Balloon go Pop!

During Brian's last work trip, Ellie and I packed up and went to Pensacola for a few days to visit Abuela y Popi (mom and dad) and Uncle David & Uncle Jon and Great Grandma & Granddaddy (dad's parents). As we were coming into town, I decided to call brother Jon to see if he could meet us somewhere for dinner since mom & dad were going to be at a banquet. Actually, I texted him and he was quite impressed with me! Anyways, he could and we had a great dinner at Moe's catching up on what's been happening in his world. Jon is my youngest brother (the youngest of 4) - I'm the oldest, so this means a lot to me and I think to him that we are making an effort to establish a good adult relationship. I just love my siblings so much and often still think of them (at least my brothers) as little boys when we were growing up. That's just not the case any more and I'm so proud of them both. Jon does AMAZING work as a custom cabinet (and other wood furniture) builder. He's done this for about 8 years, I think and has really made a name for himself in Pensacola. David (3rd youngest) is about to graduate from UWF with a film degree! Then he'll go out to Colorado (truly God's country) to work on writing and developing his career. He too does AMAZING work. I never would have believed my two brothers would choose such creative careers. Of course, Amy and I are quite close since we're only 18 months apart and both girls! I don't really think of her as my little sister because we've shared so much along the way. She is happily married to Chris and living in ATL. She'll graduate with a master's degree in English Education in May; but plans to teach history as soon as she can.

We also got to see Ellie's Great Grandma and Granddaddy since they too live in Pensacola. We were invited to their house, which Ellie has never been to. They had this chair of stuffed animals and a balloon which they said had been there two years but we're not sure it would have lasted that long. Anyways, Ellie dug right in and since she's always loved balloons, she went straight for it. She was tossing it to Grandma and Granddaddy and they were playing right back. This went on for about 10 minutes until finally the 'Balloon went Pop!' Since it was so weak, it didn't hurt her; but for the rest of the time we were there, she kept saying 'Balloon went Pop', 'Balloon went Pop'. It was so funny. Well, Granddaddy couldn't have her not have anything to play with, so he gave her this stuffed polar bear who was appropriately named 'Pop'! The next day, my very thoughtful and very smitten-with-his-great-granddaughter Granddaddy went and bought her another green balloon. This is the one in the picture above. We had such a great visit.

For more pictures, click here.