Sweet Home Alabama

Oh my gosh, help. I heard a hiss! Is what L said as she tried to climb on the top of our mother's car. Terrified, and laughing, she stood on the door frame of the passenger's seat and called for our dad. There's a opossum over here! I heard him hiss. It's a opossum in the woods! I turned to look at H, her eyes wide and frozen on the dark tree line, and stood still while my father went towards the driver's side of the car. He said, L, don't move. It's in the car. L resumed her attempt to climb onto the top of the Toyota Avalon. H made a small wimper-like noise behind me and I held my breath. Then dad laughed. While there might have been an opossum in the woods - our Grandpa and cousins had found one earlier that night - there wasn't one in the car, nor near enough to harm L.

This story really begins approximately 12 years ago when H went onto the back porch to give the dogs leftovers from dinner and began screaming hysterically. While everyone thought a snake must be wrapping itself around her leg, or she was being attacked by a crazy axe murderer, in reality, there was an opossum on the porch. Since that fateful, and funny, night our family has been a bit sensitive to opossums. I'll not go down the path of what this might say about our family: a hyper-sensitivity to an animal who plays dead when confronted.

I feel like opossums get a bum rap, although their tails are truly hideous; but that's one of the reasons I have so much fun visiting with my family, I laugh, a lot.

This past weekend we got to laugh at Squirms charming airline passengers and attendants, Squirms gnawing on barbecued rib bones, stories of old ladies giving my sisters mean looks during church, Squirms running after (and from) her cousins, my mom asking us if we needed to keep an empty plastic bag (that was really hers to begin with), Uncle J's horrible-yet-wonderful jokes, Squirms looking and acting like a turtle on its back after she fell backwards in her life vest, baby CQC grabbing hold of Squirm's luscious mullet and pulling, and other normal-yet-unique moments.

My first airplane ride!

Dreamland Ribs....I cry if you take these away.

Chasing cats in Grandpa's yard; while wearing different shoes of course.

Hanging out with the cousins.

My child is good at taking things from others.

I forced Auntie H to sleep in a closet last night.

Lake Day! So happy! This guy does whatever I say.

Reading to AMC.

Group Hug!

Are you cheeks chubbier than mine?

Baby love!

Cousins are the best.

Showing off her walking abilities in front of BVD.

Finally! Someone let me play with a remote!

Returning to Florida so she can get some rest.

Thank you to all our family members and friends who let us bother them this weekend! I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of playtime on the pier with her blonde cousins, but it did our hearts good to see her laughing and playing with them.