Hopping Along

The girls and I went back to school/work today. We spent the last four days of spring break with a house guest: my 85-year-old aunt whom we fetched from and took back to Pennsylvania. I'm not sure I want to make two runs to Pa. and back in a day so close together anytime soon, but Tootle sure hopes that I do. She wants her aunt to visit more often and reports that she knew it was going to be fun, but it was more fun than she expected. Doodle wasn't quite as happy: although she loved teaching her aunt to do Wii bowling, she didn't like the endless hours of golf on TV (Aunt G. really loves watching golf) and the higher than usual volume on the TV set. We played more games of Old Maid and Go Fish than we have in years, accompanied by lots of laughter. Aunt G. even insisted on helping me with some yardwork and enjoyed seeing how the plants that we've transplanted from her garden over the last few years are thriving in our yard.

Aunt G. has always been my favorite aunt; she was unable to have children (she had a heartbreaking number of miscarriages and stillbirths) so she poured love into her nieces and nephews and now my girls and their cousins. She was 12 or so when my mom was born so she was my mom's mini-mom within the family. Her husband died years ago and she became quite the businesswoman in her town, owning a successful shoe store that in some ways was the "sole" of the town's small business district. I hope I have Aunt G.'s positive attitude about life when I'm her age.