Carnival and down to "Nawlins"

After Mass, we attended our parish picnic and carnival. Our son got to go on some fun rides, play some carnival games, and we all had some good barbeque chicken for lunch. We saw a taekwondo demonstration, which was especially interesting as the taekwondo program at our son's school will likely be disappearing over the next two years. Snow cones were the order of the day, lime for Duane and I and "rainbow" for our son. I got a lot of walking in!

This evening, we all went to the Poor House Bistro for dinner, which was a benefit for our Team in Training teammate Tara. Mentors Bowman and Deb were also there. The Poor House Bistro serves a wonderful selection of Cajun/New Orleans style food. I had a wonderful dinner of Cajun Crawfish pasta, and Duane had the Jambalaya. We also sampled the sweet potato fries (with cinammon sugar), the beignet (a hot pastry covered in powdered sugar), and the bread pudding. I'm not really a fan of bread pudding, but this one was quite honestly delicious!

Another of our teammates, Karen, was playing the violin as part of a zaydeco-ish band for the evening's entertainment. It was fun to hear her play and Duane was especially interested in how the fingering and bowing of the violin is different for this kind of music.

We had much fun and we were glad to help our teammate raise money, but it was nice to be home again after such a busy weekend!

Taekwondo Testing

Today is officially a rest day. I went to my usual Friday amateur radio lunch, and otherwise tried to catch up with my house.

The Roomba did a good job, though unexpected in some ways. I had set it for 2:00 am, thinking that I would shut the hall door and just let it work while we slept. Unfortunately, I forgot to shut the hall door and it came marching down the hallway at 2:00 am last night.

Duane and I bolted upright out of bed wondering, "What the...?" By the time I had grabbed my bathrobe and gone after it, Roomba had wandered into our son's bedroom and he was bolt upright too, staring at Roomba in a wide eyed stupor.

I quickly decided that 2:00 am was a really dumb idea. Roomba's a bit noiser than I imagined too. So I put Roomba back in its charger, reset the schedule for noon today, and went back to sleep.

This evening was my son's Taekwondo test. He tested for his green/blue belt today, which means he had to know how to count to ten in Korean, know what the names of his forms mean, and what the different color belts signify. Of course, he also had to know his form, as well as one beginning form and some other moves. I'm happy to say that he passed the test!

After dropping our son off for his sleepover, we went home to get ready for tomorrow's hike at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. I've been anticipating this hike with some trepidation. In 1992, after taking and passing the California Bar Exam, I went hiking with my study partner. He was trying to get in shape to get a job in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service. He was in much better shape than I was to begin with, nevertheless he chose Purisima for our hike. We hiked down to the bottom and then back up. No poles, no hiking shoes, no hydration pack, no electrolyte or granola bars. I'm pretty sure we went straight down and then straight up again, by which time I was pretty well exhausted. I wanted to hit him over the head (what was he thinking?), but I didn't want to lose my newly obtained law license. All was better after a cold beer, but I still have bad memories of that hike. I wonder how it will be tomorrow, after I have done all of this conditioning?