First, flying US Air was quite an experience. My first flight, they moved my seat. Why allow passengers to select their own seats and then move them? It's beyond me. And when we got on, the pilot said that he only needed to shift the weight for take off, then we could sit wherever we wanted, leaving only more big questions in my mind. Needless to say, I actually listened to that little emergency landing show by the nice flight crew!
On the way home, my first flight was late, there was no crew to meet us when we pulled up to the gate (communication glitch?) and I ran from one end of the Charlotte Airport to the other. Could we just put all the same airlines in the same terminal at these airports? I boarded my next flight, taking off just fine with non balanced weight dispersment (???) and landed a few minutes early in Baltimore. Yay! Until we found out that the pilot brought the plane to the gate himself, without waiting for those little guys on the ground, who apparently got a little miffed and claimed we missed our walkway (gangplank?) by 3 feet. We then had to wait for the luggage guys to finish so the pulley guys could pull us 3 whole feet so we could disembark. Oh, the politics of the whole thing! Fortunately, I'm safely home!
Savannah was fun, but I didn't make it to the beach.=( It poured rain for three days, and after a 10 year drought the ground just wasn't about to soak up any of it. We had some flooding, and if you've ever driven out to Tybee Island, you're already basically driving on some little sand bar in the middle of the marsh. I decided against taking my sister's car out there, given that every puddle I went through caused the battery light to go on and the steering to go out. Just not doing it! Even for an hour at the ocean!
On Thursday, I picked up my niece, Skyler, and we had a fun afternoon together. We stopped at Kroger and I was doubting she'd ever been to the grocery store on her own two feet. She assured me that the bundt cake was a pie, that she LOVED everything except brownies and cucumbers. She named all the veggies she could see, then ran through the produce aisle pointing and saying, "I know what that is, and that is, and that is..." at things I'd never seen before! It was quite funny!
Once we got home, we played about 50 games of Hi Ho Cheerio! I kid you not. We danced to toddler tunes, "watched" Curious George and discussed how we should not take animals out of their natural habitats (did I mention her parents are marine biologists?), had Curious George fruit snacks and did the laundry. Her favorite things to do at school are housekeeping and centers. She informed me that stop signs are octagons, and they have 8 sides, just like an "octa"pus. Did I mention she's 3.5 years old? She then went on to tell me all the short vowel words she knew. That little genius!
Here was my favorite exchange. My brother-in-law had left us a pork loin for dinner, so we heated that up Thursday. They had never had pork before (the kids), so we asked her if she wanted to try it for dinner. She said no, but my sister heated a slice up for her anyway. While my sister went to pick up her son, she danced around the kitchen, her mouth full of pork. She got to the last bite and said:
S: Look, Aunt De, I ate all my dinner!
Me: Wow! That's awesome! I guess you like pork for dinner after all.
She shook her head no.
Me: Sure you do. You finished all your pork!
S: (giving me a funny look, holds up her eating utensil) What's this?
Me: (totally cracking up) That is a f-f-fork. You just ate p-p-pork. They rhyme!
The look of relief that washed over her face was almost as priceless as that funny look!
Brendan was also a lot of fun. Since I was there almost a year ago for his birth, he and I have always gotten along famously. My mom warned me that it took him quite a while to warm up to her, as he's entered the stranger anxiety phase. Thursday morning, I got up at 6 am with my sister to get him up and there wasn't a bit of anxiety there (I don't know, mom, maybe it's the four eyes you have? hehe). We played together, he let me feed him, he even cuddled with me. Such a total sweetheart! He's all about toys that make noise, dancing, screaming, singing or whatever you call it! I love this little guy and the fact that I see my dad in almost every expression of his makes me smile. In the picture of him, he's trying to get that cameraphone away from me, which makes him look so funny!Aside from playing with kids and making sure sister didn't go into diabetic shock (two close calls), we visited Bonaventure Cemetary and litte Gracie, the Juliette Gordon Low birthplace to pick up friendship pins for Emily's troop, and a cute little general store down the street. Just hanging out with my sister was fun, even though we were both exhausted and tired of rain! Once Rick came home, we both literally collapsed!
*This is Gracie, whose parents owned a Savannah Hotel in the 1700's. She was their only child who died at the age of 6 from pneumonia. An artist arrived in town just after that and carved this life sized statue of her from a picture. It's frequently visited in the cemetary where Johnny Mercer is also buried, which is why they've added that security fence there.*
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