Monday, December 15, 2008

My Weekend Starring A, B and the Hip Hooray

This weekend I helped my mom move back to our hometown, The Big D. I drove the big old gigantic moving truck for her. Luckily, the The Big D’s Christmas parade (or Hip Hooray as Brianna called it) was this Saturday night while I was in town so I was able to see my niece Alex march in it with her little cheerleading group. She was so excited to be in the parade and she was adorable in her uniform! It was FREEZING! Alex was dressed in layers upon layers upon layers of clothes. This is her before the parade at the staging area.Brianna was very excited to be sitting (or wallowing, as she is in this picture) on the ground waiting for the "Hip Hooray" to start.
Unfortunately, it didn't start until after dark, so it was hard to see very much, honestly. Alex's group went by us so fast and she was on the opposite side of the road from where we were sitting. I crossed the street between their group and the next one and took off running down the street trying to get a picture of Alex marching and doing cheers, but one of their coaches was in my way the whole time.

Afterwards, we got to warm up at the Farmer’s Market with hot cocoa, chocolate chip cookies, and candy canes.
I was feeling pretty good that night because the woman in charge of the booster club that oversees the cheerleading group asked me if I had my driver’s license because she wanted me to move her car from the staging area to the Farmer's Market. I don’t know whether she was legally blind or whether my most flattering light is exactly and only at 5pm on December 13th in the old Sears parking lot of The Big D, but I guess I was looking especially young. 15 or 16 years old young, I’m not so sure about.

Today, the girls and I made Christmas ornaments for their Mommy, Daddy, MeeMaw and Granny. I put the names on the ornaments and they decorated them with snowflake and dog-in-Santa-hat stickers. Brianna made me sing "This Little Light Of Mine" over and over again. And she sang "Ah-sturbia" to me (you know, the song by Rhianna). Alex got very upset when she found out I had to leave to come back to Charlotte. She started crying and told me she wanted me to move to The Big D, and that I could share her room and sleep in her bed and we could cuddle. My heart just broke in two leaving her like that.
So that was my weekend. More exciting than some, less exciting than others, but because of the hugs and kisses and cuddles, better than most.

4 comments:

Zuzana said...

Ah Mel, I feel for you so, it must be difficult to say bye to such cute, cute nieces; but at least you can drive to see them. I am 1000 miles, at least, apart from mine.
Sounds like you guys had a great day.;))

Diane said...

Yeah, I'm going with legally blind.

Anonymous said...

Aww they're so cute - I love that she was willing to share her bed with you ;)

Heather said...

How sweet. :) It looks like y'all had a great time. I'm going to start calling parades "Hip Hoorays" now.That's too cute. Although it's probably cuter coming from a child than it would be coming from a 24 year old. Maybe I'll have to rethink that one!