Beef Tapa, Sinangag, Filipinos, and SESAME PLACE!

On the plate:  Beef tapa and sinangag (garlic fried rice)

Soundtrack to cook to:  The Ting Tings' We Started Nothing.  I have a couple of ring tones from this album.  It's got lots of fun, high energy dance songs.  They're great to work out to or just get your groove on in the middle of the kitchen....okay...I do the latter much more.  :)

Since Joseph was working overnights (he left for work at 7 p.m. and got back home at 11 a.m.), I decided to join my sister on a trip to New Jersey with the little munchkins in tow.  Whenever Joseph does overnights, he basically comes home to sleep and by the time he wakes up, he has to eat dinner and go back into work.  Thus, I wanted to ensure that he would have a quiet household and made the journey to see my aunts and uncles one weekend.

Alexander got a little wiggly during the trip,
but he did as well as a three year old could do
on a 5 hour trip (with two stops).
Here's the big guy with his magna doodle.  He
was very proud of the "Princess in a castle"
that he drew.

Towards the end of the trip, he took a little cat nap.

That next morning, he was really jazzed to be in a new place
and have a yard to run around.

Kristen getting some snuggle time in with William.

After breakfast, my aunt Rosemarie (we call her Tita Ging)
joined me and the boys at the park.  Here's William
giving Tita Ging a high five!

Surprise!  My aunts and uncle surprised us with in-home facials!!  They had an extremely talented esthetician (Tita Nary) come to my aunt Rachel's and uncle Tito's house to give us facials.  It was so nice being pampered that day.  ("Tita" means aunt in Tagalog, and "Tito" means uncle.)

Tita Nary giving Kristen her facial.

This is my Tita Lou who was really great with William while
I was playing with Alexander.

William LOVED all of the attention he was getting.

Look at this guy!  He was eating it up.

While everyone was getting pampered, my Tito Tito and Tita Rachel were hard at work preparing the incredible lunch and dinner for us.  We live like kings and queens when we visit them.

Tito, prepping in the kitchen.

William got some play time with Tito Tito as well.

Mommy and Alexander snuggle time!  Alexander was pretty
creeped out whenever someone had a facial masque on.
Thus, he spent his time either playing with toys or watching
the movie Rio in the basement with one of us.

Here's my Tita Ging with a facial masque.  She was teasing Alexander
mercilessly and pretending to be a monster.  At one point, she got
two spatulas and a pan and was chasing him around the house
saying that she was going to eat him!  It was hilarious.

Since Alexander was such a great trooper and behaved himself for the most part, my aunts and uncles took him to Toys R Us to pick out some toys.

William at Toys R Us, playing with a ball.

We bumped into my Tito Bee Eye (mom's brother), Tita Lilian,
and cousin Kian!  What a delightful surprise!  So, of course, the
boys got even more toys!  These guys are spoiled.

My Tito Bee Eye with William.  He was sick and didn't want to
give the illness that he had to the boys, so he kept his distance
and wore a mask around them.  My sister encouraged him
to at least take the mask off once for a nice picture.  Lol!
Thanks for being so thoughtful, Tito!

Tita Ging and Kristen introducing William to one of his toys.

Before dinner, the boys played in the yard once more.

Tita Ging playing around with William.

William loved the grass.

It was Tito Tito's turn to get a facial masque.
However, he took his duties of "grill master" very
seriously and did both at the same time.  So, here's
Tito Tito wearing his facial masque and grilling
some incredible halibut, scallops, chicken, steak,
and corn.  It was an amazing meal!

Alexander and Kristen, digging into the delicious food.

After a nice visit with family, it was time for us to head back home.

Tito Tito, Tita Rachel, Alexander, Kristen, and William.

Great family picture!
Tita Ging, Tito Tito, Tita Rachel, Alexander, Kristen, and William.

My turn!  Me and the fam.  :)

Just me and the boys...unfortunately, there's always one of us
not looking at the camera.

LOL!  I love William's face in this picture.

It was time to leave New Jersey, but definitely not time to end the fun.  My sister and I decided to take the boys to a little place in Langhorne, PA called SESAME PLACE!!!!  It's a Sesame Street theme park that is perfect for Alexander's age (and William enjoyed it as well).  The park has a lot of fun rides, shows with the Sesame Street characters, and a water park as well.  We spent an entire morning and afternoon there and had an absolute blast.

Alexander and Kristen at the entrance to Sesame Place.  I remember
posing by this same entrance with my sister when I was about 6 years old.
It was so cool to be able to come back here with my own children
and see the absolute joy that they got when they saw all of the characters in action.

"Sesame Streeeeeet!  I'm so ready, I'm so ready!"

Alexander posing by the "Super Grover" shrub.

Alexander posing by the Elmo and Big Bird shrub.

Alexander and William on Sesame Street.
Alexander was SO, super excited to be there.

Picture time with Bert!

Kristen was nice enough to watch William while I rode the rides with Alexander.  Thanks so much, Kristen!

William Billiam

Here comes the smile!

Which is almost always followed by a big laugh!  He's a really happy baby.

Me and Alexander waiting in line for our first ride.

Alexander getting strapped in.

This was literally the smile that he wore on his face
the entire time we were there.  He really had a great time.

