Bing Family Weekend 2025
We reserved a home months ago for our first family weekend here at Bing. I baked and we cooked all week to have delicious treats to bring along, some requested by Buster and Yessa, some that just sounded good.
The plan was to leave home around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, after some work we were having done in the basement was complete.
Yessa and I were video chatting about the upcoming drive and our excitement about the weekend at around 11 a.m. on Friday morning when I received an unexpected, unwanted email.
We'd never had this happen before, and I was a little stunned. I quickly explained to Yessa what was happening and that I needed to go to get it sorted out.
After confirming with the owner that it was real because she had water leaking from the upstairs tub into the kitchen below, we began the scramble to find a new place to stay. Yessa found a spot for us at a hotel close to campus, which was a huge relief because the Airbnb person who called me was only able to tell me that they had nothing available.
Big sigh once the new place to lay our heads was reserved. Now, on to the glory of the weekend.
While we were getting loaded up and on the road, Buster and Yessa were standing in line to get us checked in for the weekend on campus.
Our first night was relaxed with hanging out, dinner at Panera, a trip to Target and a wander through the Halloween store, and lots and lots of laughter.
No meal is complete until Buster tells us how full he is, but he tried to thwart us this time.
On Saturday morning, Buds, Monkey and I had first breakfast at the hotel, then Monkey went back to bed and Buds and I headed to campus for a 4+1 info. session with Yessa.
The info. session was great, and seems like the path Yessa will consider for now.
Buds and I got to meet Yessa's roommate at the end of the session, which was a quick delight.
After that, Yessa and I went off in search of alpacas, and Buds went to meet up with Buster.
Because it was family weekend, each of the residence halls sponsored fun activities, and meeting alpacas was a highlight for us. Yessa also got to see turtle racing on Friday, which was a time commitment.
We cheered for Stella. Stella did not win.
It was the perfect autumn day to be outside, enjoying the gorgeous campus and gorgeous weather.
After alpacas we met up with Buds and Buster at a session to learn about study abroad, which interests both kiddos, with strong enthusiasm from their parents. (Wither thou goest, we will visit.)
One of the students who had done a summer study abroad program took his grandma along with him, which made me feel like I definitely do not hover too much. And it sounded like they had a superb experience.
After we dropped off Buster to get some work done, the three of us headed for the downtown campus and Pharmacy school. They were holding an open house, and Yessa wanted to take a look. We had a fantastic tour with Danielle, a recent graduate; Keith, another recent graduate; and Dr. Hathout, a research faculty member who popped in and out of the tour and gave us the chance to see the cool equipment and labs on the 4th floor. (Caitlin, it was just like visiting your lab all those years ago!)
The Pharm School Building was only completed in 2018 or so, which means it felt sparkly new, and had the latest features, including robo patients. The patients can "speak" through professors who are sitting in a control room. They also control vitals, reactions to decisions the students make about meds and dosage, and they can even make a patient "die," if things go really poorly. ( Yes, I asked.)
One of the open house gifts was a tiny little first aid kit.
The extensive tour was thoroughly enjoyable for all of us, but by now we were really hungry, and I wondered if Monkey had had any food besides breakfast.
We decided to try Bao Bao, a side of the road restaurant we had driven by many times on the stroad running to the main area of hotels from campus. It's a shacky looking little place, but it gets great reviews, and it's always busy, so we thought we'd give it a try.
The sushi Yessa and I ordered was delicious, but we did have to sit next to a sleeping man, snoring, as we waited for our food. This is obviously a family-owned place, and the dad was laying on a lawn chair, catching some zzzzz's while the rest of the family held down the fort. We didn't really mind, and it did make us laugh when we were startled by his random big snores.
Buds and Monkey had chicken from "Dave's Hot Chicken" across the road.
We carried everything back to the hotel and settled at a big table in the lobby to eat and play Yahtzee. There were other families there, too, playing pool, chatting, and a dad trying to read a book, but we eventually ran him off with our dice rolling and laughter.
Buds walloped us by scoring nearly 500 points with 4 yahtzees!
Then we made another trip to Target, because we'd only gone once so far on this visit. We picked up some food to have for dinner in our room while we watched the new episode of Great British, which the 4 of us have been watching together long distance.
After dinner and a show, we dropped Yessa off at her room, and on our drive back to the hotel, she texted about an item she'd forgotten to get at Target, so Buds and I drove back there for one more visit with the hope that we wouldn't have to go again the next day.
Saturday night's rain gave way to a sunny Sunday morning. We had our last breakfast at the hotel and checked out a little before 9 a.m.
We scooped up Buster and settled in the common room on Yessa's floor so Buds could check in on his family phone call and we could have a little final family time together.
In an act of little creativity, we decided for another meal at Panera before we dropped Buster back at his apartment to study. Turns out Panera had great light for photos.
After we dropped off Buster, Yessa suggested we check out a farmers' market in town, at Recreation Park, and we were so glad she found it. The market itself was small, with some interesting vendors, but the park where it was held was pure magic.
We walked through the market part, and the further we went into the park, the better and better it got.
We learned that Rod Serling, of Twilight Zone fame, was from Binghamton, and one of the most popular episodes, "Walking Distance" is an homage to going home again, which he often did, according to his daughter.
I don't think any of the kids have ever seen a Twilight Zone, so that will be on the Thanksgiving list of things to do.
There's a statue of Serling in the park, but we didn't see it on this visit.
The bandstand was interesting, but the playgrounds past it were a revelation.
It was a perfect day for playing and swinging and spinning on all the things.
When we'd had our fill of play, we headed back to campus to hug Yessa good bye and send her off to enjoy the rest of her Sunday. We had promised Buster we'd swing by to see him for one final hug before we left town, and that was a good way to wrap up our visit.
So often our expectations do not measure up to the reality of a visit, but this trip exceeded my hopes. It was a joy to get time with these two, and to see, again, how well they are doing.
Only 25 days till we see them again to celebrate Yessa's birthday!
