The Greek Festival

All Labor Day weekend, the Greek Festival in Belmont was happening. Somehow Saturday and Sunday just slipped by so on Monday Brett & I made sure to carve out some time to check out the festival.

There were tents set up outside with all kinds of meats being cooked and sold, Gyros and lamb kebabs had the longest lines. There were various jewelery, clothes and souvenirs being sold as well as traditional Greek dancers performing.

We also were able to get inside the church and learn about the history of Greek Orthodox and admire the beautiful ceiling and wall decor that has recently been done.

There was a theater set up behind the church with plays happening throughout the day, performed by children & teens on Ancient Greek history.

A lot of what we saw and smelled reminded us of our travels last year to the Greek Islands {read about it; here, here, here and here} and how we wished we were back there soaking up the sun, lying on the sand and swimming in crystal clear waters.

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San Mateo County Fair

Last Saturday Brett & I were driving back from my company's kickball game unsure of how the rest of the afternoon and evening was going to go. We started throwing random ideas out with no sort of response or excitement. It was one of those moments from the Jungle Book, you know with the vultures, "Okay, so what we gonna do?" "I don't know, what you wanna do?" "aw, now don't start that again!"

Then I saw a billboard for the county fair and shouted "LET'S GO TO THE FAIR!" Brett started scrambling on his phone to find out how much it was and where we needed to go. And just like that we had plans.

I don't think I've ever been to an actual county fair before. Farmer's markets, street festivals, theme parks, sure.. but county fair.. no sir.

There was everything from food trucks, to carnival rides, beer tents, petting zoo, even a sloth! It was overwhelming the amount of activities to see and do. There was even a stage with performers and a hypnotist that came out towards the end of the night. 

There was a GORMET GRILLED CHEESE TRUCK, which I quickly made eyes with and high tailed it over to. You will never guess what I had... Go on, GUESS! Did you say a texas toast grilled cheese sandwich WITH macaroni and cheese inside? Because if you did, you'd be right! That's exactly what I had. And. It. Was. Epic!

Even though all the games are totally fixed and a waste of money, I wanted to play some anyway and feel like I was a little kid. The one that Brett & I did the best at was throwing darts and popping the balloons. You needed to pop 6 balloons to get a big stuffed animal and I had my eye on a certain penguin. With little effort we popped all 6 and the penguin was mine!

Of course, we had to try deep fried Twinkies, Oreo's and Reese's. One word: overrated. I don't even like Twinkies to begin with, so I went into this with zero expectations. I don't really get the fascination we seem to have with deep frying things. The only time it's acceptable is with fish & chips, or vegetable tempura in a Japanese restaurant, that's all folks, okay!?

At least I can say I tried it... and that I never need to have it again.

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shredding the gnar

Since I was busy packing, moving and then unpacking through the entire month of December, I didn't get a chance to hit the snow at all in 2012. Once January / February came around there were a few big storms that brought a lot of snow and made for some really excellent snowboarding conditions.

I went up three times this year in total, all day trips which worked out really well. We timed all our trips perfectly so that as soon as the storm has dumped all the snow, Saturday morning at 5am we were in the car and headed north.

I'd say by my third time there, I had made some significant improvement with my boarding skills. Hopefully next winter I will have many more opportunities to improve and work on my skills!

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