Weekend Visitors

Ya'll (anytime I am around Wynnes, talking to Wynnes, or talking about Wynnes my Southern accent comes out like hillbillies at a Stone Mountain laser show); ya'll, this past weekend one of my Dad's sisters and her Daughter, Haley (my Cousin, for those of you with no sense of deductive reasoning) came to visit us.

I have been going to Pickens, Mississippi (I bet ya'll didnt know that I was from a place called PICKENS. There is an actual story about how it got it's name: something about a man with no shirt on, picking his nose and falling off a bridge to his death. No lie. I am not making this up. This is what they told us as children. Right before handing us the keys to the riding lawnmowers so that we could pretend they were cars and the backyard was the grocery store -- in hindsight maybe not the safest practice ever -- but so much fun) anyways... I've been going to Pickens at least once a year since I was little, but since my life has gotten a little move-across-the-country-then-back-to-the-northern-most-tip-of-the-other-side-of-said-country-have-an-unexpected-baby-in-the-middle-of-a-research-heavy-graduate-program-support-husband-beginning-new-career busy, we have not been able to visit Pickens in a couple of years.

Ya'll, (see how I did that?) no trip that has ever been made by any human being in the history of the world has ever meant so much to me. It was Haley's first time on an airplane ever, and while I was a little bit sad that her premier trip on a big steel bird took her from one podunk town RIGHT to another, I had so much fun with her. I am in the process of staging a hostage-negotiation-scenario so that her parents will let her come back up in February for her birthday.

Here are some pictures of them loving on Miss Evie. Watching Angie with her was really emotional for me because it was exactly what I imagine it would have been like to watch my Grandma with her... Angie has every single one of her good qualities: her selflessness, tender heart, and steadfast values. And I just love her so much. And I love her daughter. And I loved watching her daughter with my daughter.

Please come back soon! (as if you have a choice... hostage. negotiation. remember?)