Kicks, Chocolate, and a Vegetarian

Wow, this has been one eventful weekend! Chase had his two hour black belt exam on my birthday evening. It felt like he had to show every kick, punch and poomse he knows. He also had to demonstrate his sparring and grappling skills, which is not my favorite part of this. I was a little worried as he was matched against adults twice (both of them higher black belts). He did hold his own and even did an impressive throw of one of them, but that doesn't detract from the instinctive mother bear feelings. I tried not to look too much.

The parts I did like were his demonstration of his poomse and his board breaking skill. We have a video of these parts. Unfortunately, we didn't have a good angle of him breaking two boards with one kick. Here it is:



We also went to a Chocolate World Expo in our area on Sunday. That was really neat. Marina and I came away with a lot of ideas for this season's chocolate making. We found some interesting confections, including maple sugar cotton candy (candy floss), a white chocolate made with coconut milk and raw sugar, giving it a honey color, and some interesting chocolate covered pretzels that were the most colorful I've ever seen. There was a Beatles tribute band called O-bla-di Bla-da that played so well we didn't sample half as much chocolate as I thought we would. We were enjoying the music. I may not be able to talk in the morning from singing along. Plus the girls worked off anything they did eat because Sierra pulled Marina up to dance with her for half of the show. I am very happy I can share my love of music with my kids. There was also an a cappella group performing, unfortunately their sound suffered from two of the members having colds. Hard to reach those high notes when you are getting over congestion. They also had some problems with their mikes. It's too bad, because the songs that didn't rely on the tenors were very good. This was a nice finish to a birthday weekend that had a shakey start. I'm glad we decided to do it.

In other news, Sierra's shift into vegetarian life has been pretty smooth. For those who have asked, she's been talking about becoming a vegetarian for months now. The tipping point came when she happened to catch some scenes while I was watching Food, Inc. on YouTube. She loves animals and the idea of them being treated poorly for food was enough for her to decide to be vegetarian now. I mean...NOW. She is as determined as her 'Buelo when she makes up her mind about something. I've already discussed nutrition with two vegetarian friends and another friend who is studying to be a nutritionist. Luckily, Sierra is not opposed to eating dairy products and vegetable protein products, so we are doing fine. In fact, the whole family may start eating healthier because of her. Who knew a child led education would lead here?