{"id":631,"date":"2008-08-14T21:32:05","date_gmt":"2008-08-15T02:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=631"},"modified":"2008-08-26T22:19:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-27T03:19:43","slug":"elk-grove-weekend-racing-food-fun-and-friends-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=631","title":{"rendered":"Elk Grove weekend&#8230; racing, food, fun, and friends (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly 2 weeks later, I&#8217;m finally getting to share this trip!\u00a0 We had such a fun time, and there are so many great pictures to prove it!<\/p>\n<p>(Ok, I&#8217;ve started this post several times and lost it, so I&#8217;m giving it one last try!)<br \/>\nHighlights:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The kids were AMAZING travelers.\u00a0 Honestly, our kids are super-travelers, and they&#8217;re normally better than most kids would be on all the big long marathon trips we take them on.\u00a0 But this trip they were great in the car, and we made awesome time on both legs of the journey.<\/li>\n<li>Staying with our friends, the Kackerts, Mike, <a href=\"http:\/\/motherofpearls.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michele<\/a>, Emma and Michael.\u00a0 They were great hosts for our whirlwind weekend!<\/li>\n<li>Amazing food&#8230; Michele cooked up some good stuff!\u00a0 <a href=\"times.php?blogid=419\">Six Can Soup<\/a> (I got the recipe from her originally! Her seasoning was so flavorful!), the requisite spaghetti before Brian&#8217;s race, homemade bread (from <a href=\"times.php?blogid=622\">my recipe<\/a>, but she&#8217;s tweaked it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll try it soon, and post my results), <a href=\"times.php?blogid=625\">Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes<\/a> (with berries they picked and topped with Trader Joe&#8217;s Maine Wild Blueberry Sauce &#8211; delicious!), huge thick-cut steaks that were perfectly grilled, baked sweet potatoes, <a href=\"http:\/\/find.myrecipes.com\/recipes\/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&amp;recipe_id=1119556\" target=\"_blank\">Mushroom Orzo<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/heatherbailey.typepad.com\/heather_bailey\/2008\/06\/you-scream-ice.html\" target=\"_blank\">Strawberry Pretzel Cream Cheese Ice Cream<\/a> (Michele snagged me an ice cream maker at her local thrift store&#8230; you&#8217;ll be seeing a post about that soon!).\u00a0 Yum!<\/li>\n<li>We took a trip to a nearby Children&#8217;s Gardens where the kids had fun running around, climbing and splashing.<\/li>\n<li>Michele took me to a couple of her favorite thrift stores.\u00a0 She knows how to find some good, cheap fun stuff!\u00a0 That&#8217;s my kind of shopping!\u00a0 Why are the trhift stores around here not-so-good??<\/li>\n<li>Of COURSE, we made a trip to my dearly loved, Trader Joe&#8217;s.\u00a0 Man, I love that store!\u00a0 I chattered to the cashier about how I always have my TJ&#8217;s reusable bags when I&#8217;m doing my everyday shopping at home, but we were on a trip, so I didn&#8217;t have them with me.\u00a0 I gave him my usual grilling about when we&#8217;ll have a TJ&#8217;s in Alabama.\u00a0 He was so sweet and gave Michele and I both newly released canvas bags.\u00a0 Do I need more reasons to love Trader Joe&#8217;s??<\/li>\n<li>Brian&#8217;s races were good&#8230; the details are all on his <a href=\"http:\/\/toonecycling.wordpress.com\/\">cycling blog<\/a>, under the category &#8220;Racing&#8221; and\u00a0 titled &#8220;Tour of Elk Grove&#8221;.\u00a0 (Several posts on various things!\u00a0 Too many to link to!)<\/li>\n<li>The kids both did a kids bike race.\u00a0 Josiah rode his trike while I pushed him with the handle, and Analise got to ride a big wheel, which she thoroughly enjoyed.\u00a0 She&#8217;s getting to be so fast!\u00a0 They were also very good for me while we watched Brian race both days.\u00a0 They&#8217;re getting to be such well seasoned fans!<\/li>\n<li>The kids loved having cats to play with.\u00a0 We slept in the room the cats normally call their own, and we had a hard time keeping them out.\u00a0 One evening, we&#8217;d put Josiah to bed, and when Brian took Analise up to bed, he found Josiah playing with a cat through the portable crib, offering him his pacifier.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On to the pictures.\u00a0 I used Michele&#8217;s Canon Digital Rebel DSLR camera most of the weekend, so some of these are hers and some are mine.\u00a0 But, man, I LOVED that camera.\u00a0 Maybe someday&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/boys-tunnel\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I love how the camera caught the splash in this photo.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/boys-splash\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Stepping stones in the frog pond&#8230; I love the reflection of my cuties, too.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-j-frog\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Stepping on the stones progressed to jumping in&#8230;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-em-jump-frog\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-em-jump-frog-2\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/j-frog-pond\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/j-frog-pond-2\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;which progressed eventually to swimming.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-swim-frog-pond\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/lilypads\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/lilypads-2\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-em-pads\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-em-bar\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/photos\/family\/08-aug\/a-em-gowns\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>More coming soon!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly 2 weeks later, I&#8217;m finally getting to share this trip!\u00a0 We had such a fun time, and there are so many great pictures to prove it! (Ok, I&#8217;ve started this post several times and lost it, so I&#8217;m giving it one last try!) Highlights: The kids were AMAZING travelers.\u00a0 Honestly, our kids are super-travelers, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,11],"tags":[24,152,19,25],"class_list":["post-631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-travel","tag-friends","tag-links","tag-photos","tag-trader-joes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-ab","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}