Visit from Auntie Sharon!

We had a super visit from Auntie Sharon this week!!! She was brave enough to take the four hour drive all by herself in the dead of winter in Wisconsin... I was so proud of her!!! We would have missed out on a really, really nice time if she had chickened out.

Of course the main attraction was meeting Abrielle, but she also had some great bonding time with my older crew. She had them making candy! They got to dip pretzels, peanuts and marshmallows in chocolate and almond bark. I also got a tutorial on making Mom's popcorn balls. (I never have good luck with a candy thermometer, and she taught me how to make them without having to use one of those at all.) We had a BLAST. The kids probably ate more than they should have, but oh well. ;O) They just couldn't believe that Sharon was going to LEAVE all that good candy here and not take a single piece home with her. Aleksa must have asked her four or five times if she was SURE she wasn't going to take any home with her. lol!

Auntie also came with PRESENTS! They each got cool fleece blankets. While they were a big hit with all three kids, Aleksa opened hers and said, "A magic carpet!!!" and promptly took a trip to Jerusalem. :O)

The best part of her trip, however, was that we just got to sit and chat. I honestly don't remember the last time we've had such a luxury to do in person. We IM each other every day, and that's wonderful, but to just sit on the couch and talk about nothing and everything was so nice. Sharon and I have always been really alike - we wind up finishing each other's sentences and guessing each other's responses nearly every time we chat. Sometimes it is spooky, but always fun to know that even though we may not be physically with each other all the time as "in the old days," we do still have that Sister Bond that just doesn't fade. For instance, once she and I were talking via IM, and she was telling me about a rather stressful ambulance run she'd just taken, (she is an EMT), and as we were wrapping up the conversation, I told her to go have a Diet Pepsi and a bath. She quickly typed back that she was already drinking her Pepsi, and that she had planned to hop in the tub as soon as we were done talking! Ah, sisters. Aren't they wonderful!?

Another neat part of her trip was that Sharon is one of the only people on the earth right now that would remember what I looked like as a baby, and be able to compare Abrielle to what I looked like. Since Mom is gone, nobody had yet examined Abrie and compared her to what I was like as a baby. The rest of the family has seen her pictures and commented here and there, but it was nice to have an in-person inspection. Dad, of course has met her, but Dads aren't as good about that stuff as moms and older sisters. ;O)

For example, Sharon told me the red blotch on Abrie's eye was a birthmark like one I had on my own eye. (Well, it was on my forehead and stretched down on my eye). Sharon told me that my birthmark got darker when I was sick and that was Mom's way of knowing how I was feeling... and that it faded away as I got older. You know, stuff I wouldn't know, but will come in handy with Abrie.

Nobody can replace Mom, mind you, but well, Sharon comes awful close.