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Well, I had a good visit with Audrial this Labor Day weekend. She flew in on Friday afternoon, and we went to Fratellos in Manchester, NH for dinner with my parents and brother. I wasn't particularly hungry (since I'd eaten some Chinese near the airport, which was actually better than I was expecting), I ordered the “Italian Pie”, with a view that I could always take it home and reheat it. Audrial had some staple linguine and huge meatballs.

Over the weekend we played a lot of board games, and I played outside with Audrial a fair bit. Here are some pictures.

Mirror Lake

We went swimming at Mirror Lake (I think), which was really nice. The water was clear and clean, the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. Audrial had a great time jumping off of the diving platform. She tried to dive off of it a few times and ending up doing belly-flops. She would scream “cannon ball!” and jump in. Every time she came up she was coughing out water, but for now that's her modus operandi. She played some Marco Polo with some kids there, and had a great time with that (though she was the youngest). We went canoing (with the exception of my mother) around the lake. The seats on the canoe were of a flat wicker, and were so old that they broke under the weight of my brother and me; we ended up sitting on the beams of wood that the wicker was attached to.

Ratatouille

We went to the Weirs Drive In and saw the animated movie “Ratatoullie”. Audrial had already seen it, and enjoyed it again. I thought it was good. We got there a little early, so we went and picniced for a little while and played some Loco!.

Hiking the Walter Newton Natural Area

On Tuesday morning, Audrial and my father and I went hiking at a new nature preserve in Plymouth which had a nice waterfall, though the water wasn't really flowing. We saw a number of frogs, and even found some wintergreen leaf. We saw a garter snake as well. There was also some pretty cool leafy bushes, rocks, and ferns. Along the path there were a number of benches, which we rested on. Audrial liked the frogs the best, and the “walking” the worst. She grew tired after a while.

Games

We played some Blokus, the aforementioned Loco!, a fair amount of Hive, a couple games of Dragonland, a few hands of Tichu, and some For Sale. Audrial likes For Sale and Loco! and Dragonland, but didn't care much for Blokus or Tichu. My father enjoyed Blokus, and my parents bother enjoyed Tichu. My mother likes Hive (I think because she can beat me!).

We also played some Bocce, and right before we left for the airport I broke out the Speedminton equipment and showed my father how it was different from Badminton. He was impressed!

Visiting Peachy & John & Grandpop in Manchester

We stopped by at my aunt Peachy and uncle John's place, and saw them and my grandfather. We visited a bit. They've got a cat they're fostering with a couple of kittens, who is very friendly but apparently has dominated the other cats in the house (so they're across the street at my grandfather's pla­ce). I was surprised to see the leaves on the ground there in their back yard when we went out to use the glider there. John had a “Bag 'O Bugs”, full of beetles that wreck their garden.

Dropping Audrial off

Though we were invited to stay and dine with Peachy & John, we didn't have the time. But we did need something to eat, or at least drink, so we went to a gas station that happened to have this place that makes AWESOME steak sandwiches, right near my brother's house. The guy who was there was nice, because Audrial asked for mozzarella sticks and I was like “nope!” and she was “awww dad!”. Anyway, we ordered a shaved steak sub, and she didn't want it with anything but bacon and cheese on it, but the guy was like “You can have different stuff on your half”, so I had some peppers and onions on mine. He gave us extra bacon and some mozzarella sticks anyway! Very nice. And it was really good, so I'll be visiting that place again =) If I was Bo, I'd be stopping by there on a weekly / bi-weekly basis if I needed to fill up at night, or even if I just got home and didn't want to cook.

We got to the airport a little later than I would have liked, but everything was fine because the lines were negligible (as they usually are in Manchester when we fly).