boba tea

The Final Teenager

Nine years (plus a few days) after celebrating our family’s first teenager, we are now celebrating our last…today is Chickadee’s 13th birthday! We had a fun day opening presents, watching movies, and celebrating the birthday girl!

For lunch, I made Chickadee’s favorite roast beef sandwiches, and we also had taro milk tea with boba:

Chickadee was really hoping our cherry tree would bloom in time for her birthday, and while it’s not at peak bloom quite yet, it has enough flowers to make her happy!

She requested taquitos for her birthday dinner, which is not something I actually know how to make from scratch, but fortunately she likes the frozen ones from the store! I also made “Midnight Magic Punch” from Entertaining with Disney.

And for dessert, a Funfetti cookie cake:

I’ll leave you with this quote from Fuller House, which is just as true today as it was when I shared it nine years ago, with the added knowledge that this really is the baby of the family we’re celebrating this time around:

“I can’t believe my baby is officially a teenager…everything is going to change…I’m the mother of a teenager!”

Guten Rutsch!

How is it 2025 already?!? It hardly seems possible that we’re at the quarter mark for this century. We’ve had a rather German celebration for the last two days, starting with fondue for dinner yesterday.

And of course we had our traditional hot chocolate bar for dessert…I was very excited about the addition of hot cocoa and marshmallow Hostess Donettes this year!

We watched Apollo 13 and Ocean’s 11, and I made it to midnight (but just barely) to ring in the new year in Animal Crossing.

This morning we were at the Lego store before they opened so we could look for a few new sets…the line was incredible, but we still managed to find everything we were looking for!

We did some shopping at Target and the Asian store and stopped for boba at what I think was a place we hadn’t tried before:

And we had another German meal for dinner:

Plus Black Forest cake for dessert:

Not a bad way to say “goodbye” to one year and “hello” to another…Guten Rutsch!

A Brief Getaway to the North–Day Two

We actually managed to sleep in a bit on the second day of our trip, which is pretty much unheard of for us…but that just meant we were well-rested for our visit to the Mall of America!

My first priority was getting Caribou Coffee…I was not disappointed!

A big highlight of our trip to the mall was visiting the Lego Store:

We even got to see a “Space Brick,” built by the ESA from a meteorite:

The m&m’s store was also really cool…it ended up being one of my favorite stops in the mall!

There’s a whole Nickelodeon theme park in the center of the mall:

I think you can find a Dole Whip just about anywhere these days!

It was just so much fun to walk around a thriving retail space!

Before we left, we stopped for boba:

Five+ hours later, we finally made our way back to the car, and decided since the rain had held off, we would go visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

I loved the sculptures and the setting with views of the skyline in the distance!

Up next: A cathedral, a basilica, and a bunch more fun!

Markel Family Combo Breaker 2024 Getaway—-Day Three

Before we got to work at Combo Breaker on the third day of our trip, Bunny and I went to Westfield Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie to see the Downton Abbey Exhibition, where we got to see props, full sets, and costumes. It was absolutely amazing…details to follow!

When we were done, we stopped to pick up boba before heading back to the hotel.

And then we got to work. Bunny helped Ladybug, Turkey, and Moose with registration, and Chickadee and I helped with the food in the staff lounge.

The two of us did have time for a walk around the hotel and a visit to the hotel lounge we had access to for the first few days of our trip before bedtime.

Up next…the start of Combo Breaker 2024!

Tasty Tuesday–Boba at Home

I’ve shared my love of boba tea before, but like all good things, you just can’t afford to go to a shop and buy it all the time. So I started trying out the different J Way boba kits you can buy at the store. While they’re still more expensive than making it from scratch, they’re way cheaper than going out for tea, and we’ve gotten to try a lot of different flavors. So far, my favorites are the matcha (no surprise there, because I love matcha!), and the taro, which was kind of a surprise to me, because I didn’t really even know what taro was before we tried it! They also happen to be the two prettiest, in my opinion, in lovely, bright shades of green and purple. We’ve also tried some other milk tea flavors, and a fruity one, too, and they’ve all been delicious!

I would like to get to the point where I make my own boba pearls, but that still scares me a little, but I did get a bag of taro boba at the international market, and tried a recipe I found online for iced hot chocolate boba tea, which was really, really tasty! Next up, I’d like to try some pre-packaged popping boba, because I have some ideas how I’d like to use them, too.

Do you have a favorite flavor of boba tea?

One of My Favorite Things

I’m feeling sentimental again, because it’s time for Bunny to return to college after a month-plus of Christmas break, so I’m thinking about one of my favorite things that Turkey and Bunny and I like to do.

I’m not sure when we started going for boba tea…maybe last year sometime? But no one else in the house likes boba tea, so it’s become an “us” thing, and we occasionally go out for boba guilt-free, because we know no one at home will be missing out!

We’ve enjoyed trying out different places when we’ve been out running errands, and also trying different varieties. Most recently, I tried popping boba, which is so much fun, and also flavorful and refreshing! And they’re always pretty drinks, too, which make them even more enjoyable! I’m really glad this is a thing that the three of us started to do together, because even if it isn’t a common indulgence, we always really appreciate it when we have the chance!