Family Alive

You can’t beat having your mom around. I mean, at a certain age, it’s not preferable, but when you become a mom yourself, it’s great to have another mom to mom your baby. My mom arrived in town the day we came back from California. It’s her first visit to Alabama, and we’re having a great time in spite of the 90 degree weather (with heat indices over 100).

Last week, we visited the Birmingham Zoo with a friend of mine and her daughter. We saw the sea lions get breakfast. The flamingos were all posing right by the fence, so we got up close and personal with them. We took a train ride around the zoo and saw all the places we haven’t visited yet (we have a zoo pass, so we do the zoo in shorter blocks – it’ll probably take us another couple visits to see all the animals). The favorite parts, though, were the Lorikeet Aviary and the Butterfly Encounter. The Lorikieet Aviary was a small house filled with beautiful little birds, just slightly bigger than parakeets. They flock to you, especially if you have a little cup of nectar that you can buy right outside. They land all over you – from your hand, fighting over the nectar, up your arm, and probably in your hair. My mom had 10 on her at one point! One even settled on Analise’s head! She loved the birds:) The Butterfly Encounter is another small building filled with flowers and bushes. There are hundreds of butterflies flitting around. You can get right up close to photograph them. It’s very beautiful.

Have you guessed by the lack of pictures that we forgot the camera? Sorry! But we’re definitely going back to see both of those again, so I’m you’ll see pictures eventually.

Right now, my mom is working on painting Analise’s room. We’re having a great time redecorating it – from a bright mint green to a new clean light yellow. We’re going to hang a pretty quilt on the wall, hang wooden letters that spell out her name, and hopefully find some pretty window treatments. It’s going to look great – I’m so excited. Mom’s working on the third coat, though, and she wouldn’t have tackled this if she’d known how much work it would be. Again – pictures to come soon!

Last night, Analise saw her 2nd baseball game in just over a week. Brian had free tickets to the Birmingham Barons AAA baseball game, courtesy of Samford. We even had free hot dogs, chips, cookies and drinks. We were in an air conditioned box high up on the 1st base line with great seats. It was a great time! Lots of fun perks for faculty at Samford!

It’s so nice to have my mom around! I love my mother-in-law, and I really appreciate how wonderful it is to be close to her. But it’s so sweet to have this extended time for my mom and Analise to enjoy each other.