Girl Time

My sister and her two girls went home yesterday. We had such a good visit but now it’s raining and I’m feeling sad (why is it so much easier to feel sad on rainy days?). We plan (hope!) to be heading to Argentina in February or March. Currently we live in Michigan and they live in California so, yeah, this was probably our last visit for several years. That’s hard! Oh dear, I feel the tears coming.

Okay, on to happier thoughts…

While they were here we had something going on every day. My nieces are 4 and 6, so I invited other little girls over one day for a “tea” party. Since none of the girls really like tea, we made punch but still used the teacups. Happy compromise :-) Another day we got together with other moms and kids at a friend’s house for a play date. My nieces loved tromping through the woods, seeing pigs and tiny kittens and great big dogs, jumping on the trampoline, and just plain having fun!

Our local library was participating in Read for the Record so we attended one of the story times and the girls had a blast listening to “The Story of Ferdinand” and making paper puppets. The ice cream was an unexpected treat, although since it came right at lunch time (our bad for picking that particular reading time) the girls weren’t very hungry when we got home. So we just packed ‘em up and headed for Battle Creek. My sister LOVES the store Tuesday Morning and hasn’t been to one since she moved to California last year. We spent a happy couple of hours scouring the store for good deals, made better by the additional 50% off all the already-marked-down items. I stocked up on a few Christmas presents. That gave me a warm fuzzy that for once had nothing to do with menopausal hot flashes :-)

My son and his wife came up on Saturday and my daughter didn’t have to work so we had a Family Day! Just hanging out and enjoying time together. We did go out for ice cream and Jon brought a new game he taught us to play. The girls loved all the attention from their older cousins!

Our county fair began on Sunday which is (I think) the best day to go. The rides aren’t operating yet so it’s a LOT quieter and not nearly so crowded. Also, if you take your bulletin from church, you get in FREE! It’s our family tradition to eat our way through the fair. This year we began with vinegar fries. For the uninitiated, these are freshly peeled and deep fried potatoes that we slather with vinegar. Goes great with fresh lemonade! Proper protocol involves eating, looking at an exhibit, eating some more, then checking out another exhibit, and so on, until we’ve worked our way from one end of the fairgrounds to the other. So between noshing on vinegar fries, corn dogs (hot dogs dipped in fresh batter and deep fried), and elephant ears (bread dough flattened into rounds, deep fried and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon), we saw all the animals, humongous vegetables, photographs (my daughter had entered several she’s taken this past year), and quilts. (Have you noticed everything we ate was deep fried??!!) Anyway, the girls enjoyed all the food but I’m not sure they appreciated all the exhibits we dragged them through :-)

The one exhibit they did enjoy was the quilt display. That’s because I had entered my most recent completed project, an appliquéd quilt of my oldest niece. They thought it was pretty cool to see her “picture” hanging with all the other quilts. I was surprised but pleased to see a blue ribbon attached to it! Now I have to finish the one of my youngest niece – one of my many UFOs (unfinished fabric objects).

It sure seems quiet now that they’re gone. I got used to little girl giggles and squeals :-) Oops, starting to feel sad again. I think I need to get up and get busy and stop thinking about how much I miss them!