Mountains are pretty awesome, and my niece is pretty cute.  That’s my thesis.  Here is my first piece of evidence:

That’s great, right?  But not as adorable as this:

If you have a niece who’s that cute and that sad, you naturally want to help.  I thought that sitting with her and chatting might do the trick.

I was obviously wrong.  Companionable silence didn’t work, either.

And a good while later, I settled on the whole misery-loves-company thing and put on my best “Yeah, this stinks!” face.  She’s way better at that look than I am.  On the bright side, she loves stuffed animals and taking rib bones to show and tell.  We’ll get on famously as soon as I stop trying to get pictures of her.

After that blow to the self-esteem, I consoled myself by taking a picture of my shoes.

Turns out that I’m a lot easier to entertain than a tired 7 year-old.