Surprise Baba!

After another rocky night - albeit not as terrible as that second night - Beth, Mallory, and I checked out of the hotel, met up with Julie, Kate, and Mom, got us some vanilla lattes and schmagels, and hit the road. I don't know why we thought it was so funny, but we substituted the first letter of every word with "schm" and laughed ourselves to tears at the convenience store. A great way to start a road trip if I do say so myself.

Mallory promptly fell asleep in the car - giving me the opportunity to trim her fingernails - and woke up just in time to break for lunch. After a quick bite to eat she fell asleep again and was basically out until we got to Baba's.

We pulled into the drive way and were met by Uncle Mark. Mallory jumped right into his arms too! We all sort of fell into rank behind him and followed him into the house. Baba was in the kitchen looking for something in a lower cabinet and didn't see/hear us come in. Mark was saying "Mom" to get her attention and Baba was answering back "What?" without looking up. When she finally stood up and turned around she nearly had a heart attack. There we were! She was so shocked/happy/surprised that at one point after the hub-bub settled down she said, "if I had any whiskey in the house I think I'd drink a shot."

We had a lovely dinner with Mark and Laverne - who had stashed a big salad and two pies in Baba's laundry room. Baba kept saying, "when I saw how much lasagna and garlic bread you put in the oven I thought you were crazy! Now I know why." And, "boy it's a good thing you had a salad too." :)

We had a very nice visit. Went through boxes of old pictures, caught Baba up on work, baby stuff, etc. But man, was it cold in that part of the state! It actually got down into the 30's at night. I couldn't believe it. My Texas-blood wasn't used to that sort of weather so late in the year. I was afraid Mallory would get cold too, so she slept in her PJ's with a cardigan sweater buttoned up over top.

To commemorate the visit we took Baba over to Wally-world for formal portraits. The whole experience was something of a fiasco. Mallory was hungry, Baba was a little overwhelmed at what was going on, and the picture lady sort of didn't get it. Oh well, at least we have photo evidence of Mallory's first meeting with her great-grandmother.

Mallory added "tweet-tweet" (sounds like tut-tut) to her repertoire and cut the other top center tooth while we were there! Two on top, two on the bottom - a cute somewhat symmetrical (for now) smile :)