Category Archives: food

last weekend of festival

I love going to the Renaissance Festival. Probably a little more than most because I worked there for about four seasons.  It’s like visiting an old friend who always has something new going on.

Below is Adam Crack, six time Guiness world record holder.  Here he is cracking two 40 foot-ish long bull whips at the same time. They seemed to move so slowly, but gracefully, and cracked loudly. It seemed really hard. He said it took two (or was it four?) years with no girlfriend to learn how to do it.

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Next is Adam Crack with two whips that were soaking in gasoline then lit on fire.  I am actually surprised how many performers tricks involve gasoline.

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On to one of my favorite part of faire, the Mother Goose booth. She lets you hold and pet her goose. Look at Wendi loving an animal. She usually doesn’t do this sort of thing.

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This definitely isn’t a summary of everything we did that day, but these were some of my favorites. At some point we went to one of my favorite shows: Dextre Tripp. Below you will see him juggling a chainsaw, an apple, and a torch.

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Then he put the apple in his mouth and cut it in half with the chainsaw. (BTW, I love the girl in the corner who has her hands clutched to the sides of her head the whole time.)

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Then he duct taped 200 black cat firecrackers to his bare torso with the help of a marine in the audience.  On each side of the stage, volunteers were positioned with water balloons to throw once the fuses were lit to help cool him off. Oh, and he was standing on a single ladder.

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Crazy!

Later, we finally ran into my friend Ash with whom I went to high school and also worked the festival.

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Good times.  Can’t wait until next year.

thanksgiving 08

The day after Thanksgiving we had a great time up in North Phoenix with Sean, Bekah, Bob, Rachel, Sean’s parents and Judah.  Bob and Rachel recently had a baby-congrats! David played a bean bag game with Sean’s family and I took lots of pictures.  On our way home, David and I dropped by Lola’s Tapas and had shrimp…mmm…by the way, they roast their own coffee!

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little brother

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Last week we celebrated David’s youngest brother’s birthday.   A lot of John’s friends and bandmates joined us at Sushi Eye in downtown Chandler.  The restaurant was kind and bought several desserts for the whole table at the end of dinner.  Later, we walked down to the brand new Irish pub called Murphy’s Law where a few of the guys drank Car Bombs. Happy Birthday John!

fresh eggs

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I went to the downtown Chandler farmer’s market last Thursday after a long period of not going.  It used to consist of a single overpriced farmer.  This time, I was overjoyed to find fresh eggs, meyer lemons, key limes, and many more vendors.  Thank you, Chandler.

the farm

Yay! The farm stand is re-opening this weekend at Agritopia.  I love their produce.  It is grown under standards that are just as stringent as organic without the hefty price tag.  It’s also really fresh because the pull it from the ground usually the day before or even that morning!

hunh.

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So that wasn’t an acorn squash.  It was a melon.  And I was getting prepped to stuff the “squash” with quinoa for lunch.  It was grown from seeds I purchased at the native seed store in Tucson.  Earlier this summer, I planted a lot of different things hoping anything would grown.  Quelle surprise!

(Guess I should keep better records.  Or any records.)