Family Alive

Well, at least *I* am home for good.  Brian’s off to Boston on Tuesday to race with another team in a 4-day race.  He’ll be gone for a week, and we’ll miss him TONS.

But our weekend trip to Memphis was great fun.  Brian got 7th today, and he finished up 8th overall for the weekend.  The $$$ didn’t quite pay for the trip, but that wasn’t the point.  We had a fun time with our friends.  The kids enjoy race weekends infinitely more when they’ve got people to play with.  Besides Lauren and Anna’s company, we met 2 girls from Missouri, and the 6 of them played happily – VERY happily – for 2+ hours today during the races.  It was fabulous.

After the bike race, we enjoyed a fun lunch at Red Robin with an old college friend of Brian’s.  Bert and his wife, Stephanie, were wonderful lunch companions in spite of our exhausted and overwhelmed kids.  Poor Analise collapsed in my lap when the waitstaff brought out balloons and an ice cream sundae and sang to her.  She was so tired, she didn’t know what to do with herself. 

After celebrating Analise’s birthday several times in the last 6 weeks, she woke up today and asked, "Am I 4 now?"  "Yes, dear," I replied, "you are finally actually 4."   (She loves to use the word "actually".  It’s so cute.  Who’d expect a 4 year old to be saying, "well, no, actually, I don’t know where Josiah’s train is."  Huh!)  We’re having Brian’s family over for dinner tomorrow for the LAST celebration.  I’m going to make a nice fluffy pink cake and let her toss all the pink and purple sprinkles on it she wants 🙂

I can’t believe I have a 4-year old.  Where does the time go?