Father Daughter Dance

It's a local tradition here.  Every year, around Valentine's Day, daddies and their little girls get all dressed up to go to the Father Daughter Dance.  It is SUCH a big deal.
This year was Maddy's first time, and she was excited.  She picked out her own dress ("Dark pink, Mommy, it has to be dark pink!"), she practiced dancing all week, and she sat so still and serious while I curled her hair!
They had a wonderful time.  Casey took her to the Japanese restraunt for dinner with another "couple"- a friend from work and his daughter.  Then they danced, danced, danced all night, or at least until she fell asleep in his arms around 8:45.

Here's the pictures, and in case you're wondering, she came up with these poses by herself!  She is quite a ham.

Cole is dressed up for his date with Mom.  He ran in from school and said, "I want to wear a black shirt and a tie for our date and I want you to wear a dress!"  And when I tried to put on a skirt and a sweater (it was cold), he said, "That's not a dress!  I want you to wear a dress and be fancy!"

Like Fish In A Barrel

My sister has a contract on a house that needs a lot of work. One of the most interesting...ummm...issues...is that the inground pool has fish in it. Real fish. Big enough to catch with a hook, as evidenced by the photos below.  (You might be a redneck if......you buy a house with a stocked swimming pool?)

Pawpaw (my daddy) and Alina (my neice)

Cole's bream

Casey caught his first fish EVER!!  (We kept looking at the picture and saying, "Where's the fish?"

Here it is!

Riiiiiiight!

Cole had to bring his catfish home, so it's swimming around in a bucket on my front porch.

For those of you who are curious, our theory is that the fish washed into the pool from the creek  nextdoor when our area had some flooding last spring.  And to answer the second-most frequently asked question: they'll probably keep fishing in it for now.  It's too cold to swim anyway!

Blogging and Potato Peel Pie

Preface: OK, I have been thoroughly shamed into picking the blog back up. I apologize for being a slacker, really.

Yesterday I drove my dear friend Bethany 2.5 hours to meet a friend she made in "Blogworld" (meaning she had never met this woman in real life). I didn't think it was crazy at all.

It reminded me of the book I just finished reading: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is written as a series of letters written as a result of a sheer coincidence between people who start out perfect strangers and end up being the very best of friends. Framed by World War II and the Nazi occupation of the unique little Brittish island town of Guernsey, it is a wonderful mixture of poignant sad moments and hysterically funny ones.

As the digital era takes over, fewer people write letters....but after yesterday, I realized that, in a lot of ways, a blog serves the same purpose: to connect and inform.

So here's my "letter" for today: connect with someone-send them a letter, a card, an email, or....write a blog!

(Oh! And read the book, it's great!)