Birthday awesomeness

We had a fabulous weekend. Saturday morning, we headed uptown (for some reason they call it uptown rather than downtown--I guess because it sounds nicer?) for the March of Dimes Walk for Babies. Mabes was thrilled when she saw the jogging stroller, which was great because I didn't know how she'd feel about a long walk. By the time we found parking, registration was almost over so we booked it to the starting point. Dave was a little nervous about keeping up that pace for the entire walk (that's what happens when you walk with my mom--you get used to walking crazy fast), but I assured him there would probably be tons of people and we'd be lucky if we didn't mosey along for the entire 4.5 miles.

I was right. Even though they closed down a bunch of streets, there were so many people the beginning felt more like people were out for a leisurely stroll. That's fine, people, but for 4.5 miles? I'd like to be done by dinner! If I had my dad's talent of making freakishly realistic cow noises, I would have mooed loudly. But the pace picked up quickly, due in part to people that bailed early on. Apparently, they don't care about babies. Jerks.

It was interesting to see the different shirts people were wearing. Some were "in memory of," and others were commemorating their miracle babies. It was hard not to get a little teary, especially when thinking about Katie's boys; one is home from the NICU and one continues to fight and exceed everyone's highest hopes. The advances in neonatal medicine are truly amazing.

A few times during the walk, we let Mabes out of the stroller. She thought it was great during the homestretch when all the volunteers were cheering people on--she threw her arms up in the air and ran, yelling, "Yay, Emaline! I did it! See mommy,they're saying, 'Yay, Emaline!'"

We finished before noon, headed home, and Dave and Mabes made my birthday cake. Mabes took a nap, I showered, and Dave sent me out for a pedicure. After a long walk in the morning, my feet (and I) were very grateful. Then we took the cake and headed to South Carolina to see Em's friend "Hengry" & family. They made us pizza, the kids had a blast running around, then we put Mabes to bed there so we could stay and play games with Lane and Deserae (Henry's parents). We got home late, and though Mabes was wide awake the whole ride, she went right to sleep as soon as we got home. All in all, it was a really fun day--a great way to celebrate my first (of many, I'm sure) 29th birthday.

It was hard to narrow down the pictures to just a few, so I put a bunch on Shutterfly. Here's the link:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9AYuG7lw3aseU

Oh, and I heard my first tornado warning today! We went back to Henry's today and as we were getting out of the car, noticed the loud siren. I just thought it was a really strange sounding fire truck...that wasn't going anywhere. When we got in, we found out there was a tornado touching down close by, but it wasn't much and that was the extent of the excitement.