A small escape...

This weekend we made the short trip to NE Mass to visit Micah and Becky and enjoy the 'banana belt' of New England when we are still under feet of snow. We all met up with Wendy, Max and their two girls Ava and Stella at their house in Medford and zipped into Chinatown for some delicious Dim Sum. I haven't had real Dim Sum since leaving Vancouver so it was an incredible treat to gorge myself on the many varieties of steamed dumplings, balls of red bean paste, BBQ pork buns, and velvety turnip cakes with hoisin sauce. Ava and Stella have eaten this stuff since they were infants (Chinatown is 10 minutes from their house), so they dug right in, but it was a challenge to convince Aiden that he might actually like these small packages of goodness from the steamer baskets. He did manage to try about four different things (with mixed reviews) and had a LOT of cups of tea.

We've eaten about 100 dumplings collectively at this point

Happy Chinese NewYear!

After Dim Sum we stopped at a candy/bakery in Chinatown and, funnily enough, even though Aiden had never had any of these candies before, he was willing to try ALL of them and wanted more and more and more. Hmm... where was this little boy while we were eating dim sum?

Ava decides which candies to try

It was so deliciously warm and springlike when we got back to Wendy and Max's house that the kids played barefoot and coatless in the yard for hours while we adults alternately soaked in the sun and tried to avoid getting pig-piled by three crazed little monsters. It was so wonderful to be outside in the warm sunshine again after months of winter, we could almost kid ourselves that there won't be another huge dump of snow or two before it's all said and done.

Ava the rhythmic gymnast

Stella collecting "hay"

Spring!

Pigpile on Andy!

As our Dim-Sum coma wore off, Micah & Becky made a cheesy-potato and vegetable dutch oven meal over their outdoor oven for dinner. It was a great end to a fun day for everyone.

Dutch oven cooks on the fire