Mrs. Emma Vance Visits Amityville (and E.V.)

Emma Vance(s)

My grandmother, E.V.'s namesake, recently retired after 69 years (!) as a nurse. She began working as a nurse in Brooklyn when she was 17, and eventually landed in Orlando, where she worked in the O.R. until about a month ago, when she decided to retire at age 86. It was a big change in her lifestyle (to say the least), and her decision to put her proverbial nurse's cap in the closet was both a sad and joyous occasion.

*Side story: Recently my grandma told me perhaps my favorite of her nursing stories: She told a scrub tech in the O.R. that a newly-set operating table needed to be broken down because she had seen someone touch it, and thus it was contaminated. The (lazy) scrub tech argued that it wasn't contaminated and refused to break the table down and reset it, so my grandmother hopped on the table and rolled around for a few seconds. She stepped down onto the floor and said, "Well it's contaminated now, isn't it?" Ha! What a spitfire!

One of the benefits of retirement is that she was able to come to Georgia to visit us, which has only happened once since our wedding in 2005. We were happy to host her at Amityville--although I'm sure the pleasure was all ours since the squeaky floors, broken knobs and fickle temperatures were in rare form during her visit. I was just so glad for E.V. to spend some quality time with her great grandmother that all of those things didn't matter much. Truthfully it was a bit of a mundane few days, and I kept apologizing for our lack of exciting activity; her response was that just playing with the baby was exciting enough, and I must agree. :)

After a four-day stay full of, well, simple things like morning tea, shopping, naps and eating out, we sent Mrs. Emma Vance home today. It's always so sad to say goodbye, but hopefully these few pictures will cheer me up as I remember these rare few days together in Georgia.

Mrs. Emma Vance insisted that E.V. have a biscotti for breakfast,
which took her THREE DAYS to finish because it was so big!

(Of course Great Grandma's biscotti was more interesting than her own.)

We had a nice family dinner out where Glenda the Good Witch joined us
E.V. wore a fancy dress from Grandma. :)

Monday morning we started our day with a little bottle...

...a VERY LITTLE bottle...

...then proceeded to show Great Grandma all of our favorite toys and places to play.

(Oscar wouldn't leave their side, meaning he photo-bombed all weekend...)

Monday afternoon we went to lunch and to E.V.'s swim lesson, where she demonstrated her floating.

  

And Monday night we hung out at Grandma's house,
where we learned this little trick. T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

This morning E.V., Great Grandma and I went to breakfast at J. Christopher's...

...where E.V. scarfed down an egg...

...then entertained the whole restaurant with her spoon-banging skills.

Then it was on to more playing (of course)...

...and Oscar would NOT leave the Emma Vances alone.

All four generations together again!

Then it was time to say bye-bye, and E.V. refused to wave goodbye to Great Grandma. I think she was in denial.
I know I am. :(