Aunt Elaine, Uncle John and Atticus

 One of my favorite weeks of the year is the week that my brother, John, and his wife, Elaine, come to visit.  This was the 29th year in a row that they have taken the time to come and stay with us.  They started their visits when Andrew was 2 in 1984.  This year as Uncle John got in the car with Kaitlin, as she took him to play racket ball with John and Robert, it was not lost on me that he has been coming to see us and taking care of us since before she was born and now she is chauffeuring him around.  For the record, he beat John Austin 3 games on Wednesday and Robert two games on Thursday.  John Austin did beat him 2 games on Thursday.

The timing of their visit this year was Atticus' first birthday.  As Marisa said, it was like a mini vacation-  We ate out, got to visit in John and Marisa's home, ate out some more, the guys played racket ball, Aunt Elaine went with me to Bible Study, we went shopping, they got to visit with Jennifer, Uncle John took a few naps, we watched TV and we ate out.

They also helped us celebrate Atticus on his birthday.  Kaitlin brought us all lunch, we ate cupcakes, put on party hats, sang and took lots of pictures.  A fun time was had by all.

 All the pictures on my blog today were taken by Aunt Elaine.

 She has a unique gift with Atticus.  Any time she takes her camera out to get a picture of him- he posed.  She even tried to take a video but she couldn't because he stopped what he was doing and just looked at her, mostly he smiled.  We all got great enjoyment out of it.

 Uncle John and the birthday boy.

 I decided to get in the action.

It was a great visit!  Come back soon Uncle John and Aunt Elaine and see this happy fellow again and us too!!!

Graduation Part I

Here is the first smattering of pictures from John's graduation. KimT dropped off a salad for us to enjoy and jumped in a picture with the graduate! She recanted the time she saved John's life. I was about to kill him for dropping an entire plate of desserts at the Wednesday meal and KimT laughed. That made me stop and think before I acted. John was thankful.
Here is part of our group
Kaitlin and Andrew moved over to get different pictures of John. They sat with a family that cheered for John when he graduated and Andrew and Kaitlin cheered for their graduate.
The star of the evening
The crowd.
Most of our crowd
Uncle Sherrell, Aunt Marian and Grandma
Uncle John and Aunt Elaine joined us too.

Grandma with her 8th college graduate grandchild
On Sunday this is who we saw at a local restaurant. How fun was that!

Faceless Portraits

I think it is funny when folks tell Kaitlin that if they had a camera as good as hers they could take pictures as good as she does. For all those folks, think about that for a minute- if you had Tiger Woods' golf clubs would you golf like him or if you had one of those handy dandy swim suits like Michael Phelps would swim like him?

Here is a faceless portrait for you Kaitlin!

John couldn't remember if he had been on the blog and now he is all over it today. Charles, are you going to come and see us and get your picture on the blog?????????????

Thanks for the Memories! plus Whippoorwill's return

My brother, John, and his wife, Elaine should be pulling into their driveway in Atlanta just about now. They spent the week here with us. This is the 25th year they have come to my house for their annual visit. They have been to our homes in New Orleans, LA, Pine Bluff, AR and now here in Little Rock. They are the best kind of guests because they just meld into our schedule. They never know what they will do when here.

For this visit we went to UALR and they got to see Kaitlin's pictures in the gallery. Afterwards we ate lunch with Brina at Dixie Cafe.
Kaitlin showed them her last project from her photo class.

Uncle John enjoying the photo booth feature on Kaitlin's MACSupper at Famous Dave's with Brittany.Even a jumping picture outside of Famous Dave's
Here they are pulling away this morning!We are so blessed to have John and Elaine in our lives.

On Tuesday morning I asked John how he slept. He said that he slept well until about 3 when he heard this strange call from some kind of animal that kept repeating. He said he had never heard it before. I explained what it was. He said that it sounded like it was right outside of his window ( I put John and Elaine in John Austin's bed, which was where I was sleeping. I have now moved up to Kaitlin's room. ( are you confused- I am and I live here) I knew that bird had it in for me. He thought he found me. Ha!) At dusk that day I took John outside and let him hear said bird. The next day, John ran before dawn. He said that the whippoorwills were high in the trees calling from one side of the road to the other. He felt sorry for those people still trying to sleep while that group of whippoorwills had their gab fest.

Said Bird hasn't bothered my sleep since I've moved beds. Maybe I can out-smart him!