New Year

Happy New Year!  Evie tried to ring in the new year spending the night at my parents' house, but I think she was starting to get sick because she wouldn't fall asleep and was saying she was scared.  She's spent many evenings at my parents' house over the last week, so it doesn't make sense, really, that she was suddenly scared.  I'm thinking that was either something she thought she could say that would certainly work to get her home or was legitimate as a side effect of illness.  So we cut our new year celebration off a little early and met my mom at our house.  Evie was up until 3 am and so we missed church yesterday.

But, as I said, she had plenty of times to spend the night at my parents' this week since Addie and Will were in town until Friday.  Evie saw her cousins every day, including an outing to see Moana, which she liked even better when she could see it while sitting between Addie and Will.  We also went to Zoo Lights one night where Evie, Will, and I rode the ferris wheel which was a nice, special moment.  The two youngest cousins don't get too much time just the two of them, and they really enjoyed each others' company.

The view in the ferris wheel car

Watching Moana - their first movie together

Enjoying lunch after the movie on Addie and Will's last day in town

Some funnies from this week:

Evie has an Amazon Echo in her room - an electronic device that you can give voice commands and it responds (e.g., playing a song, reading a book, adding something to your shopping list).  As I was going through the shopping list that Seth and I add to on our Amazon Echo in the living room, I saw that Evie must have added items from her room, and one of those items included, "100 Desmonds".

Also regarding Desmond, he came up when we were getting ready to go to Zoo Lights.  Seth mentioned to her that Evie could use some of the money from her piggy bank to pay for a camel ride.  Evie said, "No, I need that money."  I asked what she needed it for.  She replied, "I'm saving this for me and Desmond.  So we can take our trip after we get married."

Uncle Ryan gave Evie an illustrated children's bible that we have been reading since Christmas and I've been so impressed by Evie's thoughts about the stories.  Of Cain and Abel, she said it was sad that God cast Cain out from his family for killing Abel (I had to explain, because this version left out, that Cain had God's protection and he also met a wife and had his own family).  Then when we got to Noah, she asked, "Why would God want to destroy everything he had created?", which I thought was not only a very linguistically complex sentence, but also a great philosophical/theological question.  We discussed how God wanted to wipe the slate clean since people were being so cruel to each other and I guessed the animals just got thrown in with the whole thing, and Evie said, "God shouldn't do that."

I'm amazed, per usual, at her insights and intellect.