Sunday Afternoon

We had missed our Thursday farmer's market the week we were in Palm Springs, so after church that Sunday, we headed to the Great Park in Irvine for their Sunday farmer's market. We were a little dissapointed since it was so small, but we got our needed cherries, strawberries and peaches for the week. We played at the little park for a while and checked out the balloon (it wasn't flying though because it was too windy). From the edge of the park we could see a big group of people gathered so we decided to check it out. Here's what we found:

The Orange Coast Radio Control Club. An electric only RC airplane flying club!

We had lots of fun watching the airplanes take off and land and do loop-d-loops. The club organizer did come up to us and make us sign a waiver, I even had to sign Wesley's name. I guess just in case we get hit by a runaway airplane!

The operater of this airplane was doing all kinds of amazing tricks and stunts. The organizer said he was a sponsored operator who was very well known (in those circles I guess :)

Wesley was totally excited about all the airplanes. We had to keep reminding him to "only look with your eyes!" He wanted to touch those planes so badly!

After the airplanes, we had a nice lunch at Wahoo's and then home for a nap. Such a fun Sunday!

I Hate Band-Aids - Still!

Wes got a boo-boo on his finger the other day and I thought it was the perfect time to try band-aids again. See this post for his reaction to the last band-aid attempt. I asked if he wanted a band-aid and he said yes, then he let me put it on his finger, and then this reaction followed:

"take off, take off, take off, take off, take off!!!!"

"no band-aid, no band-aid, no band-aid, no band-aid!!!"

Oh well, though I'm not sure what's going to happen when he actually gets a boo-boo that bleeds!

Summer Time Treat

Watermelons were on sale at the grocery store (and I had a coupon, so I was as happy as could be) and I'd been wanting to make this watermelon popsicle recipe that I tore out of a magazine a while ago (apparently a very long while ago, Woman's Day July 2008. They didn't even have the recipe in their online archive, so I'll type it out at the end of this post.) Anyway, Wes decided on a short nap the other day, so my little helper and I got to making popsicles.

Frozen watermelon chunks and the blender, ready to go!

Adding a little bit of corn syrup (I know, not my favorite either, but see my notes at the end)

Playing in my cake decorating kit seemed more fun once the pouring was done.

Ready to go in the freezer.

Enjoying the fruits of our labor!

Watermelon Pops: (Makes 12) - I halved this recipe
This is the recipe and I'll add my notes in red:

4 cups seedless watermelon chunks

1/4 cup light corn syrup - I added only 1 tablespoon because I wasn't sure if it was needed for consistency, but I don't think it is, so I will leave it out next time)

1/4 cup sugar, or to taste - I only added a sprinkling, but if the fruit is sweet I won't add it at all next time

1/4 cup mini-chocolate chips

1 pt coconut sorbet, softened - I fogot to buy this at the store, so I left it out. But I bet it would be really yummy with it!

3 cups honeydew melon chunks

Cranberry Juice and Apple Juice

Freeze watermelon chunks on a cookie sheet until semi frozen about 45 min- 1 hour. Blend adding the corn syrup and suger if using. Puree until a thick slush forms. Mine never formed a slush, maybe because I didn't add a lot of corn syrup and sugar so I added a little cranberry juice and that did the trick. Plus it's a better sweetner than the sugars. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Fill the pop mold halfway with slush and insert the popsicle stick into the center. Freeze 1 hour.

If using the sorbet, spoon 2 tablespoons over the watermelon layer to resemble the rind. Freeze 1 hour.

At the same time, freeze the honeydew chunks until they are semi-frozen. Transfer to blender and add remaining sugar and syrup if using. I added apple juice here to make it slushy. Fill mold to the top with honeydew slush and freeze 4 hours or until hard.

To serve: let pops stand at room temperature for 3 minutes to soften or dip briefly in warm water to release from mold. Enjoy :)

My Purse

My neck had been bothering me recently and I was trying to figure out what was causing the perpetual kink in it. Was I sleeping wrong, was it the larger belly I'm sporting these days, was it the new attitude my almost 2 year old is sporting these days???? But I finally decided that maybe a thorough cleaning of my purse would help to maybe lighten my load a little. So after Wes went to bed, I cleared off the coffee table and started pulling things, a whole lot of things, out of my purse. After just a minute, I had to grab a piece of paper and write down all the crazy things that were in there and blog about it for posterity. If you're a mom who's reading this, I'm sure you're feeling my pain. Here's what I found:

Necessities:

- Wallet
- Phone
- Car Keys and the spare key (hmmm...sort of defeats the purpose of having a spare)
- Digital Camera
- Check book (yes it's a necessity, I use it every week at church)
- Hand Sanitizer
- Small tube of sunscreen
- Tylenol (which doesn't help headaches, so I'm not really sure why I put it under necessities)
- Bottle of water
- Trail mix - water and snacks are necessities when pregnant!

