fall is back and so are we!

Yay first day of Fall! We'll be celebrating it shortly with a drive to Mitsuwa, where I hope to find that pumpkin wagashi have arrived!

Our trip was long, but overall pretty pleasant, with just a few roadbumps. Yes, I'm going to bore you with the details:

Day 1:
Got off to a really late start, so we stopped later than planned. Needing to eat fast and get the Monkey Baby (that's Emily, not Evan) to bed, we opted for the Shoney's Buffet across from the hotel. BAD MOVE. REALLY BAD MOVE. Evan thought he was going to die. I didn't feel much better. Emily, being the brains of the family, had refused to eat anything other than a few forkfuls of rice, so she was fine.

Day 2:
Things were going really well and we expected to get to our destination early -- then, a tire blew out. On I-95. Going fast. With an outside temp of oh..95? (And parents of toddlers, you will feel my pain when I tell you this happened about 10 minutes after getting Emily to sleep in the car!) 45 minutes on the side of the road with a sleepy toddler was not fun, and I'm here to tell you that our emergency plan (episodes of Pingu on the laptop) saved the day! Emily sat in the shade and watched them instead of running onto traffic or climbing into the woods after ticks. After getting a new tire in Savannah, GA, we ended up getting into town (that town being Gainesville, FL) in time to have dinner with the folks at a decent local fast food bento place (called Bentos, originally enough), where Emily impressed her grandparents with her amazing miso-slurping skills (she can make a bowl disappear in minutes!)

Day 3:
A very nice day -- we spent the morning doing some (mostly unrewarding) thrifting, had lunch at my beloved Burrito Brothers, got Emily to take a nice long nap, and then -- disaster struck! While checking out the mall just to see what was there, Emily dropped her new bunny (bought for her that morning thrifting) and it was gone just like that. We retraced our steps, checked lost and found, to no avail. Our guess is that the moment after she dropped it, someone scooped it up thinking they'd just scored a cute little bunny for free. PEOPLE! If you find a cute stuffed animal that's been lost -- someone lost it!! And they may be crying. Be nice and turn it in, because the next kid who loses a beloved animal may be yours! And if you have Emily's bunny...I hope it brings you terrible luck!! (The good news -- that night, Emily got her arms loaded with stuffed animals by her uncle, who received way more than he needed during his hospital stay last year. "Puppy" quickly erased all memory of poor departed "Bunny".)

Day 4-5:
The main days of the reunion (which was just my mom's immediate family. which is like, a million people!) -- a cookout, then pool fun for all the kids, followed by a day at the beach. And by the way, if you are like, the suncreen police, and you make sure everyone has their sunscreen, and then you go bodyboarding and forget that all the sunscreen has probably washed off your face and you get your nose burned....you are an idiot. Yes, that would be me. A chocolate-dipped chocolate cone from DQ was, at least, some consolation.

Day 6:
A short trip to Atlanta to visit friends, where Evan was introduced to City of Heroes (and he wants to play badly) and got to eat some Krystals.

Day 7:
Mostly just driving, lots of pretty scenery and one shopping stop.

Day 8:
At last! SCORE! We found used bookstores, thrift stores, antique places with cool stuff. We were actually so overwhelmed we almost freaked out. We bought some cool stuff and are planning to go back for more someday! This is the kind of day that road-tripping is all about. Yay!

okay, I've gotta run so we can go look for my wagashi....hopefully I'll have photos of some of the scores we did make asap. Happy Autumn, everybody!!