At the beach

We brought Munchie to Lake Michigan for his first beach experience. My uncle Doug has a condo on the lake.

Munchie Eats Ethnic

Stephen was a trooper. We took him to restaurants for most meals, and he only had a major meltdown at Hunan Beijing's. Some of the places we ate:

Sushi-Ya
He had goldfish while the rest of us had sushi :) He also tried some chicken and avocado. And he made googoo eyes at the waitress.
Pho 777
Stephen couldn't eat too much of the local fare here either... All crunchy greens and herbs and spicy meats beyond edibility for babies with only two teeth.
Chiu Quon Bakery
Stephen enjoys bakery goods, but we only let him sample a tiny tidbit.
Saffron Indian Restaurant

Though the name suggests an elegant Indian restaurant, it was more like a greasy spoon... or maybe I should say a spicy spoon! Stephen's favorite part was the Bollywood music playing in the background. He was actually bopping to the beat. You can sort of see it from these photos.

Munchie at the Zoo

We took Stephen to the Lincoln Park Zoo, one of the nation's last free zoos, and a place I took in from a stroller's eye view many times. Stephen loves nature and animals (still calling them all "da-gees"). But I think he doesn't always know what he's supposed to be looking at when he's at the zoo. He got more excited about the sparrows and seagulls than the black bear and was more in awe of the zoo interpreter's long red beard than the African Wild Dogs he was talking about. But he did get in to the African Savannah exhibit, where he was watched by meerkats and ogled plenty of cichlids at the hippo exhibit.

Munchie at Grammy and Gramps'

Stephen is fully in the exploration phase and he discovered plenty of new things in the great indoors of my parents' house. The patio doors and vertical blinds held special interest.
I also felt Stephen really bonded with Gramps on this trip. My dad taught him about airplanes and counting to three and how to poke people in the eye, all-important life skills, of course.

Munchie on the road

The trip to Chicago is not an easy one, but Joe and I are starting to find good places to stop along the way up through quaint rural towns with names like "Foosland" "Strawn" and "Forrest."
We happened to stop in a town called Sibley this time. They had a really sweet park with old-school equipment like a see-saw and a merri-go-round. As far as Stephen was concerned, we'd arrived at our destination. He tried the slide, see-saw and swings.

We also stopped in Champaign for a yummy dinner at Za's. Stephen ate a bunch of pesto tortellini off my plate and looked fetching in a bright green pesto goatee.

House troubles

The Parrinos took a trip up north to visit the Tilsches and for the wedding of our good friends Matt and Tasha. It's a long drive, made even longer by frequent Munchie stops, but we weren't able to leave as early as we wanted
because of the huge tree limb that fell in our backyard during the violent storm the night before. Our neighbor, John, arrived, chainsaw in hand, and began wacking off pieces of the tree. Joe ran them to the curb, where most of our neighbors were building similar piles of aboricultural aftermath.

We're thankful that none of the many tall silver maples that surround our little Virginia Street home came crashing through the roof. The scene Wednesday morning along Virginia Street reminded me of the rubble from the twin tornados that ripped up Christian County the first spring we lived here.

Stephen enjoys looking up and pointing... the fallen tree was no exception.

I wish I could say that a loss of foliage was our only trouble at our "new-old house," but while we were away, the rains must've driven in the great outdoors. Specifically, ants in the kitchen. Our friend Ty, who is living with us, eradicated the invasion before we got home and we haven't seen any of the little picnic-crashers since.

I also wish I could say that was the only invasion... but unfortunately I found traces of another house guest yesterday just hours before Joe and I were to go out to celebrate our 8-year anniversary. The dark brown pellet of crud could have been anything, really. It was in my clear glass serving bowl that I bought in Taiwan so many years ago... But it struck me as having more import than just a little piece of crud. I bent back down to the cabinet under the counter again and realized there were many, many little tiny mouse turds in the place I store my mixing bowls, pots, pans and cookie sheets. Then I realized there were more under the sink. In my utensil drawer. In my SILVERWARE drawer. In my baking drawer! In my deviled egg caddy! Upon further inspection (which at this point was laced with all kinds of whimpers, groans and yelps) I found that the thumb of my heavy duty blue gingham oven mitt was chewed into a pile of fluff.

At this point I was really freaking out. It's not that I'm afraid of mice. Some of my longtime readers might remember the mouse at Bruce View that ran over my foot and was so terribly cute and trembly doing it. But I do not like the idea of rodents using my kitchen as a commode. And the level of poopage beneath my countertop indicated either a very large contingency of vermin or one mouse with a very bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Joe left with Munchie to buy traps. I continued to pull things apart and bang around and make lots of noise.

I'm freaking out because not only are my parents arriving in two days, but I was planning Stephen's first birtday shin-dig and Ty's baby shower soon after that. And I've got to wash and disinfect everything under the countertop. All the pots, pans, bowls, utensils, bakeware, measuring cups, spoons, forks, knives and chopsticks before they arrive.

Well. The story doesn't really have a happy ending other than the fact that Joe and I made it to our "Date Night in Paris" cooking class at the Viking school in Franklin, Tenn., where we enjoyed making and eating a delicious meal prepared with an enormous amount of butter. And for 4 hours I completely forgot about mouse droppings and the cleanup ahead.

This morning Joe disposed of our first mouse captive.

Post-nap snack

Snack on Pop ;-)
The whole house took a nap, including the Munchie. But when he woke up, Joe tried to entertain him on the couch, where Stephen loves to watch "doggies." In Stephen's world, Doggies come in many varieties: the feathered doggies, the doggies on leashes walkin with owners across the street, the doggies with bushy tails that scamper up our trees and scale the telephone wires and the tiny little black buzzing doggies that natter about the window, trying to get out. Some doggies are just plush and pretend. There's even the Internet doggies, including "Nora the Piano Cat" who performs with the Lithuianian orchestra (they're all doggies too.) Now that he's finished his afternoon snack, he's yelling "doggie" at the top of his lungs and I can only imagine what kind of creature is inspiring it.