The Victoria Day long weekend was rapidly approaching and we had yet to makeup our minds where we were going to visit. Several areas were in our sights but do to kids sports and commitments (& expense, not to mention stress) we decided to stay home and hang out around Toronto.Leading into the weekend was the annual Toronto School Board Track & Field Event, this event comes out of nowhere around the middle of June, there is no real warning just a notice that your child has been chosen to participate and in what events. Kay was the only Loudamericans to make the event as was part of the 400 meter relay team and the standing long jump. Jimmy, Tom and the phy-ed teacher are at odds, which is why Jimmy did not make it, long story moving in.
Kay ran her big o' heart out, jumped like the wind and came in 5th overall in both of her events!! Below is a video of her portion of the relay race. She made up a ton of time, especially for a kid doing front walk overs on the starting line while she waited for the gun to go off....Saturday we spent the day doing our usual kids schedule, Jimmy getting fitted for baseball, Billy with Tae Kwan Do and Kay having a nice date day with Tracy. The date day consisted of riding their bikes up to the local Michaels store where someday soon Kay will have her own account and room for creating arts and crafts, good God!. Then after the frenzy at Michaels it was off to the local Thai restaurant Pho, which the two of them have been dying to try. Once filled with yummy Thai Mango salad it was off to the Hollywood Salon, for pedicures and other girly indulgences.
Saturday night we decided it was time once again to venture up the road to our second favorite Korean restaurant, Nak Wan, if I need to tell you what our favorite is your not an avid follower of the blog!
It is always amazing the amount of food and the speed in which the kids consume it. We have all our favorites and literally 15 minutes later they are licking the plates clean, it is funny to see the look on the servers face when the kids are eating the food before the server can even get it on the table, funny nuts. Of course what is a Saturday Night at the Loudamericans with out a couple of cooking shows complete with notebooks and meal planning agendas!Sunday was centered around Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican Celebration of food. In 2011 Tom was sitting in a Doctors office waiting for one of the kids and spied a magazine that featured the foods of Mexico and what was called Mexican Chic, and with the old Catholic guilt creepy up he took the magazine only to discover that it was a complimentary issue free for the taking. Ever since, he has been thinking about these recipes and ruminating about creating a Cinco De Mayo event, and today it came to fruition, and OMG was it awesome!!!
The creation of the different dishes involved several styles of denaturing as well as marinades that require a minimum of 6-8 hours to reach their peak spiciness and sweetness. What does one do in the meantime, well Tracy and Billy jumped in the car and headed over to LEGOLAND for their date day.Billy has been counting down the hours, minutes and seconds on his trusty wristwatch (well bicep watch) and was up and at 'em early Sunday morning. He proceeded to get his chores done in record time and without being prompted, ate a huge breakfast and was ready to, way to cute.
They returned home in time to help put the finishing touches on the meal which was: Shrimp Ceviche Shots with spicy red peeper mango, radish hearts of palm tomato salad with cheese mojo, string beans with sherry vinaigrette and chopped eggs, yellow rice with saffron and turmeric served with slow roasted braised pork shoulder topped with Salsa Verde, OMG!! It was an interactive affair with a few of Tom's George Brown classmates helping out and Kay being the Sous Chef, not a bit off left-overs! Sylvia and Mimi each brought a dessert, one of course, Sofrita's with cinnamon and sugar and the other cake pops and melt in your mouth chocolate cubes, red wine and some tequila rounded the evening nicely!Monday being a holiday we decided we need to head west and get out of town for a day and headed out to the acclaimed African Lion Safari. It is located about an hour and a half west of Toronto and features animal shows and a drive through safari. The kids were on the negative side until we reached the park and then feel in line. The shows were about what you would expect however the drive through safari was pretty cool. The best part was when the baboons leaped up onto our car and we had to wait them out. The kids were screaming (or was it Tracy?) In any event the safari was fun and now we can say that we have been there and done that. Another bucket list item marked - CHECK! Happy Victoria Day to everyone and more to come......
