Halloween Bag

Cece loved Halloween, well, she loved the candy anyway.  And she loved having a bag to collect it all in!  Mrs. Succi gave her a Halloween gift inside of a Care Bear Halloween bag.  She filled her bag with candy.  And pretzels!  The next morning, when she woke up, she called out, "My bag, my bag!"  We are parsing out the candy one piece per day.  And all the pretzels a girl could want!

Number of the Day: 9

Cece's favorite (and only clear) number is 9.  Similar to her recognition of the letter D and/or B, 9 is the answer to everything number related.  Including her age.  She's advanced.

Word Girl

Cece has been rapidly acquiring new words.  Including the word clock.  Except for when she leaves out the letter l.

Cece's Name Game

Two weeks ago, Cece began audibly and clearly saying her name.  It is so emphatic and sincere.  Jeff came home from a weekend trip to New Hampshire and arrived back home around 1:00 AM on Sunday night.  I was sleeping.  So was Cece.  The next day, when I got home from work, he wanted to surprise me (and hoped I wouldn't cry) when he demonstrated how Cece could say her name.  I grimaced as I realized I hadn't mentioned that to him.  For once, I got to experience an exciting first!

Sesame Place

We tried out Sesame Place during the Count's Halloween Spooktacular on a spectacularly warm day in October.  The water features were even open!  Cece isn't quite ready for characters so a season pass is not in our future.  I had a great time.  Cece tolerated it.  She did enjoy posing in both the fire truck and the loading dock front loader (I think that's what it would be called...).  So, it wasn't all bad.  We will try again next spring or fall when the coupons can be used to discount the rates a little lower.

Vegetarian Food Misconceptions

A while back I was taken aback when told by someone that the sugar content in soy milk, which was what I added to my cereal at the time, was higher than that in cow's milk.  The next time I was in the store I held the containers side by side and compared the nutrition facts and there were no "facts" to the basis of the soy milk having a higher sugar content.  I now use coconut or almond milk as I've found the health benefits to be superior to soy OR cow's milk

More recently, I examined the sodium content of our vegetarian bacon and found that, contrary to a proposed notion, it was in fact, MUCH lower than that of regular bacon.  The sodium content of two slices of regular bacon would be 400 mg and the sodium content of Morningstar Farm's bacon is 230 mg.  Likewise, the fat content of regular bacon was 3.725 grams (of which .625 was polyunsaturated) and Morningstar Farm's was 4.5 grams (of which 3 grams was polyunsaturated, another 1 gram was monounsaturated and the final .5 was saturated).  Polyunsaturated Fats and Monunsaturated Fats are "Good Fats."  And the protein content.  Regular Bacon: 3.86  grams/Morningstar Farm: 2 grams.  And calories...depending on the thickness of regular bacon, and we'll go on the thin side here 2 slices will likely cost you 100 calories.  2 slices of Morningstar Farms will rack you up 60 calories.  And, it does taste good.  Try it.

Cramming for Vacation

On our last day in Las Vegas, we figured EVERYTHING out.  Because that's a logical time to do that, right?  Saturday morning, I researched the Buffet of Buffets and decided it was a worthwhile investment.  Had I been really proactive, we would have gotten this on Friday and had late breakfast, lunch, dinner, and early breakfast.  So, that's what I'd recommend to others as it is a 24 hour deal.  I also got us bus passes for 24 hours for $7.  At first, I had thought we would have to figure out a bus schedule and intersecting lines, etc.  But, the bus runs, frequently, up and down the strip from our hotel at one end (Mandalay Bay) all the way to Fremont Street (our evening destination that was MUCH further than I had originally understood.  RTC had a stop right outside our hotel with a kiosk where you could pay for a 24 hour pass with a credit card.  So, the "exact change" necessity was no problem on the bus either.  The buses were double decker so you could get a view from the top and the seats were very comfy.  So, Saturday was our tourist-y day.  We still made time for the pool (of course) but we started the day with a trip to the bus kiosk for me, then brunch at Caesars (to kickoff our Buffet of Buffets tour) and then we scoped out Treasure Island and The Mirage for later and I figured out the times for those outdoor free shows as well.  We planned to be at TI at 7:00 for the Sirens of TI Show (awesome - looks much more scandalous on this webpage than it is...) and the erupting volcano at The Mirage at 8:00.  We ate dinner at the buffet at Planet Hollywood and following the two shows walked through The Venetian.  Then, we took the bus to Fremont Street to take in the overhead show and all the "old vegas" sites.  To clarify, Fremont Street IS Old Vegas.  I kept looking for information about "Old Vegas" and was having trouble getting anywhere.  I think they are trying to get away from calling it "Old Vegas" but it IS "Old Vegas." According to the linked site, it seems they are trying to sell you that Fremont Street is the "Real Vegas".  It is not.  As it is essentially enclosed due to the show that projects on the canopy overhead, it gets very SMOKY.  This may have also had something to do with the Harley Davidson convention going on while we were there.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it MAY have made things a bit more...smoky.  After Fremont Street, I was ready for the Stratosphere and Circus, Circus.  Jeff was not.  We attempted to get dessert at a buffet, since we were on an all you can eat 24 hour pass.  Unfortunately, my last minute research did not include the hours of each buffet.  Just because it's a 24 hour pass doesn't mean they're open 24 hours.  Hindsight is 20/20.  I now see that the website linked above does give the hours of each buffet in one convenient table.  All but one are open until 10:00 PM.  Which, for us...that night, was not late enough.  Fortunately, the location where I had eaten a delicious savory crepe breakfast the day before was also a frozen yogurt place reminiscent of New Hope's The Blue Penguin.  Yogurt In hit the spot and was a perfect ending to a perfect, if fast, trip to Las Vegas.