Bridge and Duet

 The last day of Christmas break has found us, and with it came some winter weather.  Considering how much everyone was complaining that it was 75 degrees on Christmas, I hope everyone who wished for snow is happy now.

Beau's first snow

Evie trying to scrape a snowball together from what's on Daddy's car

Monday we when to the zoo with Cristal, Nathaniel, and Lydia.  We hadn't gotten together with them in a long time and Evie enjoyed playing big sister to Lydia and chatting with Nathaniel.

This week, Grannadaddy had a birthday, and one of our surprises for him was that Evie has been learning to play bridge.  This is especially endearing if you know that when I was a kid, we had 4 generations playing bridge together: me, my Dad, my Dad's Dad (Mouse), and my Dad's Mom's Mom (Granny, Grandma Jeanne's mom).  I partnered with my grandfather and Dad partnered with his grandmother.  So I told Evie, since we hadn't played much since Granny died in 1996, that it would probably mean a lot to Grannadaddy if she learned to play bridge for his birthday.  

So we started out having her get her stuffed animals together on teams, and we played their hands face up, and after I explained the rules, we went through each animal's turn and thought about what would be their best play.  Then we stopped playing hands up and started doing partners: she partnered with one animal and I partnered with another, so we both still knew what our partners had but not what each other had.  We had a really good time and she was so excited to play, she didn't want to stop.

So then Wednesday, when we celebrated Grannadaddy's birthday, Evie made him a card that said, "Want to play a game, like bridge?" and we revealed that she'd been learning how to play.  We played a few hands that night and Grannadaddy was delighted.

                              

                             

In fact, on Friday we went over to play even more bridge!  Grannadaddy sat on Evie's side when she sound beat Daddy and me at 3 hands that she got to run.

We've been playing some games at home too.  Here we are playing Carcassone and I crack up at Evie's expression.

Today, Evie sang in church for the first time ever, I think, at least not as part of a large and unrehearsed group.  She and I sang a duet which you can listen to here at minute 31:45.  So many people have said how sweet Evie's little voice is, and I agree.