This is the last post before the store opening next week This is the second time I've gone through this process, but this time it's much more; it's a bigger project and I am more invovled than last time. Each day has been an intense combination of education and frustration and it seems that I finally have the ability to handle it all.

I am where I should be now; it's the right time and the right place for me.

Wish me luck, although I hope luck plays a small part in the process. Perhaps instead, send me love.

durlx

Happy Uncle Bunny.




In the midst of all the work and attention that I have to give to the new store opening, my family arrived! It was great to see all of them... but it was hard. I had so little time and so much to do. Still it was sweet.

Especially that one afternoon when my brother and sister and her partner went to the casino and my brother's wife and I took Emma and Evan to the Aquarium. My brother's wife is so good at keeping me in the loop and Emma is a big girl now, not a baby, she has grown so much! And she is her brother's big sister so much!

We entered the Aquarium and Kris, her mother, told me that Emma had to use the bathroom and left me alone with my nephew in his stroller. He's a year old now and I had not seen him since he was ten weeks old, but he knew me... I rolled his stroller into the tunnel under the first big fish tank and sat next to him on the floor to wait for my neice and her mom to join us. Evan stared wide-eyed for about a minute, then looked at me and yelled BAH! and pointed to a fish and smiled. I agreed.

Then Emma and her mom went up the steps to the next level of the aquarium and Evan and I took the elevator. I pressed the button and he immediatly pointed to the indicator light and said BAH, BAH! So I touched the indicator light thing and he smiled. I kept pointing at the arrow indicator light thinking that I would teach him the connection between the call button and the response. He paid no attention until the light went on and the elevator door opened. At this point he was clearly expecting to be conveyed into the elevator and I am thinking that I have a very smart nephew...

They had had a late morning brunch, many hours later than my five ayem breakfast and I was starving, so while Emma and her mom went through part of the second level, Evan and I went to the food court, where a place called "Papa John's" was offering pizza. I was starving, sugar hit the wall starving, so I ordered two slices and paid an astounding amount for it, but hey, what do I care.

So, I wheeled Evan over to a table and we settled down to eat. I really needed to eat and I bit into the first slice, and then looked down at Evan in his stroller... and he was watching me bite into the slice of pizza... and at that point he remembered that he was hungry. He was about to make a big fuss about it, when I handed him a bit of the slice to eat. He took the piece of the pizza and bit into it with a smile, one hand in his mouth and the other waving at me...

The next ten minutes were so sweet; me eating some pizza and giving some little bits to Evan to eat, which he enjoyed immensely. It was just me and him, just for those few minutes, dining together for the first time...at the Aquarium Food Court... yea, it was sweet.

Earlier, we had been in the park at Jackson Square with Emma and Evan. He is as strong as a horse, enough so that it is hard for me to hold him when he wants to go to his sister. Emma is maybe half his size and weight, but she is obviously his loving sister. While he sometimes goes rigid when his mom or dad picks him up, when his sister picks him up, he is as limp as a sack of potatoes and she carries him around with great pride.




And this last pic that my brother sent me... I'm sure that one day Evan will hate it... but it shows so much personality for a someone with just one year under his belt.


Wow, he is very much loved by his Uncle Bunny and his sister Emma...