles have atrophied. Sometimes, she feels a bit discouraged since she has always been the fastest runner at her school. With that said, she tries very hard to keep up with speedy Ashley and forces herself to run. She competes with Ashley whenever she has enough energy to do so. Alisha builds her stamina playing tennis and could spend hours hitting balls - she doesn't do a lot of running, but she tries to hit the balls.

One of our close family friends hosted a birthday party for their 4 year old, Claire at a park. At first, we weren't going to go, but Alisha's blood result came back quite positive, so we ended up attending the party. Luckily, it was at a park with plenty of breathing room, so Alisha was not in close proximity to other children. Tinkerbell arrived with a bag of tricks where the little ones played with parachute, bubble blowing, balloon twisting and face painting. Other than the various park apparatus, the girls ran around chasing after one another. As the kids line up to pick their party favor, Ashley of course grabbed the Winnie-the-Pooh water cup as she is more into dressing up and playing with princesses. Alisha went for the watergun and immediately asked for a bottle of water, which we refused knowing that she will use it to fill up the watergun. Leave it up to childhood ingenuity, she found the water fountain, filled her watergun and started attacking Ashley and wetting the mushroom seats at the park.

Legos are progressing well. She combined Green Grocer and Corner Cafe and is eagerly working on the Ferris Wheel. Her motivation (not that she needs one when it comes to Legos) is to watch the Ferris Wheel spin. Other than the Legos, the girls worked on their latest culinary creation - tomato basil salad with onions. Although Alisha's appetite has not been stellar of late, she usually eats what she prepares herself.

Chef-for-a-Day

April 12, 2010

The girls were invited to be Chef-for-a-Day at Maggiano's South Coast Plaza. They had the traditional chef outfit waiting for them upon their arrival with the monogram of the restaurant sewn on it. Alisha remarked that she now looks like Emeril Lagasse with a chef outfit. We first took a tour of the kitchen with a number of large refrigerators containing frozen products. The Executive Chef, Kevin Gilbert gave the girls a quick chat about the rules inside the kitchen and showed them importance of hand washing.

The first dessert they made white / chocolate chip cookies, which were put in the oven to bake for about 10 minutes. Next, they worked on the apple crostada where they scooped the pre-marinated apples with cinnamons on top of the dough, folded them, brushed the top layer with light frosting and topped it off with granulated sugar sprinkles. While the apple crostadas are baking, they worked on frosting the chocolate zuccotto cake as well as mastering the spin on the cake tray in order to create the design on the chocolate frosting. As the final dessert, they dipped the lemon cookies in the frosting, wiped the excess frosting off and placed it on the dessert tray. Each of them decorate and presented their masterpiece with raspberries. The cooking experience was so much fun and Alisha could not stop smiling. It has been a nice change of pace to see her so elated and passionate about cooking.

Ed Unangst, the General Manager was so generous where he comped our dinner and packed all the desserts that the girls made home with us, which included the huge and rich choloate zuccotto cake. Alisha couldn't be happier while talking nonstop about the wonderful opportunity to cook inside a famous kitchen.

Event-full Week

April 5 - 11, 2010

Other than the head-shaving event this Wednesday, Angels Baseball Team donated about 600-700 tickets to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in order to allow new Wish child and his/her family along with volunteers to attend one of their games this Thursday. The Angels played against the Minnesota Twins. Alisha was super excited as this is her first baseball game. She was very involved and asked what every acronym meant (HR, RBI, R, H, E, LOB, etc.). Ashley, unfortunately was a bit restless after she ran out of things to ask to eat. Baseball is surely not up her alley. We were able to convince her to stay through the seventh-inning stretch since it's one of the songs she picked up at school. Alisha, on the other hand, did not want to leave. Much to her chagrin, we had to take off before Ashley threw a tantrum.

On Friday, it was Ashley's birthday. We were able to celebrate her big day first at school. With the traditional birthday circle, Ashley shared her childhood photos by age and treated all the kids in her class to colorful cupcakes. Although we did not host a birthday party, she was given plenty of presents and had her very own Hello Kitty birthday cake! Needless to say, Ashley was thrilled to be the center of attention while sharing her toys with her sister.

Since the baseball game on Thursday had to be cut short, Alisha's pseudo-uncle, Craig purchased tickets to another Angels baseball game on Saturday. The special give-away was a Rally Monkey lunchbox, which will come in handy when we the girls have their individual lunchbox full of picnic munchies for the summer outdoor concerts. The seats were in the nose-bleed section, but we had great view behind home plate. Again, Alisha was very focused on the game while Ashley became antsy. We did stay until the very end of the game as we walked toward the parking lot at the bottom of the 8th to avoid a huge crowd.

All in all, Alisha had a full week that included another visit at her best friend, Angela's house on Sunday.

Noble Cause

April 7, 2010

Ever since Alisha was diagnosed with leukemia, her pseudo-Uncle, Craig had made a promise to allow her to shave his head when she loses all her hair and stay shaved until she starts to grow her hair back. Luckily for Craig, Alisha took about seven months to go bald while most cancer patients going through chemotherapy take around two months to lose their locks. Additionally, her hair has already started to grow back - the peach fuzz feel.

A few months ago, Craig was praying that Alisha is one of those kids whose hair just thins out, but the intensity of her chemo knocked most of it out last month. Craig and his dear friend, John joined in on this noble cause to honor and support Alisha in her journey to beat leukemia. As Alisha prepares for her artwork (she had hello Kitty in mind), Craig and John bravely braced for how it will turn out. Alisha was a quick study and carefully designed and gave Craig the Friar Tuck look - huge bald spot on the top with a border of hair around the back of the head/neck and the side while John's look was more feminine involving a sun and later a flower with stem. John's 4-year-old son, JP also joined in on this great cause and asked for his head to be shaved too!

Alisha meticulously worked on her designs while thoroughly enjoying herself with laughters in between the shaving. Alisha also had a trimming to even out her peach fuzz, so the hair would come in all one length. Although Alisha had been apprehensive about going bald, she is taking advantage of the benefits of being bald - no hassle in the morning, no hair drying after shampooing, no more tangles, no more bad hair days! She has definitely taken her baldness into strides. We are all very appreciative of what Craig, John and JP and done to keep Alisha company and are truly thankful how much she is loved!