Todd and Karisa Wedding

So we went up to Portland for Todd and Karisa's wedding. (Karisa is Cary's cousin) I'll post a few pictures now and more later.

Dean and Tina

Tara waiting (and now she'll probably kill me), Cindy playing the piano

Tyler talking to Jerald and Margo

Cary, Aidan, Greg and Lois. (Before we got smart and moved to the back)

Lois and Ella

Cindy still playing the piano

Jay, Susie, and Abby

Dean looking chipper. So we moved to the back since we figured that would be better with the kids, and right as the procession started Ella decided she wanted me to hold her.

Tyler and then Teresa and Tyler

So I was taking pictures one handed and not very steady.

Dallas and Tina, Danielle and I'm not sure who the other little girl was.

Karisa had Tara sing "At Last" while she walked up the aisle.

Tara singing

It gets better. Ella decided at this point to mess her pants and we're talking major blowout up the back. Needless to say, I missed the rest of the ceremony and didn't get anymore pictures.

Picture time.

Sandra (mother of the bride)

Dean and Kath family

Cindy, Tina, Danielle

Arriving at the reception

With the invitations was a request for material that would mean something to the couple, and then one of Karisa's relatives made this quilt out of that material. I thought that was a pretty cool idea.

Congratulations!

For Now...

I have so many pictures to go through right now.

So, I'll just leave you with these of my pretty girl

and her cute socks

We've been waiting for her to fit into them since Chris and Amanda gave them to us.

Aidan wasn't interested in getting his picture taken.

We're back home and I'm so proud of the kids. They travelled so well both trips and we were in the vehicle for 14 hours yesterday! I don't think Aidan threw a tantrum the entire trip, and Ella only had a few meltdowns from over stimulation, but overall, they were awesome.

Welcome to Oregon!

So Greg and Lois came and picked us up in the 15 passenger van, then we went and picked up Abby and Tara and then headed out of town around 8:00 last night.

We arrived safely in Portland about 13.5 hrs later.

We drove through the Colombia Gorge just as it was getting light this morning.

Personally, I like the shots with the bugs splattered all over the windshield.

I had to take all the pictures through the windows while we were driving.

Not really an easy thing to do.

While driving along the river, there were a couple of places where there would be skid marks and then a huge dent in the guardrail.

I can't even imagine, that's like one of my worst nightmares.

But, as I said, we arrived safely. :-)

Mostly I was worried about how the kids were going to handle that long of a trip.

They are used to to traveling quite a bit

but our trips are usually only 4-5 hours max.

They did awesome though!

Hopefully, we'll be able to say the same about our Sunday trip back home.

I think I'm starting to understand

.....why

I find myself calling Aidan, "Caleb".

We're headed to Portland tonight for Karisa and Todd's wedding (Very reminiscent of a trip we did 3 years ago, the same weekend). Except instead of Shawn and Chad coming, we'll be driving for 12+ hrs with both kids. (YES! We're insane.) I know, I know, our parents used to do that all the time with many kids. Yeah, well, they are/ were insane too. ;-)

Pray for us and those we're traveling with. Hee.

Bright Spot

Most of this week has been spent trying (unsucessfully) to clean up the place before we leave for our trip tomorrow. It kind of feels like I just follow Aidan around and do damage control and pick up the mess the little whirlwind makes all while trying to do my day-to-day stuff too.

Today was especially bad and I was frustrated since I need to spend most of tomorrow packing, not cleaning. Bah. Anyway, my little blessings were both finally asleep for their afternoon nap so I was folding laundry and catching up on some of my shows (thank goodness for DVR!) when the UPS guy dropped off a package. I was thinking to myself that I wasn't expecting a package until next week, so I was curious.

Hello.

         Chocolate really does make everything better.

Thanks Amanda! That was extremely thoughtful of you. :-)