Monday, October 08, 2007

Mom's Birthday

We had several things to celebrate this past weekend - Mark's soon-to-be 8-month birthday, our 1-year anniversary in this house. But the most important was Mom's birthday. The plan was to go to an Arts Fair at one of the parks on Saturday, followed by a birthday dinner. And then on Sunday - to check out a hydroplane competition at Lake Wheeler.

The arts fair was actually very small, much smaller than what we were used to in Daytona Beach. It took us only 20 minutes to walk all around it and we really tried to take our time. And then it rained quite a bit. So we went home. With so much time to spare, we decided to check out the hydroplane competition on Saturday. I thought it was going to be a competition of planes that take off from water. After all, that's what "hydroplane" means in Russian. Well, I was wrong! It was a speed-boat competition - they were small and extremely loud and went real fast around the lake. They were so loud, actually, that Mark got really scared. So Dad and Chris watched the competition and Mom and I found a quiet spot some distance away from the lake and sat there while Mark napped. But we did see a big turtle and that was cool.

Then in the evening things got back on track with the birthday dinner. I decided to do it Iron Chef-style, with a secret ingredient. My secret ingredient was apples. So we had a baked apple and almonds salad with cider vinegar dressing, freshly-made apple sauce, chicken and apple cider stew with butternut squash and, of course, apples, and finally, an upside-down apple cake. Of course, when the desert was ready to be served, we realized that we didn't have any candles. So instead Dad contributed a lighter and we held it rock-concert style while singing Happy Birthday in both English and Russian.
On Sunday we went to the Duke Gardens for a little bit. And then parents watched Mark for about an hour and Chris and I got out of the house, just the two of us! That was weird. We didn't know what to do; so we went to buy a potty and a new toy for Mark and then had coffee at B&N.