Fun in Downtown

So as I said, today, while my mom and sister watched the girls, we went for a late lunch at Philippe's and ate French dips, potato salad (Jeff's side), canned peach halves (mine), and lemonade. Mmmm. Then we walked over to Chinatown (only two blocks away and parking in Philippe's lot is free, while Chinatown parking costs), and walked around a bit. We stopped in my favorite Chinatown grocery store and got chocolate-filled Hello Panda, Emma's favorite. (Actually the ones they had today were marked for sale in Mexico as well as the U.S., so the name is "Hola Panda" instead. But it's the same thing.) We stopped at the store with the cutest shoes and I got new flip-flops (I've needed new ones for two years now, and the same ones with straw bottoms and black straps that are $12.99 at Payless are $1.99 in Chinatown.) For the girls, I got shoes for Easter:


(They are pinker than they look in that picture. Emma has the same ones except in black brocade with red flowers that she got to wear with her Christmas dress. They cost $5 a pair and actually hold up pretty well. They have some of them in adult sizes but didn't have any I liked in my size today.) Then we chatted, looked around a bit, and threw pennies in the wishing well. (Neither of us got them in the pots, which made for a lot of joking and laughs, even though we don't really believe in the "power" of wishing wells.)

We stopped after that to get some jin doi, which are donut-like fried balls of rice-flour dough filled with sweet red-bean paste and covered in sesame seeds, my mom's favorite and what she had requested when I asked if she wanted anything from Chinatown. I got four because I know she loves them so much, they were $0.60 and we figured $2.40 for two and a bit hours of babysitting for the two kids was not a bad deal. ;)

When we got there Emma and Bridey were happily playing and my sister (half-sister, whatever) Megan was down playing with them too. Emma really gets along well with Megan; I think it's because Megan is so comfortable with kids. (She has none of her own but likes them and did a LOT of babysitting as a teen, and two to four is just about her favorite age to play with.) Bridget didn't even notice us at first but when she finally saw me crawled over as fast as she could and "Uh, uh, uhn"ed at me until I picked her up. Emma was happy to see us and happier to see the Hello Panda. Before we left Megan gave me a very-late birthday present from last year that she never got a chance to give me:



(The front cover pic didn't turn out, so this is a view of one of the pages.) They're little "fold and seal mailers", with five different "yellow cover" Nancy Drew designs! Some of you may remember that I collect Nancy Drew books (and still sometimes occasionally read them.) My sisters have always picked up anything Nancy Drew-related for me, like Megan and I pick up anything Alice in Wonderland- or ladybug-related for our sister Erin, who loves them both. I'm very thrilled with them and am now trying to figure out who I can write, so they can share the awesome-ness. If you want a note on Nancy Drew stationary, e-mail your name and address to roguejaina AT yahoo DOT com. :D

So it turned out to be a very nice afternoon despite the virus we've all got. Hopefully we will be well enough to make it to more than Sacrament Meeting tomorrow (Emma and Bridget seem almost fully recovered so I have hope, since I seem to be about one day behind them.) And Target finally had lightweight spring/summer sweaters that matched in both their sizes, so I got those, too. (I've given up on the bonnet and hat. I'm going to buy those on ebay instead.) I feel like smiling even while sitting around just doing nothing much, which hasn't happened in a while. I guess we were really due for some time without the kids.