Busy Weekend

it's the last weekend before the kids all go to school, and we had a busy Saturday planned. We went to the local fire department, they had an open house where the kids could see all the trucks and get inside and check them out. A bounce house and free hats, pencils and coloring books. After all the fun we had a free lunch cooked by the firemen. It was a lot of fun!
Then we went to our neighborhood picnic, the kids got to play games and have second lunch. P and I got to talk with neighbors and meet some new people. We didn't last too long at this though, it was a really hot day and the kids were getting so hot running around, so we left for out last event.

At our festival this weekend, all the children made dumplings. It's something we have been participating in for a couple of years now and this year the kids really loved doing it. They each take a little dough and roll it out, then we put a little of the meat and veggie mix in the middle and carefully roll them up, that's the key, folding them so the dough is completely closed and the meat doesn't boil out. We put them into a net to keep them all together and they are cooked in large pots. This year the kids loved eating them and they actually came out really yummy!

Each child was able to enter in the a contest for the best dumpling. Nate and Paige entered their best and then all the kids were told the story of how the dumpling came to be.

According to one version, the dumpling was invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a well-known herbal medical doctor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
His medicinal was called quhuan jiao’er tang (herbal soup to dispel the cold and protect the ears). It consisted of mutton, red spicy peppers, and other necessary medicinal herbs. Zhang soaked them completely in water and heated them in the cauldron over a fire until the water boiled. Zhang then took all the things out of the cauldron, mincing them into stuffing. His assistants rolled out dough into each small pancake. They put the stuffing in the center of the pancakes and wrapped them in the shape of a ear. These tiny things were named jiao’er or “the ear protection”, and were then all dropped into the herb soup to cook. Zhang offered each patient a bowl of the soup and two jiao’er dumplings. The patients drank the soup and ate the dumplings and soon their whole body got so warm, including their ears.
For the following days, they continued eating dumpling and drinking soup, and their ear chilblains (swollen or frost bitten ears) gradually disappeared.

This Saturday, the dumplings in this contest were judged for looking the most like an ear, not on taste. Nathaniel won the contest this year and he was so excited, his dumpling looked the most like an ear (see below)!

We had a great day and are now getting ready to start school on Monday.

dad got into making a dumpling too

Nate made the best dumpling!