Sunday, December 6, 2009

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?

7 comments:

Shannon said...

My boys (TKD green belts) watched Chase's video with me and these are their comments:

"Nice pattern!"
"Awesome board breaking!"
"Only two hours?! Black belts here have to do three hours of testing, but no papers to write."

Thanks for sharing!

Stephanie said...

Wow!! Congratulations, Chase, on your achievement. And kudos, Sierra, on following your heart and your conscience. :-)

jugglingpaynes said...

Shannon: LOL! I think Master Edwards tried particularly hard to keep it to two hours and it's a pretty small group once they get to black belt. They do a lot of pre-testing during the color belt tests to make sure they know the basics, so most of the black belt test is demonstrations of higher level skills. I actually appreciated the papers, since I could use it as research and writing for a few weeks. :o)

~*~The Family~*~ said...

World Chocolate Expo! Now you are talking my language.

Anonymous said...

Awesome job Chase! I wish we had a chocolate festival here. Good luck Sierra on your life choice! I'll ask my vegetarian friends if they have any suggestions, books and/or websites which they would recommend.
Love, Aunt Linda

call*me*kate said...

Chocolate (free samples, no less!) and the Beatles! Sounds like an awesome Birthday to me!

Happy, Happy Birthday, My Friend! Sorry I didn't wish it to you sooner. I'm so distracted with my orange hair. Gosh, it's amazing how much I identify myself with my hair - at least, having normal-looking hair. Tomorrow, hopefully, Todd will make it better.

Anyway, Congrats to Chase! Incredible! My son once put his foot through the end of our leather sofa but that's not the same thing, is it? I'm proud of your boy and I'd feel the same way you did - I couldn't watch without being a bit nervous!

Have a good week!
Kate

Anonymous said...

Hi! you all;
Sierra, my amazing girl, Great going with your veggie live. Know that I'm going in portions. First, I stopped fast food, when I saw the cruel way in which they slaughtered cattle for the burgers. Next, came pork which, in pranic energy terms, transmits negative energy to our bodies. And this is happening in the height of the "pernil and pasteles" season.
and tell Kate that my hair is getting black again since I stopped my 10+ cups of cofee a day. So, I love you, Sierra. You are on track.
And Chase ,you were superb.
Adios! Buelo

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