no shadow...

that's for sure. So, we're home for a snow day due to the inclement weather. That's an understatement. I think it's an epic storm, and we're in for snow until 5 a.m. tomorrow morning! If any groundhogs popped up for a look, they would be hard-pressed to see even the slightest ray of sunshine. The hopeful news, a shortened winter (if you can believe that).

So, as promised, some pics (since we're snowbound).

First, Binbin's storm trooper mini-figures taking the Rolls for a spin at Yeye and Nainai's basement.



Next up, one of many rounds of Memoir '44. Even Mama (who is war-history-averse) learned this game and rather enjoys it.



Binbin bundled up and ready for snow action. I can't remember if it was sledding or skiing.



Here he is, just off the chairlift at Lost Valley with his teacher Johnny.



And, wearing the peels of one of Mama's favorite fruits (the pommelo).



We've spent a good part of this morning cleaning the house, getting ready for the new year. As I said to Binbin, we take care of our house together, and our house will take care of us. We're grateful especially on days like today!

slip sliding away

Every now and then, Binbin gets a chance to watch network television. Most recently, that opportunity has come with NFL playoff games, and he is quick to tune into his favorite commercials. One of them features clips of automobiles slipping and sliding down snowy roads. That image springs to mind as we brace ourselves for another blizzard and school closure tomorrow. The phrase, "slip sliding away," also serves well for our losing track of time.

Since Binbin's birthday party, so much has happened and he has grown so much. Some of the changes are physical—his first wiggly tooth. Other changes are of the mind—he reads and writes with increased proficiency. Yet other changes are of the whim—favorite activities now include practicing math on the abacus, playing chess and checkers, lunch-time protein strike. He is, as ever, interested in watching Avatar and reading Harry Potter and playing with legos. Since Christmas and Santa Claus' favor, he may now also indulge in games of Memoir '44 and Pocket Frogs (the latter on iPad). He went downhill skiing for the first time last Sunday, at our local Lost Valley resort. It was physically challenging, but he liked it enough to ask for another lesson.

We've got loads of snapshots just waiting to be downloaded, then uploaded. The perfect activity for a snowday. We'll squeeze it in between house-cleaning and cooking for Chinese New Year.

Birthday #6

After Thanksgiving, much of this past weekend was dedicated to birthday party preparations. At the same time, Jack has been in the process of installing our new kitchen island. Here, you can see past the party streamers to the island, which is veneered in mahogany.

A birthday party calls for...cupcakes, of course. We're now using Cherrybrook Kitchen products (egg-free, soy-free, all-natural), and the results are delicious. These cupcakes are topped with chocolate covered sunflower seeds (Trader Joe's), which are mighty addictive.

Sunday morning, Binbin was like a broken record, or scratched CD, or misfiring MP3 (if there is such a thing). Every 2-5 minutes: When are people gonna' get here? Answer: They're coming at one o'clock. So, the morning was filled with busy-decorating-work like: how about if you spell out a Happy Birthday message to yourself with blocks?

The goodie bags were neatly arranged on the sideboard, and the previous night, Binbin insisted on sleeping under the dining room table in order to make sure they stayed in good order, which they did!

Caption for picture below: When are people gonna' get here?

We set up our party plan in the living room. Here is it:

In case the printing is too small, we began with 6, then it became 7 and finally 8 Labors (modeled after Hercules' labors, which provide one legend for the origin of the Olympic Games). The first labor is: text-twist.

Binbin here using his fingers to help figure out letter order.

Here, Emma, Anja, Zoe, and Chase on the sofa with their thinking caps on.

Cooper comes up with winning words: I, a, & yap.

I don't have photographic evidence of the 2nd labor (word bingo), which required some emergency help from Lorraine because sometime between a month ago when inspiration hit and Binbin's party, I seemed to have misplaced about a dozen bingo cards. Anyway, with assistance also from moms Melinda and Kristin, everyone got a bingo...and subsequently moved on to the 3rd labor: the egg balance relay. Here, Zoe passes to Cam, while the gang cheers wildly.

