home again, jiggety jig

We've been back home in Lisbon Falls, Maine, for about a week and a half now. We had a fantastic road trip to Rockford, Illinois to visit Yeye and Nainai. There were a lot of highlights...here are just a few.

At the top of Binbin's list was: getting not one but two legos. Upon our arrival, Yeye whisked him up to his room, and on top of his bed, he saw Creationary. And if that wasn't absotively posilutely great, Yeye took him to the Lego Discovery Center, and he picked out the Armored Assault Tank, aka, the AAT. What more could a little boy want?

Rockford isn't known as a tourist destination, but it has its share of good family fun. Jack was especially thrilled to see the Show of Shows, featuring Rockford's own drum and bugle corps, The Phantom Regiment. Here is a brief introduction to 2008 video of a winning performance. And one sunny day, we also watched demonstrations at the Rock Valley R/C Flyers club.

The road to Rockford took us through lakeside town of Union Pier, Michigan, where Chris and Joelle call home these days. Binbin spent days splashing in Lake Michigan with Eli and Lexie, and evenings catching fireflies and shooting rounds of foam ammo. We feasted on local organic blueberries and homemade yogurt. Dee-lish! We're so glad to have had the chance to catch up and spend time with old friends.

Now, the days are still warm and sunny, but there's sometimes a nip in the air, telling us that fall is on the way. On Friday, our CSA share was all that your family could eat in beans, cukes, squash, herbs, plus 6 ears of corn. Friday night, we made pesto (with freshly roasted sunflower seeds to substitute for pine nuts). Saturday, we made maple granola (last week we had a bit of a scare, as Binbin's eyes swelled alarmingly. we think he reacted to the locally made granola, which might of used commercially roasted sunflower seeds!), and canned dilly beans. Sunday, with more experience on the canning front, we did 7 more jars of beans, plus we made a two-bean salad. After all that, we *still* have about 4 pounds of beans to process! Both Jack and I have profound new respect for folks who can.

After returning, we reconnected with our friends here, and Binbin had playdates with Amy, then Robbie, then Coco/Ellie/Augie, then Anja. Other playtime has been spent playing Carcassonne, a strategy building game with tiles. Binbin routinely bests both Jack and me.