We’re a pretty wacky family. There, I said it. In early January, we had the amazing opportunity to tour the Disney Animation Research Library, thanks to a wonderful friend, and it was truly inspirational! If you didn’t already know, this incredible space houses 65 million pieces of art, including original, hand-drawn animation cels, maquettes (scale models) that inspired original characters in award-winning feature animation movies, paintings of animation backgrounds and scenery on the walls that are literally priceless, and so much more.

We also discovered that our kids had never seen one of the most iconic, ground-breaking Disney movies: Fantasia. So we came home that night and brought Fantasia night to life, building a colorful “cave” for the girls, along with a cacophony of color: plates, fruits, stuffies, and drinks, including edible glitter and swirly straws. Silly, but fun. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll understand all the color, and if you haven’t, you should!

Soon after, Girl Scout Cookie Season began… If you’ve bought cookies from Zoe, THANK YOU! And as I’ll hopefully make time to blog about later this year, thanks to YOU, she’s headed to Europe (England, France, Switzerland and Italy) with her troop for a 2-week tour-filled adventure in mid-June. Oh, but back to those cookies.

That photo captures just a glimpse at what our living room looked like, which is way fewer than last year when we housed twice as much to support booth sales for the whole troop (and NOTHING compared to the living room of our Troop Leader). But still, that’s a lot of cookies. When it comes to Cookie Season, I’m proud of three things: 1) We have a teenager who sees the value of doing well at it, 2) We have a tween little sister who is always game to help, and 3) Our family survives hours and hours of booths, tracking, order fulfillment, and online promotion.

Though I have to say, this year Zoe was simply too slammed with high school to record endless videos (I miss those–but we did have a few). Instead, both she and her sister were game to use those cookies to make recipes we could showcase in photos. Up first:

The Adventurefuls Caramel Brownie Jar

This delightful dessert involves brownie mix, whipped cream, cream cheese, caramel sauce, and of course, Adventurefuls. The girls hosted friends for a sleepover and took over the kitchen to concoct these decadent desserts which were so rich not one of them finished the whole jar. Just add a Girl Scout to the frame, and you’ve got a winning image to post on Facebook to drive cookie sales!

That lovely model + cookie recipe approach was such a hit that it took little to no effort to encourage Zoe and Ella to try another recipe from the Little Brownie Bakers Girl Scout Cookie site (try your own here). Our next culinary “adventure” was a super easy one based on the top selling cookie:

Thin Mint Brownies

I actually found a terrific recipe from America’s Test Kitchen for this one, which involved very few ingredients, very little time, and generated a photo-ready bunch of brownies to boot. Et voilà, another fabulous photo to post on Facebook along with a link to Zoe’s site.

I had promised the girls that we wouldn’t go as crazy as we did last year (12 booths totaling 25 hours of standing, smiling, and selling, in addition to the online videos and neighborhood walkabouts). I mean, we definitely needed to generate funds for Europe, but in case you didn’t know, 50-70% of girls drop out of Girl Scouts by high school. There’s a reason for that. I’m just thrilled Zoe is sticking it out! Plus, she still sold 661 boxes of cookies–enough to get to go back to Hurricane Harbor, one of the coveted cookie prizes.

What does Ella get out of this? Other than the bribery we offer and (sometimes) a little unsolicited kindness from her big sister, she gets a lot of learning, without the pressure. In fact, I think she’d be an incredible salesperson one day. She’s fearless! And this year we bribed her with graphic novels, something she really, really loves.

Speaking of which, Ella is an anime fan! Her biggest treat for being such an incredible little sister and helping out during Cookie Season was a trip to Little Tokyo in downtown LA. To prepare, she put on her favorite Shinobu costume (this fact will become more interesting later):

Next, we looked up and mapped out all the cool places to go in Little Tokyo for anime lovers, including a shop called Style Outlet, which is stuffed full of clothes, souvenirs, bags and more–and I mean STUFFED. We in fact went there first because her bestie had gone and gotten a costume of her own, highly recommending it:

The kimono you see Ella wearing above (worn by the character Tanjiro from Demon Slayer) came from our trip to Style Outlet. After digging through boxes and boxes and boxes of various sizes of kimonos, reflecting various anime characters, she found the one she wanted. But not before she LOST her Shinobu kimono by taking it off to try on others and dropping it into one of those many boxes…

I noticed she wasn’t wearing it when we left, and we ran back into the store to dig for it. I was not thrilled–and also not convinced that a) we’d find it or b) the store owner would believe it was one we already owned since there were hundreds of kimonos there. Thankfully, all worked out, but it was a close call.

If you’re ever in Little Tokyo looking for some cool anime spots, here’s a map with all the stores we checked out (marked by the red dots)–except for the Fugetsu-Do Bakery Shop, which her karate instructor suggested for its popular mochi options, and that’s only because there was a huge line.

Every store had something a little different, and Anime Jungle had a roped line out front to manage volume of people in the store. The whole Japanese Village Plaza is lined with restaurants and shops, adorned with some Japanese architectural elements, and filled with people. It’s a truly cultural experience.

We ate dinner at a yummy Ramen shop called Tenkaippin to close out the day, and Ella now has dreams about Japan, which she’ll be visiting in July with her Dad! More on that later, though we’re both now concerned about how big her suitcase needs to be to accommodate her shopping addiction.

The following day we went back downtown to the Natural History Museum for their Gemstone exhibit called Unearthed, “showcasing some of the rarest and most spectacular mineral specimens ever discovered“. They did not oversell. The exhibit opened with a huge amethyst geode that was over 80 million years old!

And this absolutely gorgeous 124 million-year-old emerald:

Later in January, we had a picnic at Descanso Gardens, attended a show of “One Acts” at Zoe’s school where she worked on the crew, and went for a joy ride so Ella could enjoy the silly Barbie scooter she got for Christmas (which she’s only ridden 3 times since she got it, but it’s cute). Click here for 15-second video.

And those are some of the high points from the first month of the year!

NOTE: I’m trying something new here. I didn’t whine about how long it’s been since I posted right up top, promise to try and post more often, or shamefully apologize for my tardiness. We’re busy, and honestly, I’d have it no other way. Our lives are full, and generate ample stories to fuel a weekly blog post. But I just don’t have enough time.

Except for today. I did it. And I’m grateful for both the time to write and for your ongoing encouragement, dear reader. Let’s see what happens next!