Celebration Weekend

Okay, here are the photos I promised in my earlier post yesterday. We left Sacto ~9:45am and arrived in Menlo Park after a short detour through a Canyon between I-880 and I-680. The canyon was very pretty but didn't help us get there sooner.

We avoided the parking lots for the masses by parking on the street in the neighborhood nearby and walking over. I snapped a quick couple of photos of Lulu showing off her "vagrant chic" ensemble this morning:

the shirt is size 4-6 years, ditto the skirt from Polarn O. Pyret

The Sunset people aren't stupid--the first tents we came across upon entering were the beer and wine tasting tables. Yay! I tried some (relatively) local but previously unknown (to me) wines and Gropius enjoyed a variety of beers--the beer selection was better than the wine selection this year, I think.

Then, we made our way over to the Sunset "dreamhouse" which was a converted shipping container this year. I was more impressed by the table that they had set up beside it:

As always, the landscaping is just beautiful. I think we picked up postcards advertising landscaping from a million different people today. I hope our front yard will be beautiful like this someday:

Lulu become absolutely *fascinated* by chickens. You heard it here, folks--chickens and bee-keeping are the latest trends in urban homesteading. We must've seen at least 3-4 separate flocks of chickens as we wandered around and a couple of different bee-keeping demonstrations.

Then, it was time for LUNCH! In the gauntlet of beer/wine tasting, at the end of the tunnel was the food and it was fabulous. Lulu and I enjoyed some Venezuelan street food and Gropius was excited to see the Korean taco truck that was at the Sacto MoFo Festival back in late April. This time he got the BBQ'd pork sandwich, The Sammy, and reported that it was delicious. I enjoyed a pabellon arepa with yucca fries. I'd never had yucca fries before but they were tasty! More substantial than a potato (similar to hushpuppies), and definitely filling.

Look, no lines!!!!

my very filling lunch

grilled skirt steak, plantains, black beans and cheese

After we were full, we wandered through the garden/cooking side of the shin-dig. They had a demo kitchen set up (where Rick Bayless was cooking at 12:30 today, sigh), but we got to watch the Sprinkles Cupcake lady frost some strawberry cupcakes!



Then we found where Safeway was giving away FREE coffee chocolate chip ice cream!

surprisingly unfazed by the caffeine

And Lulu wanted to play with the colored glass balls at this display more than her parents were comfortable with....

glass = irresistible to small children

And, last but not least, I found a nice way to keep mint (among other things) from overtaking my garden:

this bed had mint, strawberries, rhubarb, and blueberries

By the end, Lulu was exhausted (no nap today) and we thought for sure that she'd sleep in the car....um, no. Instead we were entertained with the "spitting" and "song" from the previous post. (although NOT patty-cake which was the rhyme I'd requested before I started shooting the video)