Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Memphis

During the weekend before last, we went to Memphis to see James's family. We were especially excited to see Vanessa's great-grandmother, Grammy Dee!

Vanessa loves her Grammy Dee!
Grammy Dee was excited to see Vanessa too!
Vanessa had fun playing with her great-uncle Greg. (Oooh, "great-uncle." That sounds really old, Greg!)
Vanessa spent a good deal of time running around and playing with her great-aunt Lynn.
Memphis is the home of the famous Peabody Hotel, where a procession of ducks marches to music from the elevator to the fountain in the presence of roughly 300 people each day. Vanessa LOVED this. She could barely contain her excitement. Here, James is restraining Vanessa from jumping into the fountain.
I also had to try to keep Vanessa from trying to pet the ducks!
James, his dad, and his uncle Greg are giving Vanessa a tour of Beale Street.
I was there too!

Vanessa and her grampa on the trolley. For a few comedic reasons, the trolley took about half an hour to go one mile. They had a little trouble with the wheel chair lift, which looked like it hadn't been used in several years. Combine that with an unexpectedly large crowd of tourists that really should have taken two or three trolleys, and you have yourself an interesting ride!
James and Vanessa played in the model of the Gulf of Mexico that was part of the miniature Mississippi River, situated on Mud Island in the middle of the Mississippi. James is holding onto Vanessa's hands to keep her from running quite so fast, and to keep her from sitting in the water!
Well, eventually we realized that Vanessa was going to sit in the Gulf of Mexico one way or another, so we stripped her down and let her splash to her heart's content. James kept the sun off her and Greg went in to play too! This was the first time I had let Vanessa play in the water with just a regular diaper on. They really do absorb a lot of water!
Vanessa hasn't been smiling too much for pictures lately. She usually has a face of concentration instead. But James's aunt Helen got her to smile here!
Four generations of Maxteds -- Vanessa, her daddy, her grampa, and her Grammy Dee!


James's cousin Alex was really wonderful at entertaining Vanessa. Too bad she lives so far away!
We saw MORE DUCKS at a park nearby. Vanessa was in heaven.
Daddy and Vanessa went down the slide and played all over the playground equipment. Vanessa is starting to be big enough to enjoy most of the parts of a playground!
Vanessa really loved sitting in her other great-aunt Lynn's lap. (Besides Lynn being very nice, she also had extremely exciting pearl bracelets!)
Another picture of the four generations!



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