Just when I thought my two-year old niece couldn't be any cuter, she high fives me. ("I did it! I did it! High five Aunty Jenny!")

Matt and I just back from Vegas. My father told me while we were gone it stormed and the large tree on the sidewalk that runs behind our house was now gone. When we went to pick up the mice, I went out back to see it for myself. Not only was the tree gone, but enormous pieces of sidewalk were torn out of the ground where the uprooting occurred.

Thankfully, no one got hurt and nothing was damaged (well except for the state's sidewalk, the tree fell into the empty street) and my father is actually glad it's gone not having to rake up its leaves anymore. Personally, I feel a bit sad seeing the empty space. It's the same sadness that strikes me whenever some fixture from my childhood dissapears.

Since Sarah is growing up in the same house (well, the extended version of the same house) that I grew up in, I also find myself feeling a bit sad that she won't share in some of the same joys that I had. The orchids and guava tree are gone and now so is the tree out back.

I wanted to explain to her that the tree was rebellious which is why it always shed its leaves at the very end of winter and in the summer show her how to catch praying mantises which somehow always found their ways into that tree, but no where else that I could find. I would have put orchids in her hair and show her how to cover the guava so the birds wouldn't eat them all before they ripened.

Instead Sarah will continue to surprise me and show me her own wonders, which will be just as wonderful if not better.