Food, Fun, Friends

On Monday night, our family went with Sarah, and Thao (one of my closest friends), to A Taste of Edmonton. It's an eating festival, set up in downtown Edmonton's Sir Winston Churchill Square with restaurants selling sample sized dishes for people to try. It's become an annual outing for us, but it was certainly different going with 2 kids this year. We tasted a variety of things such as sweet potato fries, beef skewer on pita with hummus and parsley salad, ginger beef, Vietnamese papaya salad, lemongrass beef skewer, green tea ice cream, mocha ice cream pie, and triple chocolate explosion cake. We woke up on Tuesday to loud bursts of thunder. Lo and behold, by noon, the rain stopped and the sun started peeking through. It was slightly overcast when our family went out to dinner with Sarah and my parents and then on to Capital Ex (equivalent to the Fresno Fair). Grace had an incredible time! She went on the carousel with her Ong, which has become "their thing." Ong also insisted that Jason get on the carousel with Jeremy. So, I guess that could be considered Jeremy's first ride at the fair. Jason got to go with Grace on a Super Slide, and then she insisted that she wanted to do everything else on her own. We pretty much took her to the rides she went on last year- she went on a kids' roller coaster, a bumble bee, and this huge jungle gym. I look at her and think to myself, "She's 3! How is she already wanting to do all this herself?! She's certainly growing up!" The kids had no trouble falling asleep that night!Wednesday was a perfect day for a trip to Kinsmen Park to meet up with our dear friends, the Sieberts. They moved from Fresno to Edmonton last June, so it's been a year since we've seen them. The girls used to play together a lot, and it took a little bit for them to get reacquainted. Once they started playing, it was fun to see them together again. We really enjoyed reconnecting with James and Ann, hearing about how life has been in Edmonton, and then sharing about how things are in Fresno. We have truly missed them! (More pics in our photo album)