Sue and I drove down to Little River Park in Lee, NH Saturday morning to watch Mia's Lacrosse game, and then to bring her back to our house for an overnight.

But for late April, it was really chilly; and the brisk wind didn't help a bit as we stood on the sidelines watching the game.

And what a game it was, even for that 6 to 10 or so age group. Mia was all over the place, and scored 9 goals! She gets all that from Marissa who was such a good player in high school that she quickly became captain, and in her last season scored more goals herself than the combined scores of both the boys junior and varsity teams.

After the game, we took her to Wendy's for lunch, and watched her inhale 10 chicken fingers, and several handfuls of fries. I think she was hungry....

When we got home, Beau was so excited to see not only us, but particularly Mia; he was all over the place. So, Sue and Mia took him for a walk out on one of the local trails. When they got back, Mia helped Sue make meatloaf for dinner, and then she wanted to have me give play some backgammon with her. She's still learning the movement of the checkers according to the dice, so no full games yet. But she is enjoying it. After dinner we watched just under half of Free Willy 2 as she was looking pretty tired.

Sunday morning after breakfast, Mia went with Sue to walk Beau, and I headed off to the grocery store to do the food shopping. When I came out of the store it was pouring a hard, cold rain. When I got home, Sue said they almost made it out of the woods before it hit them, but they got wet as it came down on them pretty hard just as they were almost back to the car. I had gotten a nice fire going in the wood stove, and so they warmed up pretty quickly.

Sue suggested some craft projects, and she and Mia were right at it until lunch time. I had Mia gather up all her stuff so she'd be ready to head out for home at 2:00pm without a hitch so that we could all sit in the living room and finish Free Willy 2 - just a really nice movie. It just poured the whole time, and was really chilly outside. But we were all cozy inside; a nice way to end her little visit.

After we got back from dropping Mia off at home, Sue and I relaxed by the fire, sipped some wine listening to a Curtis Stigers album, and played backgammon until 5:00 pm until it was time for me to get on the stick making dinner. I had a vision for a soft basil cream sauce poured over sauteed chicken and pasta with a side of herb steamed asparagus that came out really good. After watching just a little tv, we both called it a night as we were beat.

Mia - far left - in motion.

Heading for the goal!

After we got back home, Mia went with Sue to pick up trash for Earth Day. Her sign says: "Earth Day is for Every Day!"

By mid afternoon it had gotten really chilly outside so I lit a fire in the wood stove to take the edge off. Run the wood stove at the end of April? Ahhhh-yup!

Sue and Mia curled up chatting about the day.

Bit then she was ready for a backgammon lesson with Gramps. She's coming right along with her ability to manage the moves of the checkers based on the throw of the dice.

Winding down the evening after dinner with all of us enjoying the great movie Free Willy 2.