Lantern Festival

If you didn’t get a chance to enjoy the Lunar New year festivities earlier this month, don’t worry here’s your chance!  The Chinese American Museum will be hosting its annual Lantern Festival on March 2, 2013 from noon to 7 pm.   The Lantern Festival marks the closing of Chinese New Year festivities where Chinese families hang colorful lanterns to wish for peace and prosperity in the New Year.  The festival will feature a Chinese American re-creation of a traditional village street fair featuring brilliant lantern displays, exciting musical, acrobatic and lion dance performances, arts and crafts booths, and even a spirited glow-in-the-dark silver dragon stage performance.  Everything is FREE to the public.

Chinese American Museum

425 N. Los Angeles Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(The cross street is Arcadia)

Whale of a Day!

It’s going to be a whale of a day (chortle chortle…I crack my self up).  “Whale of a Day” is a festival celebrating the migration of the Pacific Gray Whale from its summer feeding grounds in the Bering and Chuchki Seas in Alaska to the winter breeding and calving grounds in Baja California.  This event is being held at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center on March 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is FREE to the public.   There are activities for children ~ face painting, children’s crafts, chalk drawing, story telling, small children’s games ~ all at no charge.  There are also exhibits, craft and food vendors and a raffle drawing.   For all the details, follow the link above.

Have a nice weekend!

FREE App: Plants vs. Zombies

I don’t know why but the very popular Plants vs. Zombies app is FREE today for both the iPhone and the iPad.  What’s that saying?  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?  If you don’t already have this app, jump on it because it is highly addictive fun fun fun!  And parents, don’t worry, it’s not gory at all.  Manage your army of plants to keep the zombies from invading your house.

Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone

Plants vs. Zombies HD for iPad

 

ABC Unified Open Enrollment

Press release from ABCUSD website:

ABC Moves to New Online Enrollment Process For Schools of Choice

Beginning March 1, 2013, the ABC Unified School District is launching a new online application system for the School of Choice process. The new online system, that also includes families interested in applying for the Magnet Schools Programs, will improve the School of Choice process by making it more convenient for parents and families to enroll. According to Dr. Mary Sieu, Superintendent, it will also be more cost effective and time efficient for the school and District staff to implement each year. The District staff is working with Smart Choice Technologies to design the new School of Choice/Magnet School application to ensure that all current ABCUSD Board policies and timeline are included. The Smart Choice Technologies application process will enable parents to apply online from home, the school site, or the District Office. Parents will also be able to check the status of their application(s) throughout the process, print a receipt of the time and date of their application and make multiple choices of schools for their child. Parents will be notified of the results of the lottery electronically and by mail. The Smart Choice Technology website will be activated on March 1, 2013 at 8:00a.m. (PST) It will remain open until 4:30p.m. on April 1, 2013. The results of the lottery will be posted online on May 1, 2013. For further information, please visit the Smart Choice Technologies website at: www.smartchoicetech.com to view an informative video on how it will work. Tim Catlin, Supervisor of Child Welfare and Attendance is coordinating the effort in the District and may be contacted at (562) 926-5566, 21105.

 

ABC Unified School District

16700 Norwalk Blvd.

Cerritos, CA 90703

Phone: (562) 926-5566

Fax: (562) 404-1092

Happy New Year!

新年快樂!  Happy New Year!  Remember this weekend is the big New Year’s parade in Chinatown.  Chinatown is holding its 114th Annual Golden Dragon Parade and Festival on February 16 and 17 starting at noon. The Dragon parade will take place on February 16 only from 1 pm to 3 pm.  It’s lots of fun for everyone.  There will be plenty of performances and booths, and if you’re a foodie, there will be some gourmet food trucks there as well.  My kids LOVE to take the train so as a bonus for them, we generally hop on the MTA Gold Line in East L.A. and head out to Chinatown from there.  This way we don’t have to deal with the many street closures and trying to find parking, which will probably cost as much as our train tickets.

The city of Alhambra is also hosting its 22nd Annual Lunar New Year Celebration.  The main street festival takes place from 10 am – 5 pm on Valley Blvd. in Alhambra from Garfield to Almansor.  There will be lots of food booths because Asian people love to chow and plenty of other fun activities.

 

Here are some pictures from our Chinatown visit last year:

Mini dragon parade

Food trucks

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Honestly, I’m not a big fan of this holiday because shouldn’t we love each other ALL the time? Regardless, what I do love is a good cup of coffee and here are some deals for the occasion. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is celebrating this trumped up holiday with a Buy One Get One Free offer at their stores all day. Actually most of the coffee houses are offering some kind of special this week. Peet’s Coffee is also offering a BOGO if you show them this email and their offer is valid until February 17! Starbucks is running a BOGO promotion on 3 of their drinks but only after 2 pm. You can also save 50% on their chocolate treats with this email.

Hope you have a happy Valentine’s day! So who wants to buy me a cup of coffee?

California Standardized Testing workshop

The ABC Unified School district puts on a monthly workshop addressing issues affecting our kids.  Tonight’s workshop will provide an overview of the California Standardized Testing program.  It will be held at the ABC Adult School Cuesta Campus from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  The workshop is free for all parents in the district, including adult school parent education students.  No pre-registration is required.  Contact Jennifer Hawver at (562) 926-6734 x25017 for more information.

Parent Leadership Academy

ABC Adult School 

12254 Cuesta Drive

Cerritos, CA 90703

 

 

$1 Jamba Juice

It’s back!  Jamba Juice is running their Dollar Days happy hour again!  From February 11-15, they are offering the 16 oz size for $1 but if that isn’t big enough for you, you can get the bigger sizes for $2 or $3.

FREE App: Go There Square: A Stella and Sam Adventure

The Stella and Sam series are based on a Canadian TV show and the corresponding best selling picture books.  My kids love these interactive stories that are a combination storybook and animation.  This app will appeal to young kids ages 1-7.  Go There Square: A Stella and Sam Adventure usually retails for $2.99 but is free for a limited time.  The Sam and Stella apps are now compatible with the iPad and the iPhone and iPod Touch.

FREE Yogurt Today!

Yogurt Day

Head on over to Yogurtland between 4 and 7 pm today for some free yogurt!