Happy Birthday, Alan!

We left Philly mid-afternoon on Sunday to split up the drive. We went the rest of the way on Monday - also Alan's 30th birthday! Not much to report for this day as it was spent driving and just being exhausted...

The End.

Sunday

On Sunday morning we met up again at the King of Prussia Mall. Beckie and Aaron met us there as well as Patrick and Laura, Grandma and Grand-dad, and Grandma's dear friend Sandy who came out for the weekend's festivities. We did some birthday gift exchanging for the girls and just spent a little more time together.

Adeline with Aunt Laura and Uncle Patrick.
They gave her her first pair of Reefs - real CA shoes :).

High on my priority list was having Adeline do a build-a-bear. We have two build-a-bears in our home right now and each has been tied to a special time and place. We have Chicago whom I built in Chicago on a choir tour in college, Forest who was built at Downtown Disney in honor of my summer at Forest Home (this bear was also a gift for Alan), and finally Adeline made our new friend Philly, in Philadelphia :).

Taking Philly home...

Wedding Day!

Today's the big day! Here are some pics I took.

Aunt Laura did Adeline's hair.
Everyone asked me if it was curled. Nope! :)

Laura (MoH) helping the bride into her dress

Processing

Most beautiful in the bunch!
They did a great job, making it all the way
down a very long aisle with ease :).

The glowing bride and her father

Introducing:
Aaron and Rebecca Bayles

Grandma loving time with the girls at the reception

Back in the dresses for some pictures after lunch.
Still couldn't keep them away from the food! :)

The Fam

After the wedding, around dinner time, we all met up again to enjoy some appetizers and beer at the Manayunk Brewery in Philly. The girls had a great time running around and I do believe a good time was had by all :).

Thirsty!

Beautiful :)

Handsome :)

Tired!

Hangin' Around...

...and being silly :).

Day in Philly, Rehearsal & Dinner

This morning we had a couple of hours to go into the city and sight see a bit.

The Philadelphia Skyline

Independence Hall

The fam in front of Independence Hall

The Liberty Bell

Adeline and Grandma with a horse
Adeline loved all of the horses pulling the tourist carriages.
We had to save the memory :).

Adeline had her first ice cream cone - Strawberry, mmm!

Also today, of course, it being the night before the wedding, we had the rehearsal at the church followed by a dinner at a very fancy retirement home. A dear parishioner from the church where the groom, Aaron, is a priest treated us all to steak, salmon, wine and champagne. It was lovely!

Gathering, chatting, rehearsing, etc...

Grandma & Evelyn

Aunt Laura and Uncle Patrick

The Rehearsal Dinner

Beckie had the foresight to put us on the side of the room where there was some open space for the kids to run around and play a bit but be out of the way. I brought a couple of things to keep them occupied, and everything went very smoothly in that department! :)

Grandma loving her grand-girls

Late night. Tomorrow's the big day!

Road Trip!

This morning we left for our road trip to Philadelphia for Alan's sister Beckie's wedding. We planned for a 12-hour day and that's pretty close to what it ended up being, including stops and lots of traffic over that last hour or so. A lot of trees had fallen onto the highway in Pennsylvania due to a severe storm the night before, so the last little bit was pretty slow going!

We packed up the car using just about every eensy bit of space! My mom (aka Amma) was very gracious in allowing us to borrow her car for the trip while she is out of town. What a blessing! There's no way we could have done this in our little sedan.

We left at 8:29 in the morning, made a stop at the church to pick up a couple of things from Alan's office, followed by a stop for the rare treat of McDonald's hash browns for me (love those things! ;-), and then we were on our way!

Eleven+ hours, three stops and two & a half tanks of gas later, we made it!

Loaded up!

Evelyn now sits facing forward!

This is how Alan looked for the vast majority of the day!

Ohio!

Cool Ohio bridge

Pennsylvania!

Adeline's #3

We celebrated Adeline's third birthday in the morning with opening presents. (Truthfully, Mommy couldn't wait to give her the gifts! :) Her main gift was a Leapfrog toy she could play with on the road trip. It teaches writing skills and letters. She has had tons of fun with it already!


At noon, between thunderstorms(!), we met Hannah and Kara at McDonald's for a little celebration including cake.

Happy Birthday, Adeline!