A Good Day After All

Well, it was a crazy day today!  When I went to sleep last night I had written my journal entry, but not my Titanic review.  I knew that Walt would be heading off to the hospital in the morning to see Norm and I would have all day to work on it.

Then around quarter to 9, he reached his sister-in-law, who said that Norm was doing well and was going to be released from the hospital some time today, which meant he wouldn't be there when Walt showed up.

Walt asked if I still wanted to go to Santa Barbara and I told him I did.  I didn't think we had prayer of getting there in time to have dinner with Tom's family, but we would just head out as soon as we could and decide what we were going to be doing along the way.  It was 10:30 when we left.

I was originally making notes of how long it takes to get from point A to point B (1 hour to Danville, 1 hour from Danville to Gilroy, 30 min from Gilroy to the Burger Queen.)

(that's our fancy red rented Chrysler!)

After lunch at the Burger Queen, I took over driving and so I stopped keeping my little log.  I drove until I started feeling sleepy and then Walt drove the rest of the way.  We were listening to a David Baldacci book en route and I could not believe it when we pulled up in front of Tom & Laurel's house at 5:30, just in time for dinner.

It was so good to see the girls again.  Lacie has grown so much and is now all smiles.

And I was happy to see that Daddy is continuing the tradition with daughter #2.

(Lacie doesn't seem to enjoy it quite as much as Bri did at this age, but she still has the body strength to hold herself up on Daddy's hand).

Walt and Bri played in the puppet theater while Lacie sat in my lap and watched, and then Walt read the book we had brought Bri to her and then showed her the "this is the church, this is the steeple" thing, which was a bit too advanced for her.

I was pleased to see that Lacie eats much better than Bri did at her age, though she had some reservations about avocado.

Bri helped toss the salad and when Walt held the phone to her ear so she could talk to Uncle Norm, she told him she couldn't talk because she was cooking dinner.

In conversations with Bri before and after dinner, I learned some interesting things.  Big elephants live in the zoo but little elephants live in your refrigerator and leave footprints in the butter.  They also smash food, like carrots, so that it can be fed to babies.  I also learned that an elephant was the father of a little sheep and when I asked who the sheep's mother was, she told me it was the bear.  Funny, but the sheep didn't resemble either of its parents.

We played a little with her Calico Critters playhouse.  

 

 There were four cars parked outside the playhouse, which she explained were for trash, recycle, bottles, and paper.

We had given her a bedroom set for the house for her birthday and oddly enough, the bedroom set came with a clarinet, I guess for those people who like to play the clarinet in bed.  She had one of the characters, who was not wearing clothes, play the clarinet and when I commented that the character had no clothes on and let her know that Aunt Jeri doesn't play the clarinet without clothes. Bri wants to know why.

I trust Jeri will write and let her know why one puts on clothes before playing the clarinet.

Such a fun day it turned out to be, ultimately.  I'm glad we are here, even if it's very, very briefly.