What a Weekend!

Friday
On Friday evening, we saw a performance of the Chinese kung fu troupe, the Shaolin Warriors, along with several of Bud's kung fu classmates and his kung fu master.  The kids, but especially Bud, were thrilled.  There were weapons demonstrations with staff, broadsword, whip, etc; group hand forms; tests of strength with with beds of nails, logs, breaking metal sticks, etc; and lots of acrobatics.  A few times, the performers even invited audience members up to help with the demonstration, including kids one time.  And Bud, hesitant at first, agreed to go up when a performer bowed to him from the aisle.  He went up on stage and followed along on a simple hand form with about 40 other kids.  And he did a great job!  We bought a video and a program.  It was a great dry run for Disney, with the late-night show and bedtime.  And we all passed with flying colors.

Saturday
After his usual kung fu class on Saturday morning, we all headed to the local Carpatho-Russian Christmas fair at the church of some of our friends.  We'd gone last year and had had a marvelous time.  This year was no different:  delicious food (halupki, halushki, pagachi, kielbasa, sauerkraut, potato pancakes, etc), fun gingerbread-house decorating, and good friends. I even got to see the beautiful sanctuary! It's one of my favorite fairs.  And just like last year, the friendly welcome of all the church members is unsurpassed!

One woman at the church, though, was very opinionated (she was the sister of someone who knew someone at the church and not anyone I knew).  When she heard Mama and I talking about Twinkies, she started to lecture me about how to buy better food for my children!  But instead of just saying this once and moving one, she kept going on and on and on.  I couldn't decide if it was a fat prejudice thing directed at me, thinking I must feed my kids Twinkies all the time.  Or I'm not sure what.  But without cutting her off, I turned to Mama and said now we had to find some Hostess treats!  And we did, a box of orange cupcakes, my favorites.  Mama preferred Sno Balls but couldn't find those.  And there are no Twinkies anywhere.  We'd really wanted to have them try a Twinkie, since they were such a 20th-century icon in popular culture--"Twinkie" to refer to lightweight (as in "Twinkie books"), the idea of indestructible food-like products, even fried Twinkies.  It's my childhood's zeitgeist.  So, we ate the Orange Cupcakes, which have the texture and filling of Twinkies, if not the same yellow flavor.  And the kids were nonplussed and didn't get why this is such a big deal.  No wonder Hostess is going out of business after a few bankruptcies!  Oh, well.  Mama and I remember Hostess, even if we probably hadn't had any in 30+ years, and that's enough.

Sunday
We continued our Disney film series, trying to expose the kiddos to the most famous and prevalent films before our trip.  We saw Bambi last weekend (ugh, but it's what they had at the library), then Alice in Wonderland and then The Incredibles.  So far, the kids haven't been overly interested, but we've enjoyed them enough.

And then we played outside.  Neighbors helped us clear the yard (well, we paid the kids to do the work and I chatted with the mom), while Mama worked on ideas for organizing the garage.  The kids helped some and ran around playing more.

Pretty much the perfect fall weekend.