Family to love!

I drove home with Joyce and Andy yesterday just in time to celebrate the wonderful love I found in the Mickolas! I walked down to their house for dinner and a typical all-nighter of talking. The tradition has always been to get there around dinner, drink some wine, put the girls to bed, keep talking (used to be Mom called to see if I was still there around 10:30 pm), and then head home close to midnight or whenever we were too tired. Gratefully, Friday night was nothing short of tradition! Gabe turned 18 recently - a shocker for me! How can a kid I can still picture at 3 be getting ready to graduate?!? Ava was off for a soccer party, so Sophie snuck off to play games with Gabe after the talking got too boring. And talk we did! And eat....and drink...and talk. We had some geography lessons with Sophie about where I am headed. Unfortunately we also found some pictures of cuy, a Peruvian specialty, online, too. (I won't tell you what it is, but do something nice and use www.goodsearch.com to find it. Enter "Metro CareRing" as your charity of choice, and search for all sorts of things. Metro CareRing, my former place of employment, gets a penny a search. I found out Sophie is a web-surfer/web-searcher extraordinaire. She can help support good causes every time she looks up something new, and so can you! Today is Saturday, though, so enough about yesterday. I went to see Sophie play soccer. Her team won, and I saw her play, as well as other girls I know from Holy Family School. Gratefully the sun was out, so I could bike to the game and get in some exercise before the big party!! My dad turned 59 today. We had family and friends over for a feast. Maddie, Mia, and Monica all hopped up on his lap to help blow out the candles, along with Noa, who turned 5 today. It was lots of fun, and party after party, I realize the entertaining and social bug I have is from my mom. Actually, I have had many discussions on this trip about how much of my personality and lifestyle could be attributed to my mom. A Franciscan priest in Mexico once called me "little Vicki" (we are both Victoria with different nicknames), and I am realizing how true that is. While many are wary of being compared to their mother, I am not sure I can fight it. We both already know I keep myself busy like her, often too busy, but it is because we have such big hearts and love so many people. So what a fun day it was to celebrate my dad and celebrate with great family to love! tori