Ren Fairs, Salsa, and Mother's Day

Vivian and I have been enjoying the Best Weather of the Year here in Bellevue and took advantage of the great outdoors by joining a bunch of our friends (and Vivian's mom) at the Renaissance Fair. Vivian and I attended the fair last year, and enjoyed seeing what was new and improved this time around. We enjoyed a much more elaborate show down a the Jousting Arena this year — instead of knocking over cabbages, we had knights actually hitting each other with lances in engaging in sword-fighting down on the ground. It had all the flair of a pro-wrestling match, and the crowd even started stomping along in time with Queen's "We rill rock you," a la "Knight's Tale."

Of course, we also enjoyed stuffing ourselves with medieval food, including turkey legs, root beer "grog," and some tasty but absolutely horrible-looking pickled eggs and beets. I got to try my hand at archery for the first time, which went about as well as I could expect (no fatalities). We also got to try on some helmets and chain mail and even kick around a chain-mail hackey sack. Strangely enough, we got the most entertainment out of a couple wooden stakes that we each took turns balancing on. I've got to install a couple of those in our backyard.

Vivian made up some tasty enchiladas for our own private Cinco de Mayo dinner, and we celebrated with our friends at GAMe the next day at a Salsa party down at 13th and Jones. Enrique was back to walk us through the basics of salsa and meringue, and I found myself reverting to Charleston several times as I stepped back and forth in my tiny Latin box. There was also plenty of Mexican-style food to go around, including pico de gallo, quesadillas, stuffed jalapeños and sopapillas with honey — that kept us going long enough to smack open a couple of piñatas at the end of the night.

On Sunday, the men of Twin Valley Church decided to put on a huge breakfast for the ladies in honor of Mother's Day. Pastor Drew made up some blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes while Jeff scrambled eggs and Tim sliced up orange. The ladies — both moms and non-moms — got to enjoy everything on behalf of the men of the church, and it was a good way to get full and sleepy right before the church service started. (Needless to say, I went home for a long nap afterward, though that was mostly due to the Worst Cold in the World descending upon me.)