Dear Kid,

Friday night Dad and I went to the hippest event in Blue Ash: the Food Truck Fest.

The past two years, the Food Truck Fest has been down in Washington Park (not convenient). This year it moved to Summit Park in Blue Ash (extremely convenient).

I’m pretty sure they moved it just for us. And because Summit Park is awesome and can accommodate many more trucks.

If you weren’t at Summit Park in Blue Ash for the Food Truck Fest, you missed a great event and a lot of YUM!

There were enough people so it felt incredibly well attended, yet not so many that it was hard to walk around. Most of the trucks had short lines for food, but the waits weren’t bad at all. We decided to walk the whole circle to check out all the different offerings—and there were a lot of different kinds of foods. Trucks specialized in everything from coffee to cupcakes, from pizza to pops, from beer to BBQ, from Cuban to Korean to waffles to wings to…well, you get the idea.

It was very difficult deciding where to eat because everything sniffed so good. We finally decided to eat at Urban Grill and let me just say YUM! Dad had a chicken something or other sandwich and I had a fantastic couscous bowl and we were pretty quiet while we ate because YUM! In some ways, this is awful, because it means that the next time we go to a gathering of food trucks we’ll want to eat at Urban Grill again; AND we’ll want to try other tasty things too. Decisions, decisions.

The weather was absolutely cooperative for our visit—it cooled down just enough to be nice while we walked around and the rain didn’t start until after we left. I really hope the In Charge Of Food Truck people bring this event back to Blue Ash next year. Or soon than next year.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Yesterday was the first annual Paws in the Park event.

You can tell it was the first annual because A) it’s never been done before and B) lots of people say it will be held again next year.

The particular park in question was Summit Park, the new park in Blue Ash where the airport used to be. Much of the park is still under construction (some of the plans are still under discussion as we found out when we asked about the expansion of the dog park part) but the entrance and the main lawn (where the event was) are beautiful.

Mid-afternoon, Pi, the Puppy, and I headed over.

Puppy: It was very nice of me to take you
Me: What?
Puppy: I’m the one with paws
Me: I’m the one with car keys and the other end of the leash

First we wandered around the booths (vendors of dog related things). Then we went to the area where dogs could compete in various activities. The Puppy and I competed in an event called “Round the Bases”. Inside the ring there were 4 big pieces of posterboard laid out like a baseball diamond. The dog’s job was to sit at the first one, wait until the person ran to the second one, run to the second and sit. Rinse and repeat all the way around.

Puppy: And I won
Me: We won
Puppy: I had the hard part
Pi: You were only competing against one other dog
Puppy: I paid attention
Pi: You do realize you cheated a little?
Me: The referee didn’t call it, so it counts as a win

Pi and I sat on the swings and the Puppy introduced himself to one of the firefighters. The swings at the park are brilliant. They are great big bench swings (think front porch swing not little kid swing) on both sides of the main lawn. In a nod to the park’s history, there are quotes from the Wright brothers about being free in the air.

Once the Puppy and the firefighter were done with their mutual admiration, we went over to watch the K9 demo. Rather intimidating in a good sort of way.

Then on to the dock jumping area. The organizers had set up a huge pool with a runway for dogs to compete in jumping contests. The Puppy was quite happy to continue meeting his adoring public and not bothering to be impressed with dogs crazy enough to want to jump into the water. The rest of us were quite impressed with canine athletes flying through the air for 20 to 30 feet before splash down.

In this particular competition they were measuring the landing spot based on where the dog’s tail connects to his or her body. Presumably this made for a level playing field pool for larger and smaller dogs.

The cutest dogs were the ones who weren’t at all sure about leaping off the end of the dock. One dog raced up to the edge, came to a screeching halt using his toenails to grab onto the astroturf with all his might, and proceeded to have an internal conversation (you could see it on his face) about whether he actually wanted to jump. He did. Distance of 2 feet 6 inches. Adorable.

The wonderful Girlfriendology took a break from painting her new home to join us for a while. Our Puppy decided to give her dog a hard time. Let me set the stage. The two of them go back several years, so this is not the first time they’ve met. Brando is a gorgeous retriever of large size and calm disposition. Puppy is a small dog of sweet but demanding attention disposition. The Puppy kept poking Brando with his nose. Brando kept looking at the Puppy like he was an annoying little pest (which he was). Poke, disdain, poke.

The funny part was that with all the zillion other dogs there, the Puppy only wanted a quick sniff and to move on to adoration from people. With Brando, he had an entirely different agenda. Silly baby.

We had a very tired Puppy by the end of the day.

Love, Mom