"99 Ranch Market" destination to remember

Love this place!!!!!

San Diego (Clairmont Mesa) has the best one out of Arizona, San Diego, and Orange County.  China Town in San Francisco has such a variety of small markets and restaurants that I haven't even looked for one there.

Love the eat in/take out too! Ducks still hang by the neck cooked and dripping like in "Christmas Story". If you see the ducks hanging, you are at one of the two way inexpensive, way delicious, huge portion, places there that we love. Don't forget the BBQ steamed pork buns there either.

No more coiled snake in the freezer section like so many years ago but all the living and dead seafood and other things you can imagine. On our last trip to 99, it had been remodelled so it wasn't as much like being in Beijing in the late 80's. The remodel makes it a little less nostalgic but the smells and tastes are still what makes it unique and a favorite desitination.

Sorry for my preference of Chinese food over other Asian cuisine but if whatever you eat is something that comes from the sea or land and the cook isn't sure if it's an animal or plant, or doesn't know how to translate what it is, always choose the Chinese version.   Thai comes in second place. The others Asian cuisines are hit and miss for me with some highs but enough extreme misses that have caught me off guard in such bad ways that I always prefer Chinese. Ok, raw pig snout in the north of China caught me off guard once, but other than that, althoug some Chinese food has been a surprise, rarely has that surprise been a dissapointment.

Ok, enough of the plug for Ranch 99 Market and Chinese food. Just a note for my kids to remember.

Found another soy-free blogger.

In looking up some soy-free things, and after who knows how long of surfing around, I found another blogger that has some decent soy-free input. Thankfully, he has some dairy-free input too. Many of the things listed there are similar or the same as what we have done and found.  Some of the products have changed to include soy or lecithin but, as always, read the package and even then be careful.

http://www.cookingallergyfree.blogspot.com

Below is a page with food replacements.
http://www.cookingallergyfree.blogspot.com/search/label/Allergen%20Replacements

Pumpkin Smash Jamba Juice type Smoothie

So DS brought me a can of pumpkin and asked me to make a smoothie like the one a while ago at Jamba Juice.  They are seasonal so have been gone for a while.

Sooooooo, we googled and most of the recipes online were about the same.  Basically a milkshake or Yogurt shake with some pumpkin in them.  Not much healthy about that, especially for a kid that has some problems with milk at times.  The other filler besides ice cream is usually Soy Milk. Yuck!   Even if it weren't so bad for soy allergy people, who wants to be around for a soy burp.  Remember the smell of rancid baby burp rags after soy formula? No thanks!

Soooooo, here's what we came up with and besides tasting pretty good, its only about 108 calories each glass when you split the batch into two glasses.

1/2 cup canned Pumpkin (organic or other)
1 cup of rice milk
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups of ice

Blend till done and pour in two large glasses.

Ok, so if you want to have the milk shake version, then add 2 cups of vanilla ice cream, or 2 cups of vanilla frozen yogurt, or 2 cups of rice dream ice cream if it is still dairy and soy free.

Mozart Study for Kids

Time for Mozart in April! Vivaldi was great studying last month. Bach and Beethoven and Handel were fun listening to as well but will have til later to study individually.

As usual, we will start with an opera, play, story, or Classical Kids CD to set the stage of what the musician sounds like and who the musician is.  Practicalpages from Nadene in South Africa is again the source for the starting materials.

Two Classical Kids CD's this time for Mozart!
Mozart's Magical Fantasy: A Journey through "The Magical Flute"
Mozart's Magnificent Voyage

My kids are a little old but the Baby Mozart stuff may come out here and there again from years again.

We may find one or more episodes of Little Einsteins from years ago also for Mozart.

NOT watching the Amadeus movies from what I remember of appropriateness to children.

Library books. (will post ones I find if have time)

Practicalpages- I will use these pages linked from the page below for study
http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/free-pages/famous-musicians-pages/

Ambleside links
http://www.amblesideonline.org/ComposerSch.shtml

Monet Study for Kids

Now on to Monet!  Picasso was last month and went really well.   I will be adding links and materials I use and plan to use and editing through the month.  Thank you Nadene from practicalpages for the consistent set of materials to start from.  It gives me the ability to not start from scratch.  I can then add what is appropriate for my children to explore and develop.

