Weekend Fun Times

Not quite ready.






Lazy River.



The smallest life vest we could find.

Quinn riding the rapids.

All Tinkered out.

We were assured by the lady in front of us that they were wearing underwear, how she knew was beyond me.

Demonstrating how kilts were utilised.

Large scary man with huge scary drum.

Ready to jig.

Sticky mango rice.

Wow, what a weekend! It began on Friday with our traditional visit to the concert in the park provided by the city. We meet with a bunch of good friends and have a huge pot luck whilst listening to the band and letting the kids run around until they drop of exhaustion. Lately the potlucks have had different themes and this Friday was required to have an Asian influence. Lots of good food arrived and I took along some Thai sticky rice with mango. This is Maura's favorite dessert anytime we eat Thai food, which can be quite often. The recipe was fairly easy to make but the ingredients were a little tricky to track down. I ended up buying the special sticky rice from a little Thai market in Norwalk. After finding the place I unloaded Quinn from the car into his stroller and manoeuvred around the aisles of this tiny store looking for my ingredients. Eventually after finding everything, I made my way to the register and after being rung up, found that they don't take credit cards. I put Quinn back in the car and then I had to drive around looking for an ATM. I found one at a gas station in a very questionable area, grabbed my money and took off for my booty being held at the store, unloaded Quinn again who by this time must have been a little fed up with all the jostling he was receiving, I paid for my rice and left. A good night was had by all and I look forward to next weeks theme.

On Saturday we made our way to The Ford Theatre where we watched a band called The Wicked Tinkers. The Ford is presenting music from a different culture each week and The Tinkers represented music from Scotland and Ireland. You know that foot tapping kind of music you might hear in the local pub. The band took some time to explain the history and origins of the instruments which they were playing and even I learned some interesting facts from them. After the Ford it was back home to get ready for Maura's sisters beach party at Huntington Beach which ended our Saturday adventures.

Sunday was a day at Wild Rivers Water Park in Irvine. We met with Judith and her kids, Andrew and Sheridan and had a blast riding on some of the slides and playing in the pools. Even Quinn got in on the action and at five months is showing signs of loving the water like his big sister. Somewhere in between all of these events I found the time to start making my own wine. I have made it a few times before with moderate success. The first time I made it was when I still lived in Scotland and I was having some trouble trying to find some of the proper equipment, mainly a large fermenting vessel. I'll just have to improvise ,I thought, and I used a large plastic water carrier purchased from a garden center. After mixing the ingredients I left it to ferment. When I looked into the closet a week later to check its progress the water carrier had went from being a cube to almost completely round and was probably hours from exploding chardonnay all over my bedroom. My buddies and I went on to drink that wine demolishing bottles of it before we hit the town. What it was to be young!