Graduates, Pub Scouts, and Mothers.

Welcome back, friends! I hope you had a great weekend- I know I did. Before I go on to brag about my celebrity lifestyle, I want to raise the roof for all my mom-readers and say Happy Belated Mother's Day! Let me say major "thank yous" to all the moms out there on behalf of the following people:

-Children who hated going to swimming lessons every summer so much, they would cry the whole way to the pool and then give themselves diarrhea and/or constipation by the time the lessons actually started. (Sorry about that, Mom.)

-Children who were constantly late to first period classes due to having meltdowns because "I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR!!!" (Sorry about that, Mom.)

-Children who invited 30 second-graders over to their house for their birthday "party" the day before said "party", despite there not actually being a "party" and whose mothers had to scramble around the night before the "party" to accomodate 30 wild kids. (lolz... I'm not really sorry about this one, that was the best party ever.)

Alright, onto this weekend's events. Saturday was Danielle's graduation party- the day my freshly tanned hamhocks had been looking forward to all week. The party was held at Malibu Family Wines and it was the perfect location, with the perfect weather, for a perfect party. There were tons of people all throughout the location, there was live music, and there were even areas for recreational fun like horseshoes and bocce ball.

The event was catered by Blue Table (Mmmm...). There was a variety of sandwiches to choose from- I went with the Caprese since that was something I'd been eyeing on the menu the last time I was there. The mozzarella cheese was so fresh and had such a light flavor, I've been dreaming of it ever since.

There was also an impressive spread of cheeses to dazzle the palette.

And for dessert, cupcakes from the most legit cupcake shop in all the world* (*Southern California), Lark. Seriously, folks. These cupcakes are OFF.THE.CHAIN.RIDICULOUS. I can testify that these are without a doubt the best cupcakes in the area because Danielle and I conducted major scientific research for about two weeks straight on this exact subject.

(I know, this isn't the best picture, but it was the best I could do considering I was blinded by the hearts in my eyes.) This is the Berry Cupcake. It consists of a light, airy vanilla cake, with a little custard filling, and topped with a light and airy, non-greasy whipped cream. These blow all other cupcakes out of the water because they are super light and airy (are you catching on yet?), the cake itself is very moist, and the frosting isn't very sugary. The best part is that they are only like $2.50 each. TOTALLY worth it.

There were tons of photo opps at Danielle's party, so I'll just post some of the highlights:

The fresh fruit was deelishus.

Grant and Pris.


A pitcher with chalkboard on it for easy labeling. (Ingenius!)


Chrystal and Jason.


Bao and Emily.


The graduate with sister and mum.

And yours truly.


Saturday night, Rawnie and I met up for our monthly meeting of the Pub Scouts. These meetings usually consist of us eating and drinking our way through downtown Ventura like we just turned 21. And usually ends with me being slightly handicapped the next morning. This time around, we went to El Rey and Dargan's. I'd only been to El Rey once before and I loved it and wanted to see if the magic was still there. It wasn't. The carne asada quesadilla was still definitely worth the $9, but overall, it wasn't that great this time around. Much to my expectation, Dargan's wasn't much better.

Geeeev me a quarter, I'll tell you your fooooortune...


Diiiiiiitto.....

At least we met this hunk.

So yesterday, mom made lunch for me and The Doyles. She made a real staple (and treasure) in the TILTE household- tuna noodle casserole. You know how you always like certain foods just because you're used to them and they're something you've grown up eating? In our house, it's tuna noodle casserole. I didn't get a pic of it because it pretty much doesn't look all that tasty and I wouldn't want to give you the wrong untasty idea. We all went over to my grandma's house so we could say our happy mother's day and so grandma could spit hate all over the place. Mom and Tanya both made desserts and both desserts made my day.

Mom's cherry fluff pie.


Tanya's coconut pineapple rice pudding. (Usually, Tanya's recipes are questionnable because one of her kids had MAJOR food allergies so she used to replace all the eggs/ dairy/ nuts/ soy/ ingredients with other MUCH LESS glamorous substitutes. But even I had to admit, this rice pudding was so good, I brought extras home for dessert tonight.)

In closing, I will leave you with a magical poem penned by my nephew, Wyatt. As you can see, we put butter on a high pedestal 'round these parts.