Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Another Family Get Together--aka Wedding

I am playing a bit of catch up on blogging as I seem to have a recent problem of remembering to bring my camera with me when we have gone out of town and I am therefore at the mercy of others in getting pictures. And then of course when I do get them, I don't have time to download them and add them on here. So I am getting caught up while attempting to keep things in chronological order. Bear with me here.....

On 9.10.11, my cousin Arielle and her now husband Jordan got married. The wedding was back in Wisconsin and my Dad's entire side of the family was there, which always makes for lots of fun. The kids loved it and despite the fact that we drove 4 hours on Saturday morning, went to the wedding, crashed at the hotel, woke up, went to a brunch at my aunt and uncle's and then got back in the car and drove 4 hours home, the kids loved it!! I think the highlight for them may have been getting to stay in a hotel, although we didn't even use the pool, much to their dismay. But they couldn't get enough of the continental breakfast!!
A few pics from the wedding...


These aren't the greatest quality pictures, but they tell the story well enough. There was a kids' table at the reception, filled with coloring books and markers and fun activities and LOTS of candy. My kids (as well as all of my other cousins' kids) were in heaven!
Blake was quite focused on getting as much candy as he could before someone noticed.
My aunt Adie and I


My Dad took the boys out on the golf course for awhile during the reception. Wyatt came in and said, "Mom, Pops even took us for a ride on the golf cart!"
I don't think there is any place my Dad would rather be with his grandsons than on a golf course!
The happy couple!
Instead of a guest book, they had a photobooth for guests to take their picture in. The 'gifts' on our tables were magnetic holders to display our photobooth pictures in and a copy of our pictures were added to a book, which served as their guestbook. We had a blast with it!
Notice Blake's fixation on his candy...



Matt and two of my cousins....my cousin on the left, Bob, is a huge softball addict. He played on several teams over the summer and when the seasons were finally over, he had played in over 150 games!! Can you believe it?
When this picture was taken, Sadie was dancing her heart out on the dance floor. She wouldn't even leave for a quick picture, hence the missing member of our family.
The quality of this picture is horrible, but I had to put it on here because you can still see how red and hot she was from dancing. She had been asking when the 'dance party' was going to be from the moment we arrived at the reception. And once it was time to dance, she ran out on to that dance floor and didn't leave (not even for water or to go to the bathroom) until we pulled her off after almost 2 hours. She danced with everyone and anyone who was willing, but mostly wanted to be by the bride! At one point, they formed one of those circles where people took turns dancing in the middle and she walked right into the circle and danced her heart out. I had to ask her to come back to the outer circle or else I think she would have stayed there all night. Wyatt, on the other hand, was embarrassed for her, despite the fact that she could not have cared less what anyone thought. It was pretty comical to watch her and then to watch Wyatt's reaction to her. As we were walking out to the car, she even said, "Daddy, I couldn't stop dancing. It's a good thing you picked me up because I just couldn't get myself to leave the dance floor."
Saying goodbye to my Aunt Adie, you can see how sweaty she was!
The next morning we went to my grandparent's house (my mom's parents). My Grandpa and Grandma Criter live about 30 minutes away from where the wedding was, so it worked out perfectly for us to get to see them. My Grandma's health has been failing over the last year or so and we haven't gotten to see them as much, so we enjoyed being able to spend time with them. My kids loved playing at their house. It's a pretty old house with all the fun hidden doors, laundry chutes, hiding places, etc that newer houses don't have anymore. And it was fun for me to get to see them play the same things my sisters and I used to play there when we were little. Sadie even found my Grandma's old hats, gloves, purses and shoes.



My Grandma loved getting to see Sadie enjoy all her stuff so much and actually gave most of it to Sadie to play dress up with.
Four generations
Our family with Grandpa and Grandma

Back at my aunt and uncle's house for the brunch with my Dad's entire family
These next few pictures need explaining.....
When we were younger, all the cousins were line up for a picture at Christmas time. We started doing it by age, but as the years went on (and my cousins kept growing!), we would do one picture by age and then another by height. So it has become a bit of a funny tradition to do it at each wedding when we are all together. The last time we did it was after Lindsay and Rob's wedding, but for this one we were missing Lindsay, so we left a space where she would have been!

Everyone said, "Get a little closer guys! Look like you are related!"
We had a great time my family and felt very fortunate to be able to spend some time with my Grandma Criter. She is actually back in the hospital now and although it looks like she will come home soon, we don't know when we will be able to see her again. I am so thankful that my kids have 6 of their great-grandparents still living and treasure any time we get to spend with them.

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