Linnea in Monet's Garden lesson plans, book, and movie.  The lesson plan is in case I don't have time to write out my own and just for an idea.
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/Jeryl-Monet.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Linnea-Monets-Garden-Cristina-Bjork/dp/B0002E5QIA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334622975&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Linnea-Monets-Garden-Heinz-Schachtner/dp/B00000IZ83/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1334623069&sr=1-2-catcorr

Giverny and the gardens website.
http://www.fondation-monet.fr/uk/


Youtube videos of Monet's Garden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsWRsG0yhUU&feature=related

video with drive to Giverny so you can see what the region looks like.  It is different from a window driving than traveling through France by train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83474iMwius

Share Impressionism, media used, techniques, and subject matter. Present some modern Impressionists that I sold paintings from years ago.

Visit San Diego Museum of Art at Balboa Park to see Monet painting.
Use Impressionist books we have at home and get more from the library if needed.

Water Lilly project
Go to see water lillies at nursery. Maybe visit Koi ponds Olivenhain, Forum mall, Zoo, and/or Balboa Park Sculpture Garden. Take photos, do sketches, describe sounds and smells, and produce art through multiple media.
http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/our-monet-inspired-water-lily-pond-paintings/

Houses of Parliament project
Choose architectural building with water reflection to visit different times of day or possibly Balboa Park. Sketch, Chalk draw and smear, photograph for later, describe how feel (hot, cold, sad, happy, ????) and try to make artistic portrayal feel that way.  DON'T try to make it look exactly like the building!
http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/painting-our-monet-inspired-houses-of-parliament/

Minibook on Claude Monet
http://practicalpages.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/famous-impressionist-artist-minibooks1.pdf

Impressionist Music - We won't be studying it by composer for this month but we will listen to some and review this wikipedia entry so there is some historical perspective on music of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionist_music

Vivaldi Study Unit for Kids

Yes... We love Vivaldi! In teaching our children about art, artists, musicians, composers, and music, we have come up with units to help us with this.  I may post other units here or start a separate school blog.

First read "I, Vivaldi" ISBN 978-0-8028-5318-9
http://www.amazon.com/I-Vivaldi-Janice-Shefelman/dp/0802853188/ref=reg_hu-rd_dp_img

Next Listen to "Vivaldi, Ring of Mystery" by Classical Kids
http://www.amazon.com/Vivaldis-Ring-Mystery-Audio-CD/dp/1895404770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332291122&sr=8-1

Tour Venice on Youtube.  Preview the videos that are posted.

Go to mapquest type sites and look at arial images of Venice including the Island of the Dead.  This gives great context of what Venice is and was.

Use Nadene's awesome site and scroll down on the two following links to Vivaldi to use as a research start. Have kids do supervised web searches and look at local library for additional materials.  They need to do some of the finding.
 http://practicalpages.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/famous-musicians-biography-lined-with-map.pdf

 http://practicalpages.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/famous-musician-biography-red_blue.pdf

Although the Composer Timeline from Cincinnati Public Radio is brief on information, it is a decent timeline to have the children see where a musician was in time context of other musicians.
http://www.classicsforkids.com/composers/composers_timeline.asp

Listen to Vivaldi station on Pandora or to other recordings and have the kids fill out a  couple music appreciation log sheets from Nadene's practical pages after a week or two of listening and being familiar with Vivaldi's music.
http://practicalpages.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/music-appreciation-log-sheet.pdf

No Bake Easter Cake made from "Little Debbies" or other cheapo things

Ok.. So I was walking down the aisle at Walmart and the kids wanted to make a cake.  Since soy was ok on this day with the allergic child out of town, I thought... I can use anything junky from cake mix to ???

So we hit the junk food and cake mix aisle all full of soy and every other coloring and form of hydrogenated cheapo filler that Walmart shoppers use and WHAM!!!! There it was!!!  Waxy, plastic shortening covered Little Debbie's in hexigon shapes.  We bought 2 or 3 boxes for about .99 each and came home to make some quick frosting.  Put the frosting in a gallon ziplock. Clipped the bottom corner and here is the result.

WAY EASY and you can make as many layers as you want!!  It even keeps for a long, long time with all those preservatives.  It also fits on any pedestal cake stand.