Hopeful dinner of apples?

So there are three things I want to post about, and rather than make separate entries, I thought I would come up with a clever title that hints at those things but doesn't actually describe any of them.

#1 Dinner Party: Anne, in order to celebrate her Birthday Friday, decided to throw a dinner party. She went with an Indian theme. I being budget minded, but willing to spend lots of time in the kitchen, volunteered to bring all of the starchy foods (I made naan, chapatis, and rice). Wanting to be practical and efficient, I put the rice into the rice cooker ahead. Then on the drive to Anne's house the lid flew off the rice cooker and sent rice everywhere. Only about half the rice was lost. When we arrived, Anne found some rice she had and we added that to the rice cooker, guessing how much to add, then I added water in what appeared to be a good quantity. It later turned out that there was too much rice and not enough water. So we put the excess rice in a pot on the stove and added water, then we put more water in the rice cooker.
The food Anne made was all very yummy, and not too spicy. Afterwards there was a very yummy birthday cake (mmm chocolate!!). Then we sat around and played Cranium. Paul and I discovered that we are absolutely awful at cranium. The worst part was when I broke out laughing so hard I couldn't even begin to hum "funkytown" not that I would be very good at it anyway.
The dinner party was adults only, so Nana and Papa watched the kids for us. It was nice to get away. I honestly do not know how long it had been since Paul and I had been to an adults only function.

#2 Strides of Hope Walk: Thank you again to all of my sponsors! Saturday morning we woke up early and drove across town to Shoaff park for the annual Strides of Hope Walk/Run. My parents also were walking, so they met us at the park with the children. All of the children walked at least part of the way, so we fell behind rather quickly. Eventually we came to a place where the walking trail crossed the road. We later found out that someone had already removed the signs, and that we were supposed to turn on the road. However, the trail did eventually take us back to our location and was a rather scenic walk. We walked about half a mile more than we were supposed to though.
My parents really enjoyed the walk since they had been living in the apartment complex across from Shoaff park when they first met. They had all sorts of great stories to share about their dating experience. If I recall correctly they met because of an incident involving someone (not one of them) throwing a cat out of a window.

#3 Johnny Appleseed Festival: After the race we went to the Johnny Appleseed Festival. It is a large festival with old fashioned rides and games for the kids, tons of reenactments and lots of neat crafts and foods. We started out with the children's rides and games, then we went on to visiting different reenactments. They had soldiers' camps from the Revolutionary War, 1812, and the Civil War. Also, there was a French Fife and Drum Corps from the French and Indian War. Also, there was a fur trapper with a really neat tee-pee. And there was a man with all sorts of neat civil war era toys. I especially enjoyed talking to a woman from the civil war period who explained about how all the funny clothes they war worked. She also had some neat civil war era toys. Back then the toys were all miniature versions of things adults had (sewing machine, ironing board, quilting rack etc.).
We did not visit all of the reenactments, because we were getting tired and hungry. So we went and found the Homestead Chicken and Dumplings. The boys and I ate chicken and dumplings while Abigail and Paul found the (I am sure very authentic) fajita pitas where Abigail got hers sans pita. By the time we were done eating it nigh on time to go home. But we stopped at the blacksmith shop so Paul could watch them smith things over a coal fire. He was enthralled. But I was eventually able to drag him away so that we could go home and nap.
All in all it was a lot of fun.