Good Morning Louisville.

Good morning Louisville. I have the song "Good Morning Baltimore" going through my head you know from Hairspray? Only I really missed my little big town (or would you call Louisville a big little town?) So I am humming "Good morning Louisville". One thing I learned on my trip is that my Father -in - law agree that the original Hairspray movie is the best of the two. I really like the new one one but I LOVED the the original. It might be because it is a childhood staple and therefore I owe it my loyalties. I'll have to watch both of them back to back and really decide.

We had a nice 15 day trip. I checked emails some and got a sitereader update while there and I just wanted to thank all of you who check this blog whether I write anything or not!

Anyway, we drove to Miami via Atlanta, where Mike's grandma and uncle's family met Miss D for the first time. A wonderful visit! Then we went to Miami. Total driving over two days was about 20 hours to and from. D did great on the way down, she slept about the same times that she would have during her naps and talked to us (babbled :) and sang along with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. She prefers music much more than books on tape (we listened to two David Sedaris, a Dave Barry, and the original unedited manuscript of Karouac's "On the Road")

We did a lot of seeing, sunning, and resting. Pictures are coming.
A few favorite things were:

• taking D to Papa's work were she charmed the ladies at Miami International Airport.
• Our days at the beach though, Mike and I were both so thrilled to be there the first day we applied sunscreen (spf 45) quickly and became striped for the remainder of the trip. Seriously it was stripes of pale right next to stripes of blistered sunburn. This prompted us not to take D to the beach on this vacation because the Miami sun is so brutal, luckily Nana and Dorothy had several days playing and bonding together while M and I were off getting sunburns!
• We met Bert and Jessica and their girls for lunch and walk in the waves. It was great! (we love meeting friends when they are vacationing close to us- We missed you Noltemeyers).

On the way home we came through Gainsville and visited with Aunt Jean, Uncle Hubert, and Wayne's family. It was more sweet time with family as D met them for the first time. D had a harder time coming home but still was pretty entertained in the car. I will still take vacationing advice from anyone who has travelled with kids as we have Mike's sabbatical coming up (!!!). One thing that was essential was having a big container on the floor under her seat where we had diapers, food, wipes, and toys so that the items were easy to grab when we stopped for breaks on the road.

Sigh, so hello Louisville, green rocking chair, mom and dad, friends, my own bed, and of course Ginger-dog. I missed you all. Very much. Drop me a line. I want to catch up.