Since I met her nearly seven years ago, my grand-niece-in-law, Teddy Brown, and I have hit it off. At first, she liked me because I took lots of pictures of her, but now, every time I see her she bursts into a giant smile and rushes to me for a big hug. She and I always have fun together. At the family reunion together two years ago, we played pool, and I went into a long, silly diatribe in a foreign (but not specific) accent, mostly about rabbits, which had her laughing non-stop.

Last week in the midst of all the gatherings of family, the house got too crowded, and I went out into the big yard to find Teddy, who is now 10. She was happy to see me, so we set off on an adventure of sorts. We sat on a tall corral fence and watched the cattle roam and graze, giving the steers names like Elvis and Savanna, all the while laughing at the little kids playing cowboys and indians in the corral.

She had her camera, and of course I had mine, so we played around with a concept I saw on the internet not long ago called “Running from the Camera,” in which we set the self-timer to two seconds and ran away as fast as we could.

Then we tried to climb the trees in the yard. Two of them were too hard for either of us climb, and the mimosa in the front yard was easier than climbing stairs, but we found one that was challenging, and once we were both aboard, trying to find branches to get us higher in the tree, she said, “I can’t believe you’re this old and still have all this energy!”

“How old do you think I am, Teddy?”

“30?”