Family

Nacho Nacho Man

It's... nacho prerogative! ...to think that this weekend is all park and no bite.

kitten (Athennia)

Sep 4, 2022 • 5 min read

Take a peek-o at this pico waiting to become guacamole...

Today was another beautiful day, so after breakfast we were in the mood for something outdsoorsy. But Kevin had plans to cook dinner for his parents and Kelly, Steve, Olivia this evening, so we wanted to stay relatively local.

He suggested Warminster Park so we could show Riley the abandoned housing for the old air base that's now the park. But when we got there, every parking spot in the park was already taken and some rude lady tried to funnel us to go the same direction as everyone else who seemed to be there for some big event that was going on—until Kevin finally screamed at her, "LEAVE US ALONE! WE'RE NOT HERE FOR THIS!" (And, we weren't: It turned out to be some soccer tournament.)

The annoyance of dealing with Rude-Off and not being able to find parking soured all three of us enough that we just turned around and left: Kevin reminded me that Northampton Park was essentially right across the street, so we went there instead!

I got some nice photos as we walked:

Kevin made me promise to document the point where we ignored the danger and took our lives into our own hands while crossing a ravine:

And, Riley had fun living it up on the playground (and scarfing down a popsicle from the snack bar afterwards).

Kevin got some great shots of Penny when we got back...

...and then it was time to get started on dinner!

First, the guacamole while he waited for the Instant Pot to finish cooking the pork:

Tomato, cilantro, and garlic fresh from our garden!

Kevin marinates his pork in orange juice, lime juice, and taco seasoning, and cooks it for an hour until it's falling apart.

Then he piles a base of tortilla chips with layers of pork, black beans, and plenty of cheese, bakes it at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, and covers it with pico de gallo and a squirt of lime juice:

Tomatoes, scallions, jalapenos, Hungarian wax peppers, and cilantro fresh from our garden!

I was the only one who realized Kevin was taking a photo, but as Liv seems to be saying, "*C'est la vie!*"

Liv's reaction to finding out that we made dirt pudding with crushed Oreos for dessert :)

"I like to pick out the crushed-Oreo gravel and eat it by hand... Thanks for dinner, Uncle Kev!"

Warminster Park 2.0

Every park around here closes at sunset, so we waited until sunset and decided to try again in the hopes that Rude-Off had... well, offed.

We ran out of daylight quickly. But Riley got to see at least a little bit of the abandoned housing:

...And she made use of a few of the exercise stations along the path:

Then it was time to go, because Kevin insisted that the cops would be coming any moment to harass anyone not afraid of the dark:

The park closes at sunset; right? But naturally, THEY have to come in here after dark to make sure YOU'RE not in here after dark. 'Cause THAT makes sense.

Cutting it close... We're lucky we didn't turn into pumpkins!

Then we went home, wound down, and called it an early-ish night: Kevin and I are taking Riley to a new park tomorrow! (New to all of us, but also a surprise for Riley: We haven't told her what it's called yet.)

Stay tuned!