Florida Wrap Up and Car Accident

Well, we've come back from Florida, not much tanner thanks to Tropical Storm Alberto, but with full hearts. We love getting to spend time with family.  The kids got along so well and, as Memmaw would say, it was good to be together.

The girls played Minecraft together while waiting for breakfast one morning

Will is a whiz at board games and he coached me through a win at Small World, and Evie came to the table to cheer us on a bit.

Waiting for lunch by the bay

They're saying, "Hi Granna!"  It's hard to get the kids to coordinate looking at the camera, but they'll do anything for their Granna so I use that to my advantage.

We drove home Thursday during the day and got back a little after Daddy got home from work, so we went out to eat.  They were so happy to see each other.

Seth's arm is in a sling because of an injury involving a 5-year-old who decided to kick off from the back of the bathtub right into the back of Seth's locked elbow as he was cleaning up bath toys.  It was accidental and he's been very good about not mentioning it in front of Evie because she felt so bad about injuring him.

Evie was really glad to see Herbie too

Friday we went to get haircuts and Evie got pampered by Jo.  I've been going to Jo since I was a teenager - maybe as young as 12 - and she's done my mom's hair even before that.  It's neat to have someone in your life who's watched you grow up like that and now dotes on your baby.

On Saturday, it was the first anniversary of us bringing Siouxsie home.  We rewarded her with lots of play time.

I was really amused by Evie's cleverness: A couple of weeks ago, we went to Build-a-Bear where she made herself a stuffed rabbit and named it Strawberry Frosting.  She was really excited to take it to Florida to meet Addie's stuffed bear from Build-a-Bear, Blueberry Frosting.  And coincidentally, Will has a stuffed Build-a-Bear dragon.  So, on each animal's paw, there's a little logo for Build-a-Bear, with the initials BAB.  Evie says, "I think on mine, this stands for Build-a-Bunny, and on Addie's it stands for Build-a-Bear, and on Will's it stands for Build-a-Beast."

Yesterday while we were out running errands, a woman backed into my car in the parking lot.  After expressing my initial frustration, the woman said, "Oh, gosh, you have a little girl in your car too, don't you!"  Evie from inside the car loudly says, "Hi!"  So the woman came over and said, "I'm so sorry I hit your car," and Evie said, "It's okay, it's happened before," thinking of the time someone scraped along Granna's car while Evie was in it.  Evie just sat there and carried on a conversation with this lady like they were old friends.  She introduced her to Strawberry Frosting and told her all our birthdays and that we'd just gotten back from Florida and just kept good spirits and entertainment going while we waited for the police to come and document the accident.  She's pretty incredible.

I just got off the phone with my Dad who wasn't sure if I'd seen what happened yesterday while he was praying over the potluck meal we were about to have after church: He had started praying and Evie ran up to him and took his hand during the prayer.  Dad reported this to me and got choked up and when someone else gets choked up, I start to cry, so we just teared up and agreed that, as Dad put it, "Evie's a old soul with all the social graces."