Amanda's Wedding: Part 2

Shouldn't all brides begin their wedding day as a pirate?

Well I guess only if your flower girl thinks she's a pirate...

Lily, the flower girl, and her mom (Laura), the maid of honor were a lot of fun to spend time with on Amanda's wedding day...

Laura laced Amanda up. I think this was the point where she got a little nervous...

She was a beautiful bride and her dad was so proud to walk her down the isle...

Geoff and his dad waited with anticipation....


And here I am standing up there to support my Amanda....

The ceremony was short but very meaningful...not too many tears. It was a beautiful day for pictures outside at the park and when they were all done, the wedding party boarded a boat and headed to the reception...


Geoff and Amanda looked SO happy getting off that boat and heading into the reception...


The reception at the boat club was filled with friends, family, food, and music. It was fun to get some of the LCC girls together again....too bad Kim wasn't able to be there.

Amanda and Geoff are going to make a wonderful couple! They look so happy together...

And this picture really shows their fun personalities...

Thank you Amanda for inviting me to be a part of your wedding day. I can't wait to visit Colorado and spend some time with you and Geoff! Congrats:)

Amanda's Wedding: Part 1

Last weekend was Amanda's wedding. Joel flew up on Friday morning so that he could go to the rehearsal and wedding with me. We finally got to meet Geoff for the first time! He seems perfect for Amanda and I'm SO happy that she has found the love of her life!

The very first picture taken at rehearsal was Lily (flower girl) running to Amanda for a hug...

It was fun to reconnect with Julia, another friend from college that was in the wedding...

I'm not sure if Geoff and Amanda were running away from the bridal party or running to the Beef House for dinner...

Playing Outside in Bellflower

After SO much driving, it was nice to relax for a week! I spent a couple days at my sister's house but hung out mostly in Bellflower. Evan and Paxson had lots of fun playing outside. Its been beautiful weather...a little unseasonably cold but a really nice break from the Florida humidity.

Evan got to sit in Grandpa's new truck...

And I'm pretty sure that's how the keys got locked inside. Oops....good thing it was only Evan's first week with Grandpa or he might have gotten in trouble!

On the Road Again...

As if driving two days to Illinois wasn't enough, I drove the next day up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (4 hours with road construction) for my friend Valla's Bachelorette Party. She had a small party with just the bridesmaids and we had SO much fun. Valla has been one of my best friends since high school and I'm SO honored to be a part of her wedding!

I stayed in Wisconsin that night and then drove to my brother's house on Saturday (2 1/2 hours after following someone who took a wrong turn). It was fun to see Jake, Melissa, and Cameron for a little bit before heading back to Bellflower...only an hour and 1/2 more.

I saw Evan for just an hour before I got in the car again to go to Champaign for another Bachelorette Party! Amanda's party was a lot of fun too and once again I feel SO honored to be a part of another friend's big day. She has been an awesome friend since college and I can't wait to visit her in Colorado some day!

Road Trip

Jodi, Pax, Evan and I survived our road trip up to Illinois. It wasn't as bad as we had expected. The boys did as well as two 1-year-olds could do in a car for two days! Thank goodness for the DVD player!

We left on a Wednesday morning and drove up to the panhandle to have lunch with some of my college friends that I hadn't see in about 4 years. Jenny, Justin, and Paxton were on vacation and it worked out perfect to stop and see them....



That Wednesday night we stayed in Birmingham at Joel's parent's house. The boys had fun playing with Grandpa Searby and Evan got to help Grandma fix pancakes on Thursday morning...



We stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch...


After a few more stops....


We finally arrived in central Illinois! It looks like a typical Illinois summer....corn and beans for as far as you can see, tomatos on the porch railing, and green beans in the garden.

Jodi and Pax Visit Florida

Somehow I convinced my sister to fly down to Florida and then drive up to Illinois with Evan and I. We had a fun few days in Florida before the big 2-day rode trip up to Illinois.

While they were in town...