The 4th labor was an egg hunt, with clues for finding a map that would lead to the minotaur along with a puzzle providing a clue to the location of a sword for slaying the minotaur. Anja took her turn and smiles for the camera while others work on the puzzle.

With sword in hand, the 5th labor was to find the minotaur, which Jack brilliantly made of paper mache and expertly hitched up our giant maple tree. The 6th labor is, of course, to slay the minotaur. Amy steadies the beast. Emma gave it the coup de grace, spilling the minotaur's guts, or candies, as the lucky kiddies would have it.

Our fine Olympians, crowned in laurels and wearing medals designed by Sebastien Lee Xiabin Kline, bask in their triumph.

Happy Birthday was sung; cupcakes were consumed; presents were opened; and raucous partying was had by all.

To Binbin's friends, thank you all for some awesome fun presents and thank you for coming to celebrate!

a costume? no, thank you.

As per usual, Binbin had nothing of that dressing-up-for-Halloween and trick-or-treating stuff. No, he would NOT carry a sword. No, he would NOT wear a fireman's hat. No, he would NOT. Well, it's perfectly possible to have a grand time without the props and the impersonation. How, you ask? Try the following:

1. Invite a friend whom you adore to come over for brunch (Amy will do just fine, thank you!)
2. Run around with said friend, creating cardboard vehicles, building forts, and freeing the world of pesky grown-ups.
3. Go shopping at the newly opened Trader Joe's in Portland (Yes, folks, believe it or not, TJ's has arrived!)
4. Purchase a new add-on for a favorite game (builders and traders for Carcassone...yippee!)
5. Decorate the house (light the jack o'lanterns, make an orange and black sign with the words, "Trick or Treat")
6. Keep a constant lookout for trick or treaters.
7. Alert parent with escalating incitements to "come quickly, come quickly, come quickly" and "hurry-up, they're coming" and "I see more kids, I'm running up the stairs to hide" and "no, YOU give out the candy"
8. Get a surprise visit from friend (Anya in her fabulous pink fairy get-up)

May visions of twizzlers and willy wonker's loffy toffy dance through your head!

eating autumn

Days are getting shorter, temps are cooler. We are filling up our stores for winter. Early this week, we picked up our pork share (half a piggy, bacon and smoked meat to come later). Our vegetable share is now filled with root vegetables (up to 18 pounds this week of potatoes, onions, daikon radishes, carrots, and beets) and some greens and cabbages. And yesterday, we picked up two turkeys, 17 pounds and 23 pounds, respectively. That makes forty pounds of bird!

Saturday, friends Rusty and Sarah hosted their annual cider pressing party, and we were (typical!) the first to arrive. They were still getting the press put together, but it wasn't long before we were dumping apples into the hopper and churning out apple mush to press into cider. Rusty's truck was loaded up with 20 bushels for the kids to put into buckets to bring into the garage. Binbin had a grand time with new friends, running around the yard and setting up base in the old chicken coop. Freshly made doughnuts kept everyone fueled up for the duration.

We cut out a bit early in order to make one more social stop to Dave and Irene's place where Dave was cooking up his buffalo wings. He even made a few "naked" (without the spicy sauce) for Binbin, who gobbled those up in no time. Delicious home-made deep-fried food times two! Is this what junk foodie heaven is like?

We went home well-fed and proceeded to...brine our 17-pound turkey. Yeah, we probably should have hit the sack, but we decided that we wanted to cook one of birds fresh. So, into the cooler it went...along with two cups of salt and plenty of water. I couldn't make it until midnight, so the bird came out of its salt water bath after only 2.5 hours. I dried it off, put is back into the cooler and set it into the breezeway until morning.

Well, I'm now won over to the brining and drying process because this bird was the most delicious turkey I've ever eaten. The skin (which was buttered and salted before going into the 425 degree convection roasting oven) came out like Peking Duck! Crisp and salty. While the meat was tender and moist. It had flavor without being gamey. Amazingly, since our oven runs like an oven on steroids, the 17 pound bird took a about 2 hours to cook! We invited friends to join us for 1 o'clock supper...well the bird came out of the oven at 11 am, and rested an extra long time. Fortunately, a bird that big stays warm a pretty long lime.

