Like Riding a Bicycle

I looked up and saw that both Walt and Laurel had reached for cameras and were aiming them in my direction. I was standing up, balancing Bri on my hip, and rocking back and forth, which had made her stop crying.

Amazing how it all comes back to you. After all those years of holding, rocking and comforting babies, you get a baby in you arms and you start doing all the same old things again, with the same results. (Of course when I was doing this 30+ years ago, I had less flab and more hip!)

We've had our last "grandparent fix" for this trip, as we will be leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We spent a couple of hours at Tom and Laurel's and both got good opportunity to cuddle our granddaughter. Bri and I had a chance to do some bonding. She rewarded me with some smiles and one chuckle, which was very cute. I expect to get a lot more when we next see her, in July.

Just before we left, they put the baby in the crib. They are starting to wean her out of her cradle and into the big crib, in preparation for Laurel's return to work in a couple of weeks. I loved looking at her under the 49er mobile that we gave them at Christmas. Even though she is a girl, Dad is a dyed-in-the-wool 49er fan and I wanted his daughter to start off in this world right!

After we left Tom & Laurel's, we drove over to Maravilla to get Alice and bring her back here for a BBQ...hamburgers and corn on the cob. Perfect holiday fare.

But the fun came after dinner, when Joe brought out the top of their wedding cake to serve for dessert. Their wedding was in October of 2006. The top had been duly wrapped and frozen for a year and they took it out in October of 2007 and had some then, but there was more than they could eat, so rather than (a) throw it away (which I would have done!) or (b) wrapped it up and put it back in the freezer, they stored in the refrigerator.

So it's been sitting in the refrigerator for six months and they figured that now was as good a time as ever to finish it off.

Joe carefully unwrapped it and cut into it....

...and pronounced it edible. He and Alice Nan fed each other pieces and then offered slices to the rest of us. (You'll have to watch the video). Actually, the filling, which was kind of a fudge chocolate, wasn't bad. But I dunno...the others were surprised that the cake itself tasted good, but I didn't think so.

Fortunately, there was ice cream to top it with and I ate some of the crumbs with my ice cream, but I fear I left most of the actual cake.

They decided to toss the leftovers this time.

Good decision.