The boys played in the ball pit in their diapers:


We went swimming:


We went to the splash park:



And of course Evan and Pax played with the rocks:

Merritt Island

Last weekend we were invited to spend some time with our good friends Ryan, Tori, and Owen. Ryan's parents have an awesome condo right on the Indian River on Merritt Island. It was SO relaxing and such a great time spent with friends. We ate lots of good food (Thanks Tori for cooking!), enjoyed the pool, and even went to Cocoa Beach on the 4th of July. The little boys had fun playing together and Evan has been talking about Owen ever since we left on Sunday!

This was our view from the balcony....


That bay is where I sat in a kayak for the first time! I gotta tell ya, my legs were shaking when I got in....but it ended up being really easy. I'm not sure that I'm ready for white-water-rafting though.


Joel, Ryan, and Owen took Evan on his first boat ride...



Evan and Owen enjoyed the big bathtub...

We went across the bridge to the city of Cocoa for a little bit on Friday afternoon. It was SO hot! You can see Owen eyeing the splash park from Ryan's shoulders.

And Joel and Evan went for a walk on the boardwalk...


Saturday morning was the trip to Cocoa Beach. We all did our share of skim-boarding and boogie-boarding. The conclusion was that Joel could boogie-board, Ryan could skim-board and you don't even want to see the embarrassing pictures of Tori and I trying to skim-board! Here are some of Evan and Owen instead...



Saturday evening we let Owen and Evan throw snap-pops (Joel's official name for the things that come in a little box of sawdust, you throw them and they pop on the ground). Evan loved them and just kept asking for more. We should have gotten more of those rather than all the sparklers. It was a little windy so they were hard to light. Here is a "snap-pop" picture but all the sparkler pictures are on Tori's camera. I'll have to post one later.



It seems like Tori and I are always the ones taking the pictures and never get to be in the pictures so here is our "Happy Fourth of July" picture that we took of ourselves....


Thank you Ryan and Tori for an awesome weekend! We can't wait to do it again!

Singing

Yesterday morning after breakfast, Evan wanted to sing. This is what I could catch on video...

A Big Week!

I think this blog could actually be 4 different blogs but I'm going to try to cram it all into one!

"Fireman Hat and Tomatoes"
I found a fireman hat at a garage sale last weekend and brought it home for Evan. He's been wearing it all around the house since I gave it to him. I can hardly get him to take it off for naptime. A couple days ago he was pretending with it and this is what he came up with...



"Evan's First Movie"
Yesterday morning it was storming and pouring down rain and I didn't feel like sitting home all morning. I remembered that our movie theater offers free kids movies throughout the summer so I thought Evan and I would try it out. Charlotte's Web was playing...what a perfect first movie for Evan. He immediately loved the idea of the "big tv" and wanted to know where the remote was. He also had fun talking to the "big kids" around us. Although the gradeschool boys in front of us did asked me to tell Evan "to stop staring" at them and that it was "kind creepy." I explained to them that this was his first movie and he was watching them to see how they behaved during the show.

I fully expected Evan to last the first 15 minutes and then we would go find something else to do. I was wrong. We were there for just about the entire movie....1 hour and 40 minutes. He loved the animals and kept asking where the "big red barn" went. He talked about it all day and I think we'll try to go to another one next week!

"Plain White T's"
Joel and I went out last night! We heard that the Plain White T's were playing downtown so we found a babysitter and had a little date night. There were 3 opening bands that we'd never heard of and then the T's played. They were a lot of fun and very entertaining. I definitely prefer their sing-songy "Delilah" and "1,2,3,4" songs over the more "poppy" songs but it was fun to get out of the house and do something that we hardly ever do anymore....listen to live music.





"Big Boy Bed"
Evan has always had a daybed in his room in addition to his crib. A few weeks ago he started asking to take his naps in it. We let him do a few naps in the "big boy bed" and then he started asking to sleep in it at night. We really had no intentions of switching from his crib until he tried to climb out but it seemed to happen naturally and now he's been sleeping in his "big boy bed" for 2 weeks. We took the crib down this week and it was kind of sad....our little boy is growing up fast!