Month: September 2017

Jeri, Justin, Victoria, and Jeffrey went to the Huntington Beach Air Show on Saturday. Nicole, Jason, Joanna, Lizzie, and Josiah went on Sunday.

Today, Jeri, Lizzie, Josiah, and I (Tim) went to the LA County Fair. The weather was pleasant…partly cloudy with a high in the low 70s. Good thing that we brought our jackets when it cooled down later in the day.

Our first stop was the Magical World of Dragons, Wizards, & Beasts. The place had *lots* of fun kids stuff including animated dragons and a “spinning” tunnel to disorient you.

Here’s Josiah with a live owl in the background.

One of the highlights of the day was the food. This year, a vegan food truck was at the fair, Plant Food for People. We had lunch there and came back at the end of the day for more.

Jeri, Josiah, and I had the vegan tacos.

Josiah absolutely loved his!

Here’s a picture of them.

Lizzie wasn’t so sure about the “jackfruit” (though they had other/soy vegan meats). So she opted for a HUGE plate of Mexican curly fries…which she readily shared.

Lizzie and Josiah needed new sunglasses. We found a place and all of us ended up getting a new pair. It was one for $10; two for $15; three for $20. He sold us four for $25.

We then saw a little magic by Brian the Wizard. For one of his tricks, he had fun pulling money from a little boy’s ear, hair, sleeve, etc. and filling a can with coins.

We did a lot of walking and ended up with around 16,000 steps for the day.

We always enjoy seeing the Chinese Circus of Beijing. They had a number of amazing feats. One guy had plates spinning on rods.

Another guy did amazing feats with a pot…he could catch it with his head and back.

The literally breath-taking feat involved setting four glass bottles on a small table. Then one by one as he climbed the stack, the guy would slowly add a chair. Each time that we thought that he was done, they would bring out another chair. Finally there were six chairs and he was nearly to the ceiling. First he does a handstand on top.

Then he balances himself on one arm.

Here’s Josiah and Lizzie in front of a burger truck. Some of the meat eaters in our family would have enjoyed the Double Diablo burger that they were selling (see the sign above Lizzie’s head).

The sign read “Ghostpepper Cheeseburger – Fresh All-Natural Angus Beef, Ghostpepper Cheese, Sliced Jalapeños, TastiChips, Avocado, Jalapeño Cheese Sauce and Chipotle Mayo on a Fresh Pretzel Bun.”

We got some Dole Whip (non-dairy ice cream).

And watched a show by Cirque Mechanics.

We visited the historic train engines kept at the fairgrounds.

This train engine looked a lot like Bill Peet’s Smokey.

Here’s Bill Peet’s illustration.

We loved the vegan taco place so much that we returned for an evening snack. We got an order of their nachos. Muy bueno!

Lizzie bought a sleeve of cookies…freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

We ended our day looking to buy a sleeve of fries. But we couldn’t find the place that we had seen earlier in the day.

Normally our church has a Labor Day picnic. But since one wasn’t scheduled this year, we took the opportunity to host a gathering at our house.

The weather cooperated very nicely! Thank you, Lord! In the week prior to Labor Day (including the day before) the temps had been in the low 90’s with high humidity. But, today, it was cloudy with a high of 74 F!

Quite a few people (nearly 20) showed up. Some of the guys headed across the street to play four-on-four basketball. The ladies played Scattergories, Catch Phrase, and Marrying Mr. Darcy (a strategy card game based on “Pride and Prejudice”).

Lots of people brought food to share. And someone even brought burgers with the fixin’s.

Jeffrey is our family’s master griller. (Jeffrey is standing next to the grill.)

We had plenty of food.

Later people played the favorite game from New Year’s Eve, the “fruit” game.