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.