Yeye and Nainai's house

Summer is almost over and just before school starts again for both De-nin and Binbin, we all trekked to Yeye and Nainai's house. For the first time, Binbin was very conscious of the traveling by plane and going to someone else's house. He was excited to see Yeye and Nainai because they are the providers of Lego. Here are some pictures of the trip.


Binbin did in fact wear his swimming suit for almost an entire afternoon. A first for him. Here he is on the island where we camped.


He soon decided that naked was better and spent most of the afternoon and evening in his birthday suit playing Jedi warrior with an extra tent pole. Mama and Baba lost almost every Jedi battle. They just don't have that strong an attachment to the force as does our little Jedi.



Even a Jedi must do their nebulizer when camping.



The next morning mama and Binbin sit and enjoy the morning fire and drink hot chocolate. As per his usual want, Binbin is wearing his long pants and long sleeves.




One of Binbin's great enjoyments at Yeye and Nainai's is riding the various vehicles that they have. His favorites were riding with Yeye on the riding mower and in the two-seater Morgan. He especially liked the fact that he got to ride in the front with Yeye and not in the back.



On our last day in Illinois we went to Rock Cut State Park and visited the lake there. Binbin was not impressed with the photo opportunity and refused to look at the camera when taking a picture with mama and baba. He said it was too sunny to look at the camera.




However, he was more than happy to take pictures with the camera. Here are two of his masterpieces. He is obviously working with more avant garde forms of framing.

Vacationland

From the Maine point of view, we're from away. Even Binbin doesn't really count as a Mainer. So, it makes sense that we try to live up to Maine's motto as "Vacationland" every summer. Here are snapshots of recent activities.

At Keena's "Little Ridge Farm," on the flat bed trailer with Amy. (Apparently absent parents and sibling are busy harvesting organic raspberries.)




With pal Robbie making sure the car is in order before we visit his family's "camp" (for you Minnesotans, that's "cabin" to you) in Boothbay.





At a campground at the end of Phippsburg, beyond Popham Beach.

l'oeuvre de l'artist Binbin

Alongside the passion for all things Star Wars, a healthy interest in the creative arts persists in Binbin. Here are a few recent examples:

Series of three abstract painting made with marbles on paper placed in a shallow box. Finished with glitter.





Pink and blue #1. painting on paper.




Pink and blue #2. painting on paper.




Untitled #1 and #2. ink drawings on paper.

my guy

he's so shy, and he almost never looks at the camera. But here...I got him!

summer? what summer?

We've had the rainiest June and July on record for the state of Maine, and summer just about got rained out. Fortunately, the skies have cleared a bit, giving us hope for warm weather fun before the long, cold season sets in.

Binbin was a brave little boy yesterday, as we went to see Dr. Tracy for his 4-and-a-half year annual check-up. He responded avidly to directions: open your mouth, stick out your tongue, say ahhh, and so forth. Neither he nor I expected a heavy round of...shots! While Binbin sat in my lap, rather worried and unhappy, two nurses, one on each side of him, delivered a ONE-TWO injection, making a grand total of FOUR shots. He did perk up for his reward: 4 stickers from the office, and a trip to Target (the land of toys). Before moving on to other matters, I should note that Binbin is now 3 feet 4 3/4 inches tall, and weighs just under 35 pounds. Skinny bugger, but then, he's probably lost some water weight due to a recent round of stomach flu going 'round the preschool.

Other matters...perhaps after so long a hiatus, a list of favorites would be a good way to sum up how Binbin is growing and what is going on in his life.

Things to do:
going to Kitty Korner story to buy penny candy
watching Batman cartoons
working on models with Baba
chasing Dora the Duck around Keena's farm
building stuff with Legos
playing with Robbie and visiting his camp in Boothbay
playing light sabers
visiting Sophie and Emmet and the "Common Ground House"
eating outside on the deck
picking blueberries off our bushes in the backyard
thinking of words that rhyme

Books:
Too Many Toys
Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant
Hank the Clank
Puzzlehead
Star Wars comic books

late spring update

The weather couldn't be more perfect: sunny, 70s, light breeze.

After several weeks of "cooperation", "helping out", and "being good," Binbin finally finished his chart of alternating alphabetic letter stamps (a-b-a-b, c-d-C-D, e-F-E-F, g-h-G-H)! Hooray! His big reward: a shopping trip to Target to pick out a new Mistika Bionicle put-it-together-yourself, Lego-style action figure! Binbin stuck to his initial choice: Tuma.



If you would like to know more about him, go to: http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=8689

So, that was the super-exciting activity Friday evening. On Saturday, we decided to return to one of our favorite camping spots, Lake St. George. Binbin was helpful in the morning, as we had lots of stuff to pack: tent, sleeping pads, begging, chairs, food, campstove, and more. We don't travel lightly when we camp. Binbin added to the weight by insisting on bringing three of his action figures: Gali, Tahu, and Tuma. Of course, Monkey, Blanky and Blanky came. And we also brought books for bedtime reading. Jack included a surprise: a new comic book about Transformers.

On our drive up to Liberty, we made an annual pilgrimage to Liberty Tool (home of zillions of ancient and old tools for woodworking) and to Liberty Graphics (home of many cool T-shirts, which the print for the common ground fair and for patagonia, but importantly for us, home of one of the three shirts that Binbin consents to wearing). Jack snagged a chisel, and I a sweatshirt printed with the dinosaur motif that is one on of Binbin's three shirts. And, amazingly, Binbin *wore* the sweatshirt!

We had campsite #12 in the middle area, as the lakeside spots are reserved months in advance. But it was nice and private, as we didn't have immediate neighbors. There is a brand new bathhouse at the site, very nice. And the playground has been finished! We struck camp, played at the playground, built a fire, ate hot dogs, marshmallows, and smores, then crawled into our tent to sleep. On sunday, we went canoing on the lake, exploring several of the islands, bonking the buoys, and having an all around good time.

Winter seemed to last forever, then it seems we blinked and spring arrived. We've been taking advantage of the warmer weather, and getting outdoors to do lots more stuff. Just this past weekend, after Chinese school, we headed over to Dave and Irene's for one of their semi-annual hotwings parties. This one coincided with the running of the Kentucky Derby. Betting was done by way of drawing horses' names. $1, $5, and $10 pots of pure luck. Jack entered each pot.

Then we took a break to see a couple of games in the Robocup Open at Bowdoin college. Yup, the Robocup. where university computer science teams go head to head writing code to operate robots that play soccer. Bowdoin's team, the northern bites, didn't have much luck. Against UPenn, each of Bowdoin's three robots seems to have suffered a physical injury that prevented further play. That left three UPenn robots moving at molasses-in-winter speed to score the one and winning goal. There was precious little action (robots were prone to fall over and had about a one in two chance of righting themselves), but lots of drama!

Then a return to the hotwings party to watching the running of the roses and to see if Jack's luck paid off. Musketman was our horse for the $10 pot. He led much of the way, but fell off to place third. But, as our luck would have it, no one drew the winner or the second place, which left us $100 richer! Baby's gonna get new shoes! Or, a new bionicle toy!

Here are a few snapshots to fill in some of the gap since our last post. First, a record of Binbin's cake decorating skills.






by the time he finished, Mama's cake was covered with little colored star candies from the San Diego zoo, Skittles, and gummy bears. We bet we know what you're thinking: Deee-licious!

And, below, in a rare moment of being with the group is Binbin pictured with his "Snapdragons" Chinese school class.