I posted my photos from my visit to my family. You can see them here. Remember to click on “Start Slideshow.”

There are also some fantastic pics from our visit to the National Aviary on Dave’s Flickr site. You can see them here. Click on the photo thumbnails to the right to browse through the collection. (Dave takes great photos.)

And now, some highlights from my neices:

Erica (8) found my old acoustic guitar, the little one I begged my parents to buy me for some elementary-school-age birthday (I never learned to play it). I said, “Do you know who plays the guitar? Uncle Steve.”

“Is he good?” she said.

“Yeah, he’s real good.”

“Like rock-n-roll-good?”

Yeah. That good.

One morning I walked her up to the bus stop. She has particular “rules” about what her bus-stop chaperone may and may not do in order to maintain her cool status. No hugging, etc. So when we knew the bus would be coming pretty soon, I started teasing her. I wrapped her in a big, restraining hug and pinched her cheeks and said, “I wuv my wittle neicey!” She wiggled free, and the bus came around the corner. Just as it was approaching us, though, she turned and plowed into me with a hug so enormous, and so totally unexpected, we went right over backwards onto the driveway. The bus-driver opened the door, and there we are, looking up at him from the ground, where we are entangled and scraped up and laughing.

I was driving my nieces along in the car, and Dani (4) opened her window with the electronic button on her door. I told her to close it, since the AC was on. She put the window up.

“Is it locked?” she said. I hadn’t engaged the feature that lets the driver lock window-control.

“No,” I told her. “Do I need to lock it, or can I trust you to just be good?”

“Better lock it,” she said.

Another time, she was making a bunch of noise and running around when I had told her to take it easy.

“Dani,” I yelled, “are you being good?”

She stopped, paused, and shouted back, “I forgot!”