So, Thanksgiving dinner rehearsal was a success, and we learned some lessons along the way, so come late November we should have the timing better. We invited Binbin's friend Anja and her parents, Carl and Lorraine, to help us eat the turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, corn and peas (from this summer's CSA), cranberry sauce, and rolls. We never managed to get to the salad. Binbin and Anja played in our pile of leaves, before tromping in for baked apples, which Lorraine brought to share. Everything was delicious, and we were so happy to feast with friends.

livin' la vida acadia

This Columbus Day weekend was our third visit to Acadia National Park, off the coast of Maine, and it was a particularly special visit because...guess who came with us? Yeye and Nainai. Moreover, we celebrated Yeye's birthday on 10/10/10. It was auspicious and filled with chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and colorful sprinkles. Here's Binbin doing his best Vanna White imitation



Here's the group effort blowing out the candles.



Our first two days in the park were spent doing hikes. The Acadia Mountain hike on the western side took us up for gorgeous views to the east and southeast. The hike is "moderate" according to our guide, and involved a fair amount of scrambling up boulders and rather steep descents. We had a nice lunch with good views before coming down. On Day Two we drove to the southeast corner to hike up from Sand Beach to Great Head. We were again rewarding with fantastic views for lunch. Our descent took us through rocky, dry terrain spotted with human-sized bonsai-looking pine trees. It felt like walking through the gardens of Kyoto at times. The fall color was at peak, and the hills were ablaze with reds, yellows, and oranges.

Our third day, we split up. Yeye and Nainai walked into Southwest Harbor to fetch lobsters (round two!), while we rented bicycles. Here's Jack and Binbin all set to start on the carriage trails to Aunt Betty's Pond and Eagle Lake.



Our first rest was at Aunt Betty's pond.



Our second, longer break was near the end our ride around Eagle Lake.





Time goes by quickly when you're having fun, and we had a lot of fun. This time, instead of camping out, we rented a cottage (The Veranda) at Anna's Quietside, just a three-minute walk from downtown Southwest Harbor. For Yeye and Nainai, the cottage offered creature comforts: hot water, full kitchen, a separate bathroom, and an outdoor, propane-fired lobster cooker! Binbin found good stuff in the hospitality suite, too: a bingo game (everyone played), various sizes of cars, wooden blocks, and wooden clothespins, which could be transformed with a little imagination into just about anything!

We made it home on Tuesday afternoon. This morning (Thursday), Nainai and Yeye headed home. We miss them already.

Since I haven't downloaded photos from my phone in ages...I found a few surprises with the Acadia snapshots.

Here is one of Binbin with friends Coco and Ellie one foggy morning in Boothbay Harbor. We're on our way to their island to catch crabs. That was in August!



And here's a picture from September: Baba's birthday!

getting well into fall

Has it been over a month since we last posted? Time is zooming by, isn't it?

On the big news front: Binbin is officially in kindergarten. And, even better, he loves it. He is so proud waiting for the bus with his way-too-big adult-size LL Bean back pack. Is it possible that we could feel even prouder of his enthusiasm?

Why the long silence? Chalk it up to enjoying life, immersing ourselves in the wonderfulness of fall.

One of our annual fall highlights is the Common Ground Fair, several days of hippy-dippy tree-hugging fun in the countryside of the aptly named town of Unity. This year, we camped two nights, and Binbin spent a lot of time running around with the neighbor kids, Oliver and his sister. By Saturday evening, he had run me into the ground, and I just crashed and burned, mustering just enough energy to take 2 doses of Children's Benadryl to help with the raging sinus headache and hay fever caused by all the dust! Sunday morning, Jack and I both came down with the cold that Binbin had brought home from school. We have been laying low this whole week, though Binbin was perky and ready to party by Monday noon! What is it about little kids and their ability to heal? I want some of that!

This weekend, Keena is hosting her annual pumpkin-and-harvest-day at the farm on Saturday, and I am hoping to run (and finish!) the half marathon in Portland on Sunday. I'll try to keep you all better posted.