Valentine's and "The latest portraits of the kids"

February 2009

Kevin works in the Bay Area now so he commutes up every week and stays a night or two with my parents while he goes to meetings and visits clients and etc. The rest of us usually stay home because I have to work and Emily has preschool, but the week of Valentine's we went up for a short visit. It was exciting because I had new portraits of the girls for my parents, and snuck in the 12-week ultrasound pictures of our baby on the way. Like "here's the latest photos of the kids for you - oh, yes, that is a new one!" That's how we told them they were getting a new grandchild. We held out pretty long this time - I guess the third time around I just felt like waiting.

My mom had an extra mylar heart balloon (see photo below from last year) like the one we finally blew up for Emily last Valentine's day...well I won't tell the whole story again but if you want to read it look through the old posts for "Saved by a pickle". Anyway so she had another one and we took it to the store to get inflated, and of course Allison had to get her own too.

Emily was so happy to have her giant balloon again. We made sure it could not escape and fly off into the sky again. It had a really heavy weight tied to it.

Allison liked her little balloon, too. Both made it safely into the car for the journey home. Driving up the Altamont pass, almost to the top - POP!! Emily's big Valentine balloon popped from the pressure. I guess it was just never meant to be with those balloons! Neither of them lasted more than four hours inflated. And after sitting in the closet all neatly folded for nearly two years. Allison's balloon, on the other hand, is still halfway inflated and kind of floating around the house.

This is the special Valentine Emily made for her Dad. It says "Hogs and Kisses". It was all her idea, and she had such a great time putting it together and decorating it. You can see the little drawing she made of her Dad right above the pig's tail. Cute.