Kelsy & Sara Day

I'm not a parent. The rules about not having favorites don't apply to me. I can say with little to no hesitation that my niece/goddaughter Kelsy is my favorite of my brother's five (almost six!) kids.

That isn't to say I don't love the rest of them more than they can imagine, but Kelsy's always going to have a soft spot in my heart. She was assigned to me -- some smidgen of responsibility for her welfare placed upon my shoulders -- when I was twelve. That's younger than she is now, for those of you counting. Her mom and dad asked me to be her godmother and, while I only had a vague sense of what that actually meant, considering the days of that having any kind of official meaning are long gone, I decided it meant that she was supposed to be more important to me in some way than any other kid around.

The problem with that equation is that for the last 7+ years, my brother and his family have lived nowhere near us -- anywhere from a 4 1/2 hour car ride to a 4 1/2 plane ride (at minimum!). So the part about presence being more important than presents that Chris and Paula impressed upon me when asking me to be her godmother -- that wasn't much of an option once they moved, unfortunately, and the "ce" turned into a steady flow of the "ts" variety to compensate for my absence.

But not last week! No sirree! Chris had a last minute trip to the Twin Cities for a buying show and asked me if I wanted to spend a couple of days with my beautiful, nearly grown up niece. Of course I do!

We did all kinds of super fun stuff. The great part about hanging out with your 13-year-old niece is that you get to be a kid again. We meandered around Rice Park when the St. Paul Central Library wasn't open yet (drat!) and briefly walked through the Landmark Center.




We checked out the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden,






then walked Lake of the Isles. Yes, that's her poking a fish with my permission. I'm only slightly ashamed (of myself for letting her, and of her for wanting to, but since it's already dead, it seemed less egregious).



We had ice cream at Sebastian Joe's before lunch (!!!), and rounded out our midday eating with a turkey-bacon-croissant melt (with salad greens, I swear!) at French Meadow Bakery.

And all of this was before seeing "Up" in 3D, going shoe shopping @ DSW, and then to Borders to get Kels a new Manga novel.

I'm pretty much the best aunt ever. And way, super lucky.