Chilling With The Trouts and Their Family On Thompson Lake

The Armontrout Family

The Abode

Thompson Lake 

It's 7:00 and Vickie is up, making scones for breakfast.  It's mostly cloudy outside, a slash of light off to the western sky, the pines gently moving in the breeze.  Both Ellery and Hollis, the Armontrout's grandchildren just got up, so the fun begins.  They are six and two, just delights, and Evie's getting her grandchildren fix for the week.  Both are fun, affectionate, not afraid to sit on our laps, give us a hug, so we are  both happy campers.

The Drama Princess

The Renaissance Angel

The Imp

Yesterday was partly sunny, some rain late in the afternoon, but a decent day.  We relaxed with coffee early, until Christine drove in from Portland with her daughters.  And as I have said, the fun began.  Ron and Vickie get to see their granddaughters quite often because they are only forty five minutes away.  We played with the kids for an hour, while Christine quickly began our dinner extravaganza, a tradition when we come to visit. She and her husband Ben both love to cook and are great at it.  So she started the sauce for Italian Cioppino, their favorite fish stew.  So our late morning began with the smell of sausage and tomato sauce simmering on the stove, the first step in our dinner.

Hollis with Baba

A Hollis Smile

Crazy Lady

Grandy, Ellery and Granny

 We decided to take Hollis and Ellery for a hike, so we drove to a park about twenty five minutes away.  It used to be a farm but is now woods with a myriad of trails, all hiking in the fall, but some for cross country skiing in the winter, others for snow shoeing, others just for hiking.  They also have a cabin full of cross country skis and shoes in the winter, for anyone to use, compliments of a local organization.  We walked for just under an hour, not going very far because the girls enjoyed just browsing the woods, stopping every ten yards to examine something new that they found, the wonderful curiosity of the young.

Trout's Back Yard Swing Set

We were back about 1:00.  For lunch, we had a Maine specialty, red hots, a fire red hot dog, with a kick, which Trout cooked outside on the grill. Vickie made a great salad, with various crunches in it, and Trouts favorite baked beans, again from Ina Garten. Ben, Christine's husband arrived just as we finished lunch, having spent the morning hunting for birds in the nearby woods, with no luck.  Even the girls loved the red hots, so it was a great lunch, plenty to keep us going for the afternoon.  Two or three of us, me included, took naps while Evie and Trout kept Ellery interested for an hour.  While we slept, Christine and Ben began the essentials of our dinner, cutting up the cod and salmon, the shrimp, cleaning the scallops and squid, washing the clams, getting them ready for the sauce just before dinner.  And Christine made up potato pancakes, about twenty two inch patties, which she later covered with smoked salmon and sour cream (two years ago it was salmon on a potato chip with creme fraiche).

Treasure Chest Excitement

We played with the girls until it was time for appetizers, a special cocktail of Presecco and an Italian liquor.  And the highlight of the before dinner extravaganza, was the Treasure Box, which Evie brought for the two girls .  Needless to say, they loved going through it, but had a difficult time making up their mind what three treasures they wanted, which is the fun of watching them.  Inevitably, Evie lets them keep four, sometimes five when the cannot make up their mind. What fun.

The Gourmands , Christine and Ben

Around 7:00, after a couple of glasses wine, I sat at the bar and watched Ben sear the scallops and throw the scallops, shrimp, fish and clams in the tomato sauce.  Each scallop was placed in a serving bowl, then filled with the rest of the fish, shrimp, and clams, taken to the table and we dug in, with thick slices of bread from the Standard Bakery in Portland.  We were in heaven, to use an appropriate cliche, the bite of the tomato sauce perfect with all the sea food.  What a treat.

Dinner At Trouts 

We were stuffed but not too stuffed to have Chocolate Cork brownies from Standard Bakery, again compliments of Ben and Christine.  The girls had fun putting the whipped cream on the brownies for everyone before going to bed.  Trout and I sat around with a Maker's Mark on ice for about twenty minutes before going up to bed like everyone else.