A couple weekends ago we loaded up for a trip to Branson to see Mimi, Papa and Meemaw. Abby has for some reason took a liking to miniature golf so we took the unprecedented step of visiting two mini golf establishments in a single day. First up was a pirate-themed course complete with pirate ship. Abby and I jumped up on the ship’s afterdeck to take a turn at the wheel. I yelled “Avast!” a couple of times.

When we finished the round they gave me this cool hat and eye patch.

After dinner that evening we walked across the street to a mini golf course with a Land That Time Forgot kinda theme. A raging plastic triceratops caught Abby and me off guard. BTW it turns out the triceratops might not have been what we all think it was.

The place had a big fake volcano that belched flames about every 15 minutes. I wanted to get a photo of Abby and Gina with the spewing volcano in the background, but every time the thing went off Abby ran away from it and all the pictures came out like this one with Gina waving frantically for Abby to come back. Even after seeing it do its thing about 50 times, Abby still wasn’t convinced that lava wasn’t going to come down and engulf her.

I even worked in a waterfall shot.

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Abby started prekindergarten today. Miss Selma’s doesn’t allow parents to get out of their cars, so I couldn’t get any first-day action shots. I had to settle for a session in the ghetto studio after I picked her up. (That mark on her arm is the remnants of a temporary pirate tattoo she got in Branson 10 days ago.) She was pretty shook up by having to change buildings and teachers and the fact that many of her classmates for the last 1.5 years were defecting for public pre-K. She didn’t go to sleep until about 12:30 a.m. the night before. But most of the kids in her class were also in her 2- and 3-year-old classes so she felt good about the whole thing. “I’m not anxious about pre-K anymore,” she said when I picked her up.

Strobist: SB-600 in shoot-through umbrella directly above and another SB-600 in a shoot-through umbrella propped up on the floor at her feet. SB-26 hair light in homemade snoot at camera left behind subject. I was going for the clam shell effect.

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Over the Fourth of July weekend, Gina, Abby and I trekked up to Southeast Kansas to visit my parents and Grandma Dailey, whose 95th birthday was on July 9. Gina thoughtfully picked up a couple of gifts and cards before we left Little Rock.

Abby loves to participate in birthdays so she was happy to assist Grandma in opening the presents.

Then we sat down to a seriously down-home meal of ham, purple-hull peas, cheese grits and cornbread.

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Abby went in for 4-year check-up and service on Wednesday. She’s 42 inches tall and 37 pounds. Right where she should be. Blood pressure is good and reflexes work properly. The doctor wasn’t worried about her nosebleeds and gray tooth that resulted from crashing into a wall head-first about a month ago.

Her vision is 20-20 and they also checked out her hearing. She had to put up her hand every time she heard the tone in the earphones. At first she just kind a raised it a little bit but with the enthusiastic feedback she was getting from the nurse she soon was throwing her hand in the air like she was trying to get rid of a lit firecracker. Her ears work fine.

She also got her last immunizations. Four shots. Two in each leg. She didn’t cry or try to fight the nurses, but she allowed as how she didn’t want any more needles poking her.

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Classic Fathers Day. Abby made me the traditional breakfast in bed and then we went out to pick wild red plums to make some Uncle Slappy’s Plum Delicious Red Plum Jelly. It was hot. By the time we were through Abby and I were pouring water over our heads to cool us off enough to walk back to the car.

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We finally got around to having a proper birthday celebration for Abby. We had a little thing at the Jump Zone for her friends from school and then we had another little thing at home for all her grandparents and aunts. It looked like a birthday bomb went off in the living room

It turns out you can get a cake made to look like anything these days. I think it might have something to do with all those reality shows about cake makers. Abby wanted a Princess Tiana cake, so Gina got Community Bakery to make a cake that looked like Princess Tiana. The top part was easy. They just used a Princess Tiana Barbie doll, but the bottom dress part is all cake. I was pretty impressed. Maybe I should watch one of those cake-making shows. That would probably blow my mind.

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Wasn’t it just yesterday that Abby was sleeping in this thing as a baby crib? When we moved into the new place we converted her bed from the toddler configuration to the full-on regular bed configuration. She’s going to be sleeping in her own place before we know it. She picked out the hideous bed clothes ensemble, by the way.

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Abby’s fourth birthday was Wednesday. We went to Buffalo Grill (Abby’s pick) with Aunts Jodie and Laney for a little birthday dinner.

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Goodbye hovel.

Hello something less hovelish.

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