Wedding Weekend in Philly!

So, our trip to Connecticut was very easy...Chris and I breezed through the airport... Our trip to Philly was a little more of an orchestration...

Lucy has become a great traveler...she knows to remove her shoes and walk through the security scanner holding her boarding pass WITHOUT touching the sides...that causes all sorts of bells and whistles to go off! I've learned to put Eli's pacifier on a leash (pacifier-holder) so that we don't have a mad search for it when he spits it out to smile at the security folks! Lucy has inherited my ability to quickly fall asleep on airplanes...some combination of motion, different air pressure and the engine-sounds makes her weary. Chris entertained Eli the entire way to Philly with a half-full water bottle, his sunglasses, and the leftover bag from his Southwest peanuts. It was fun for us to all travel together!

We stayed at Grandma's new place...Mom, Dad, Lucy, Eli, Chris and me...and her cat, Spook, who was smart enough to stay out of the way!

There aren't any pictures of Grandma here...she had her hip replaced last week and was in a rehabilitation facility...we visited her there, but I have just enough tact to know not to photograph someone who just had major surgery...trust me that she looked great!

Here's Lucy having fun with Mom and Aunt Chris on Friday!

We surprised Grandma on Saturday morning with a visit from Eli and Lucy in their Halloween costumes! I didn't get a picture of Eli in his monkey outfit, but here's Lucy and Mom as we were walking over to see Grandma. Eli and Lucy were a huge hit in the rehabilitation facility...everyone loves kids in costumes!

Aunt Chris and Uncle Steve hosted all of us for lunch on Saturday! It was great to be with everyone, and of course, Eli had to wear his Philadelphia Phillies jacket since they are in the World Series. Go Phillies Go!

Here are the cousins...missing Jackie of course!

Jen and Mark's reception was on Saturday night! Their wedding was the weekend before in Barbados and we were so excited to celebrate with them in Philly! Here are some pictures from the fun reception...

We woke up early on Sunday morning to catch our flights and I realized that I didn't take any pictures the entire weekend of Mom and Dad with Eli and Lucy...here's one I snapped at 6:45am...you can tell that we had to wake Eli up! Such a sweet boy!

Our next few days are full of Halloween fun...I'll post pictures of that next week...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Wedding Weekend in Connecticut

So sorry for my absence. I was experiencing some "technical difficulties." I'm not quite sure how I fixed the problem, but am glad I did so I can share these pictures from our awesome weekend in Connecticut for Hunter and Suzanne's wedding! It was as beautiful as you would expect...a fall weekend in the Northeast. Here's a picture from our plane window and another from the Seaport.

We arrived at the hotel on Friday afternoon to find Grandma already dressed for the rehearsal dinner. Obviously, I didn't inherit her "ready hours early" gene. :-)

Chris and I met Mom and Dad at the Hartford airport and rode with them to Mystic. We were all so excited to see Amy and Matt...we haven't seen them since August and, of course, needed to see her belly! Doesn't she look great?

We celebrated Amy and Matt's birthdays on Friday evening!

Here are some pre-ceremony shots from Saturday...Grandma with Hunter and Will.

Mom & Dad

Family photo (incomplete, of course...missing Eli and Lucy.)

Amy, Mom and me

Matt & Amy

Grandma with her sons (Bruce, Rich, Dad)

post-ceremony shot of Hunter and Suzanne...they are so happy and we're thrilled for them!

Aunt Diane with her sister, Lynn

the reception...where Amy and I ate five pieces of cake, together...

Grandma with her six grandchildren

Matt and Grandma

Lots of Freemans...

Will, Suzanne and Hunter

Dance-floor fun!

Hunter and Suzanne enjoying the dance-floor fun!

Hunter, Will, Tim and Chris doing the wave (I think?) on the dance floor!

We had so much fun in Connecticut - it was great to celebrate Suzanne and Hunter! Eli and Lucy had an enjoyable weekend with Kay and Fred...here they are on Sunday afternoon! It was wonderful to see their sweet smiles!

Lions, Tigers and Bears...oh my!

We had a wonderful weekend in Gatlinburg! Here's Kay and Lucy on the ariel tram up to Ober Gatlinburg. Here's a self-photograph of Chris and me.

Here's Chris, Fred, Lucy and Kay watching the bears at Ober Gatlingburg.

Eli wasn't quite sure what to think of the bears or the otters.

Here he is with a much more pleasant look on his face. This is his normal, happy-go-lucky look...such a go-with-the-flow guy...good thing, second child!

My girl and I having a little snuggle.

Here's Lucy outside the aquarium.

Here's Lucy petting a horseshoe crab inside the aquarium. We also saw some LIONfish.

Fred and Kay with Eli and Lucy after our hike.

Family photo

Lucy did a great job on the one-mile hike and didn't "run out of gas" until the very end...Chris was happy to give her a lift!

We watched UT lose to the Auburn TIGERS on Saturday evening. It was a terrible game...Chris said he wants to call UT and ask for four hours of his life back - ha!

A pretty exciting thing happened as we were packing to leave. Chris was loading the car and came running back into the chalet...he said, "Melissa, come here right now." As he was walking back into the chalet, a mother BEAR and her two cubs walked right down our driveway. The cubs actually sat down right next to our stuff and gave Eli's Boppy a few good sniffs. Thankfully, we didn't have any food out there yet...it would have been a long wait. They were awesome to watch...from the deck!

Thanks to Fred and Kay for a fun, relaxing weekend! We had a super time!