We're ready to go!

Woo hoo!  This ride went up and down repeatedly.

The ride in action.

Let's go on another ride!

Me and Alexander getting ready to ride the carousel.

Another happy moment.  :)

William being patient and hanging out with Tita Kristen
while Mommy and Alexander rode the rides.

Hey there.  :)

Super slide!

He didn't seem too jazzed about it and it was a bummer that adults
couldn't go down the slide with the kids.  Alexander wanted to go
down together with Kristen.

Alexander loved this ride, too!  It's swings that lift up off the ground
and twirl around and around.  He loved flapping his arms like a bird
and was laughing and smiling the whole time.

Can you spot us waving our arms?

Alexander "driving" a fire truck.  He loves pretending that he's a fireman.

Now it's time for the Elmo Rocks Show!  William had fallen asleep in his stroller, so Kristen decided to sit with him on the side while I took Alexander up into the bleachers to watch the show.

Alexander getting ready to watch the show.

The Elmo Rocks Show!

A few minutes into the show, the characters encouraged the kids to run up to the stage because it was a true "rock" concert.  I took Alexander up to the side of the stage and he had such an awesome time cheering the characters on and giving them high fives.

Alexander was clapping and jumping up and down the whole time.

Cookie Monster, one of his favorites, came up to the side of the stage
multiple times.

Alexander in mid-jump.

Elmo is seriously the Elvis of all of the characters.  When the children
in the audience saw Elmo, they all shouted, "ELMOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Look at this guy work the crowd.

Alexander was SO elated that he got to shake
Elmo's hand.  

Alexander at the Elmo Rocks show.

Alexander dancing and shaking what his mama gave him!

The show was pretty loud, so William woke up and
wanted to watch the show.  Kristen took a shot of
William with his "focused" look as he watched the
characters.  He's very serious.

Until he sees the camera!!  As soon as he saw himself,
he gave a big, goofy grin.

William's reaction to the Elmo show.

There he goes!

It's water park time!  Before we left, we decided to let Alexander cool off a little bit since it was such a hot day.  

Alexander in the kiddie pool.

What's funny is that he likes to play in the water, but if one kid
splashes him (I mean, even a few drops), he gets very upset.
I kept telling him that he was in a pool and a pool has water,
and a few splashes are going to inevitably happen.  He's a quirky guy.

Alexander decided that dipping his toes in the water would suffice.

Alexander climbing a mountain of bouncy balls to get to the slide
at the top.  (This looked like so much fun...I wanted to join in, too.)

Our little mountain climber

King of the Mountain!

"Weeeeeeee!"

This was much more fun for him than the water park.

The highlight of this trip was definitely the roller coaster.  Before we left, Alexander rode the roller coaster three times!  He's such a little dare devil.  This was a legitimate roller coaster that went really high and was super fast.  He loved it so much that he rode in the front row two times.  I'm so glad he likes this kind of stuff, because I do and I can't wait to take him and William on more rides like this in the future.

Alexander and Kristen in the front row getting ready to ride the roller coaster.

Hands up!  Woo hoo!

Me and the boys at the end of the day.
I remember going here as a child and having
such an incredibly fun time.  It was so great
to come back as a parent and share this with the boys.
Thanks so much for watching William while I
rode the rides with Alexander, Kristen!  You
were such a great help!!  You rock!!!

Unfortunately, after a FULL day at Sesame Place, we still had a long car ride back home.  Five and a half hours (with one stop) to be exact!  Yowza!  We didn't get home until 10 p.m.  However, my sister and I were both glad that we spent so much time at the theme park - it was really worth it to see the boys have so much fun.

Alexander was pooped out after a day of fun.

After visiting our family, I was inspired to cook some Filipino food.  Here's an easy and delicious recipe for a beef dish called beef tapa, that is traditionally served at breakfast in the Philippines:

In a large mixing bowl, combine the following ingredients:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp ground black pepper

Marinate 1 lb of thinly sliced beef sirloin in the mixture overnight
(or a minimum of 12 hours).

In a pan, place 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Then add 3 tbsp
of extra virgin olive oil.  Put the marinated beef tapa into the pan
and cook until the water has evaporated.
I chose to slice some scallions to serve on top of the dish.

Traditionally, beef tapa is served with garlic fried rice and an over medium egg for breakfast in the Philippines.  Thus, I decided to make garlic fried rice, also known as "sinangag" to serve alongside the beef tapa.

Place 2 tbsp finely grated garlic into a hot pan with olive oil
and cook until lightly toasted.  

Add 4 cups of cooked rice into the pan and season with salt and pepper.

Mmmmmm!!  Food memories!  This dish brought me back to my childhood.
Beef tapa with sinangag and Chinese broccoli with onions.  A truly
terrific dish that cooks up in minutes!

*But beware, follow my adaptations to the recipe, as this can get
pretty salty, pretty fast.

What a wonderful trip with lots of family and lots of fun.  This was definitely food for the soul.  It was so great to see family that I hadn't seen in a while, to spend some quality time with my sis, and to see the boys have so much fun doing things that I got to do as a child.  I only wish Joseph could have been there to join in the fun.  That would have been the icing on the cake.  Until next time...

Love and kisses,

Nikki