this pas weekend, hubby had a hilly bike race up in north ga.  it was a beautiful day and he did great… especially considering that he’s a Floridian athlete whose idea of “hill” training is riding repeats over the highway bridge.  the course had a mile of elevation change and he finished almost an hour quicker than he anticipated.

since we were going up to that neck of the woods anyhow, we decided to extend the trip a bit and visit our old office and my brudder’s family in their new habitat and new restaurant.  the restaurant is awesome and huge.  plenty of room for them to really grow it into a great business.  naturally, my SIL stuffed us silly and we were fat and happy with her fantastic cooking.  of course, this also meant that we got to see my baby girl for the first time since she was just an itty bitty.  we spent some time with her at the restaurant but she was shy and didn’t feel like getting to know us.  when we went back to their house, she decided to open up to us a bit showing us her great room and toys and how she can wrestle her daddy.before long, she had warmed up to us and let me pick her up and play with her. who doesn’t love being upside down?  it’s great fun! auntie arcanai is her favoritest aunt… she just doesn’t understand that yet 🙂 she likes to play “so big!”  i’m not sure if this is a well-known thing or not but it’s something we got from our mom.  basically, you say “so big!” in a high, sing-song voice and she reaches up to the sky to show you just how big she is.  I have fond memories of this and I’ve always done it with any baby I’ve ever held in my life.  apparently, it stuck with my brother too because this definitely was not her first rodeo.  it’s really stinkin adorable! the only family pic I got.  they were playing and having fun so it’s okay that their eyes weren’t all open.