Trip to Michigan....again ;)

Last week Elle and I flew to Michigan, just the two of us. It was a very sweet time because anyone who has multiple children will attest to the fact that you rarely get one on one time with your younger one...at least right now. It was fun, and easy, to just have one little peanut to worry about. The purpose of the trip: bridesmaid in my college roomie's wedding!!

Friday morning a great friend of mine picked Elle and I up at 7am and took us to the airport, so LD could take Clare to another great friend's house (yes we are blessed with friends!!). Clare spent the day with our friend Jodi and her twin 3 year olds swimming. Needless to say, she did not miss me at all! Elle and I were all ready to go when we were delayed an hour. Elle handled the delay and the flight with ease, not a peep. She even fell asleep as we landed for a quick cat nap.

We spent the weekend at my parents house and my mom and dad watched Elle while I participated in wedding festivities. It was very fun being back with my college girls and having some girl time. I also loved my parents having special time with just Elle to really see her personality and what a joy she is!

The wedding was very fun and Clare met a new boyfriend, Landon! He is 14 months and the two of them were just loving each other..it was very cute, though daddy may not approve of their open mouth kisses;)

We headed back early Sunday morning after giving a Father's Day hug to my dad. Emily, my cousin headed home with us for 2 weeks, which has already made life easier and fun! We have lots planned during her time here. Of course we were delayed another hour on the way home and were thankful to be back as a family by Sunday afternoon.

Trip to Michigan Part 2

The second half of our trip was spent with LD's family in Reading. Our families only live an hour from each other now, which makes it really nice! The highlight of our trip to Reading was LD's neice Kristyl was getting married. There were a lot of reasons why we were excited about this wedding but the two biggest were: 1. Kristyl and Jaap came to visit us in Charlotte last spring and we really had a great time getting to know him. Jaap is from the Netherlands and his family came in for the wedding, which made it exciting for him. 2. Clare was asked to be the flower girl!

Clare has been practicing being a flower girl since Christmas and we have talked a lot about it...but she's 2 1/2 so my hopes weren't extremely high that she would carry out her duties ;) The day of the wedding LD's mom, Clare and I had spent the morning at the campground where the wedding took place helping to set up. Clare was so tired so after lunch I took her home for a much needed nap. Clare fell asleep in the car and took a 10 minute cat nap and then played in her bed for 2 hours deciding that was all she needed. Since no nap took place my hopes really were not high. But...when it came time, Clare pulled if off! She was incredibly cute and she knew it. She kind of forgot to throw flowers down the aisle, so when she got to the end, right in front of Jaap she just stood there and emptied her basket...pretty slowly, but it was cute.

Elle rode in a little wagon down the aisle with Tyce, Kristyl and Jaap's 5 month old. Both of the babies knew they were so stinkin cute and grinned ear to ear. The girls were up til 10:30 playing and dancing that night, and thankfully we were headed home the next day.

Before heading home I was able to attend my college roomie and dear friend Renee's bridal shower. It was great to see some of my college friends and Elle and I will be heading back to Michigan next weekend for her wedding! The drive home was LONG. We left at 3pm and got home at 2am. Both girls fell asleep about 10pm, but Clare woke up at midnight and talked the next 2 hours straight..about everything under the sun. I would just hear this little voice say "hey mom, come here I have a question..." and it would be about Santa or her birthday or Michigan, something totally random. Thankfully both girls slept til 10am the next day.

Two weddings and a bridal shower within a week is a lot! We are all still recovering from our big adventures!

Trip to Michigan...Part 1

My nephew Joseph

Who wants to read a blog post that starts with Part 1?? That is definetely not an encouraging title, but our week long trip to Michigan definetely deserves 2 parts considering the events we participated in!

Right before we left for Michigan we joined the mini van club. L.D. was not a huge fan in the beginning, but I won him over. I LOVE our mini van, and that could probably be a blog post all on its own. But, I was truly looking forward to this 11 hour drive knowing that everyone had their own personal space (even Bella had her own seat) and we had a DVD player built in. Life was good! The ride up was not nearly as blissful as I imagined and Elle was not happy with her rear facing seat after about the 5 hour mark. The biggest highlight of the trip up was that we only stopped 2 times and Clare had no potty accidents...pretty impressive!

We went to Blissfield to my parents home for the first half of our trip and it was the first summer trip we have ever made to Blissfield. They have a cute little pond and lots of space to run around. We LOVED being there! Clare played outside so hard and was dirty the entire trip. I loved seeing her play in the dirt, try to fish, eat outside and pretend she was a farmer in the barns. We set up Elle's exersaucer outside and that is where we spent the majority of our time.

One of the reasons we headed home when we did was for my high school friend Rachel's wedding. I have a very unique group of high school girlfriends that are still very close. We all drove in from different parts of the US (minus Michele who JUST had a baby) to celebrate Rachel's big day and it was so much fun being together. They definetely had a super memorable wedding day with the power outage during the ceremony and the tornado sirens going off. Thankfully Rachel handled it like a champ!! During the tornado warnings, my poor parents were watching the girls and had the girls stocked up with snacks hiding out in the mudroom.

On Memorial Day my parents had about 40 family friends, plus our immediate family over for dinner. It was a huge highlight of our trip to just spend time with people we love but don't get much time to see. I also got to meet my newest newphew, Joseph on Memorial Day! He is so so sweet! The day before we left my high school friend Hayley came over with her little boy Roman, which meant so much to me that she would drive an hour just so our babies could meet and we could spend some time together. LD even got to squeeze in a trip to see our neice Kara play softball...we seriously did it all!

It was one of the very best trips we have ever had! I wish we could spend a lot more time at "the farm" as my parents call it. It's such a peaceful place and so much fun to watch Clare just be a kid!!

Next is Part 2...which is also wedding #2!