Elyse got to place six candles on her cake and all of us joined around as Mom lit the candles for her.

Elyse is momentarily mesmerized by the candle flames.

Then with a mighty puff of air, she takes out all the candles! Let's get on with the ice cream!

6 years old!

Ms. Carrie kept reminding her that she would have to use both hands to tell people her age!

We kept remembering that rare icy night in New Orleans when she was born - it seems like yesterday!

A little time out from cake and ice cream to open a small gift.

It's not really clear what her sisters are doing here, but they seem to think it's cool.

We stayed on at our pleasant Abita Springs location, the Hillcrest Lake Villas, through Wednesday. It is surrounded by nice liveoak trees.

The shallow lake is even shallower this year and th cypress trees at the end of the lake are essentially sitting in grassland.

We had gone to Mandeville to take the family out to dinner on Tuesday evening, and then spent time with them on Wednesday. We awoke to this nice sunshine on Thursday, January 30 and headed back toward Atlanta.