Necessities for my kid:

- Raisins
- Trader Joes Fruit leather
- Crayon Roll (rarely works at keeping him entertained in a restaurant, but feel I must carry it just in case)
- 2 police officer badge stickers (from a nice cop who we said hi to when we were having lunch the other day)
- Small bag of wipes

Here's where I starting thinking this might be the cause of the neck problem:
One each of the following:
- Bulldozer
- Tractor
- Hot Wheels race car
- Monster truck
- Fire truck
(Though I was happy to find the monster truck, I'd been wondering what happened to that one)

And here's where it just gets plain ridiculous:
- The key to our pool and the duplicate keys I had made at Home Depot the other day
- Cough drops (from the last time I had a sore throat...6 months ago)
- Gum
- Altoids
- Altoids Smalls
- Cinnamon mints (and I know you're obvliously asking 'what's wrong with my breath?')
- Pepto Bismol tablets (those are for Mike)
- A tampon (and since I'm nearly 5 months pregnant, you know that thing is old!)
- A make-up compact
- 2 tubes of chapstick (these are way more of a necessity for me, but since I always have a tube in my pocket and a spare in my glove box, I left them here)
- 3 tubes of lipgloss (which I haven't worn consistently since I was flying...3 years ago)
- A pack of tissues
- A grape Tootsie roll pop (grape is my favorite)
- A DumDum sucker that Wes got from somewhere (but I never gave to him)

Now add all that weight to the weight of a purse with enough pockets and zippers to hide all that stuff plus much more and it becomes a little obvious what the problem is. So I pared down and have been feeling much better. Though I know that headache will be back next week because that's when Wes officially turns two!!!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Since I'd been feeling so busy recently just doing all the "stuff" that needs to get done, Wes and I decided we needed a morning that was simply fun. So we headed to Tanaka Farms in Irvine to squeeze in one of the last strawberry picking tours of the season.

I love my little "Strawberry Picker in Training"

They had slightly overbooked our 11:00am tour, so we waited for a new tractor and enjoyed the space in our nearly empty trailer.

And since it was so empty, that meant more veggies to sample...

Tanaka farms grows all organic fruits and vegetables and you get to sample a good variety on the tour. Here's Wes trying the yellow string beans...

...and celery...

...and carrots. We also tried corn, onions, and green beans. We were given so much to sample that I took home enough beans for dinner that night and enough celery, onions and carrots to make chicken salad for lunch for the next two days!

And then we finally got to the good part...the strawberries!

And they are just so delicious right off the plant! We filled up our basket (which comes with the tour price) and then ate our fill of strawberries in the field!

Searching for the perfect berry...

...found it!!

Definitely a fun morning, with the messy face to prove it!

Orange County BBQ Festival

On Saturday June 11th, we went to the 4th Annual Orange County BBQ festival at the Fair Grounds. I'd been looking forward to this for months since we had such a great time last year. And I certainly wasn't dissapointed! In fact, there were more BBQ teams participating, they added a beer tasting section (which I did not partake in, of course!) and the layout was much better for the amount of people that were there. They had a small classic car show and a kids area wih bounce houses which Wes got to play in for a few minutes but for me, of course, it was all about the food, and everything was so delicious! I don't know how the judges pick a winner!

Wes chowing down on a rib.

I love this picture because it reminds me of a picture from last year where we're feeding Wes. This year he had to do it all by himself!

This was probably the coolest part of the day though. Some BBQ teams just come to enter the competition and don't sell samples of their food. All the teams are lined up in several rows and since there wasn't a crowd in front of this team's area, we were just hanging out eating some of our BBQ and chatting (our friend's Ryan and Tanya came with us). One of the guys from this team came up to us with samples of the best pork roast I had ever tried! It was fall apart tender in an amazing sauce. We were floored by how good it was and when they saw our enthusiasm, they invited us back into their cooking area to sample some of their other competition entries. We tried their chicken thighs, ribs and pork. (and all for free!) All of it was amazing! They said this was their first year entering this compeition, so I think the positive feed back made them pretty happy.

The festival's website hasn't been updated with the winner's yet, but we are pulling for these guys, called Who's Smoking Now. We had such a great afternoon and will definitely be back next year. Check out their website here if you're interested in the details or the winners.

Palm Springs Get Away!

We decided to join the Jazayeri's in Palm Springs for a little vacation June 6th-9th. The weather was awesome and we all had such a fun time swimming, playing and golfing (for the boys!).

I know there are lots of pictures, but we had so much fun, I had to include all my favorites.

Monday:

The Jazayeri's were staying at the Marriott Shadow Ridge Resort so we played there all day and then left in the afternoon when we could check into our place at my parent's time share in Indio. Sadri, Jenny, Mattie and Cameron (and Wes in the background)

Wes and Mattie both loved the waterslide!

This is at Grammy and Grandpa's time share in Indio, the afternoons were so beautiful.

Enjoying some time on the playground.

Tuesday:

The daddies left to play golf early, so Wes and I hung out at the time share and swam and then took a nice nap before heading back to the Jazayeri's for more swimming and dinner.

Mattie and Wes trying out their new goggles, they didn't really keep the water out of their eyes, but they made for a super cute picture!

Sadri grilled super yummy burgers and we had beans and french fries and enjoyed not having to wrangle the kids in a restaurant.

Wednesday:

The boys played golf again Wednesday morning (and though I'm sure they didn't mean it, I heard them saying that the golf was the best part of the trip :) But after golf, the Jazayeri's came to our place for some time being lazy in the Lazy River and a dinner of fajitas.

So cute together!

Some play time...

...and then ice cream pie for dessert!

Thursday:

Thursday morning Wes and Mike played in the pool while I packed up our stuff and then we stopped for lunch at Desert Willow Golf Club where Mike and Sadri played golf on Wednesday. The Monte Cristo sandwhiches were delicious and the view was quite nice as well!

(I decided by the style of highchair that they don't get many kids joining them for meals at this golf club :)

If only every day was vacation!!