The Cupcake SAGA - pt 7

If you are just stopping in and find yourself wondering why there is a cupcake saga in the first place, click here.

Oh what an exciting day!!  We woke up early, grabbed breakfast on the run, and began our 2 hour drive to Los Angeles.  Being that it was our first time (except Dan) in LA, we were excited to see the “Walk of Fame”, the Hollywood sign, and all the other things we have heard about or seen on television for years, but we also knew there was a CUPCAKE in the near future!!  The supposed “CUPCAKE OF ALL CUPCAKES”!!  I have read about and seen Hollywoods best stand in line outside the door just waiting to get a cupcake, they had to be awesome!!

He actually headed straight to Sprinkles, found it, parked a ways away, and walked to get that famous cupcake!!  I’m gonna stop here and tell you about the rest of the day - 

After leaving Sprinkles, we headed to the Walk of Fame.  It was fun and we are all so thrilled that we got to see it after all the years of hearing about it, but it wasn’t nearly as grand as we all had thought it would be!!  Walking that street and seeing places like the Kodak Theatre, where they host American Idle, and other places we see on television all the time, was really neat though.  We took lots of pictures with lots of stars on the walk, one of which I have to share...  In highschool Dan had a real crush on Olivia Newton John, you know the Grease/Let’s Get Physical era!!  Anyway, it has always been a family joke, the kids and I have teased him about it for years.  We even hang onto an old concert t-shirt he had just to bring out and give him grief about on a regular basis.  Believe me, he gives as much as he gets!!  So, needless to say, when we saw the Olivia Newton John star, I wanted a picture of him with it and I wouldn’t take no for an answer!!  He, being him, played it up real nicely, but he should have been thinking about how that picture would come back to haunt him!!  I actually told I was going to frame it in a shadow box with the t-shirt!!

Isn’t he cute!!!

After leaving the walk, we headed straight to the car, we still had lots to see while in LA.  In the car and click, click, click - can you believe the battery was dead on our car?!?!?  Well, I couldn’t!!  The parking attendant came and jumped us at which time, Dan tells me he can hardly keep the car running and the nearest repair shop is a ways down the street.  We limp down there to find a packed parking lot, Drew goes in to get someone because if Dan takes his foot off the gas the car will die and we weren’t sure it would restart.  The mechanic comes to the car, listens to our story and shakes his head and tells us his machine to test batteries quit working last week and he didn’t have the new one yet, but that there is another place a ways down the road.  Again, limping our way, the attendant comes out, brings his tester, and tells us the battery needs to be replaced.  After Dan buys a new one and changes it out, the attendant tested the alternator and tells us it is also bad.  Dan and I talked about it and decided to finish our day and head back to the hotel (2 hours away) because we knew changing the alternator would mean some time with out the car and we wanted to be somewhere where the boys could be enjoying themselves not cooped up in the hot car.  Won’t go into anymore detail on that but will say after lots of prayer, Dan took the car to a mechanic near our hotel the next day, the mechanic was a great christian guy and he checked our alternator and told him there wasn’t anything wrong with it.  It is now a month later and we haven’t had any problems with it since!!  Praise Jesus for another vacation BLESSING!!

After the car ordeal, we headed towards the hotel via the Hollywood sign and Santa Monica, Venice Beach!!  The beach was beautiful like no other!!!  Tons of sand, a great boardwalk, people on bikes, rollerblades, and families walking everywhere, there was even an amusement park on the beach!!  It was truly amazing feeling surrounded by so much beauty, I was giddy like a little girl!!  

I could really live here!!

Then we went to the part of Venice beach with all the shops and OH MY what a trip!!  Strange shops I couldn’t believe people got away with like Marijuana Doctor Evaluation Centers, the strange people who panhandle and make tons of money.  The boys wanted a necklace from a place who had them displayed on the sidewalk so I stepped in to pay and was shocked to find out I was in a pipe shop and I’m not talking about your grandpa’s pipe!!  Needless to say, we didn’t hang out there long.

I don’t know about you, but I live in Oklahoma - The Bible Belt!!  This just isn’t normal to me!!

After all of this, we headed back to the hotel!!  We had had a very busy and eventful day, we had gotten up at 6:30 and by he time w would arrive back at the hotel it would be after 11:00!!

Now for the cupcakes we had been waiting for!!

Sprinkles - the cupcakes of all cupcakes!!  The very first “cupcake only” bakery in the country.  The place that put cupcakes on the map, so to speak!!  The owner was the head judge on the Cupcake Wars show from Food Network and they wanted me on the show!!  That was the whole reason for this cupcake saga!!  I was so excited, I wanted to know what she thought was a good cupcake!!  This was going to be a huge deciding factor for me!!  

Standing in line and we are next!!!

We arrived to find, you guessed it, a line!!!  I was so excited to be standing here just like all the movie stars I had seen, waiting in line for a sweet treat!!  It is tiny inside so only a few people can fit in and the rest stand outside on the sidewalk patiently waiting for their turn indoors!!  Finally our turn, we entered to the wonderful aroma of cupcakes, smelled a whole lot like our house, LOL!!  Lots of flavors to pick from but we eventually made our choices and headed out only this time we didn’t make it to the car, we sat down right outside and dug right in!!  They don’t have forks, only these weird wooden knives which aren’t too handy when you are trying to share the cupcakes but believe me, we made it work!!

YUMMY!!!

Isaac - Cinnamon Sugar - lightly spiced buttermilk cupcake with no frosting only dipped in cinnamon and sugar while still warm so that it sticks!!  It was great, he said it tasted like a Snickerdoodle - one of our favorite cookies!!

Adam - you guessed it... Red Velvet - he initially didn’t try his because he again wasn’t feeling well, but that didn’t last too long after watching us all eat ours.  He didn’t like it and thought the cake was weird, but the rest of us like it.

Drew - Strawberry - Strawberry cupcake with sweet strawberry frosting - The cake was great, very moist, not too heavy, we all like it but Drew thought the frosting tasted fake!!  I guess he is used to mine, I make it with fresh strawberries!!

Me - Black and White - Dark Chocolate cupcake with creamy vanilla frosting - was very good and moist although the cake wasn’t as good without the frosting which is weird since I am not much of a frosting girl!!

Dan - Ginger Lemon - spiced ginger cake with lemon cream cheese frosting - Very good

Overall, these cupcakes were wonderful!!!  Definitely the very best between Tulsa and LA in our opinion!!!  The best part though was after I had tried them all and was enjoying mine, I was thinking these are really good cupcakes, I guess everyone is right, they are the best and I looked up at Dan who was taking his last bite and said, “these are definitely the best overall we have had on our trip and you know what...  they are  a lot like yours and not any better!!”  WOW, what a compliment!!  He is a pretty honest guy, he tells me if when he taste tests for me if he doesn’t like something or if he thinks I need to tweak a recipe!  The boys all chimed in with their agreement that they were like mine, WOW!!  I was feeling pretty good about now!!

I’ve done plenty of cupcake investigating, I’ve eaten cupcakes in quite a few states, I’ve eaten good cupcakes and bad cupcakes, and I've eaten my own cupcakes!  Now to just make that decision...

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Phil. 4:6-7

Counting it all Joy!!