Memorial Day Weekend

I am VERY late in posting about our Memorial Day trip back home (which I mentioned here). Life has been busy since we returned a couple of weeks ago, so I'm just now getting around to posting a few pictures (we took over 150 so I'm just going to post some of the highlights). We arrived there on Friday evening and drove back home the following Tuesday, so it was a full and fun extended weekend! We went to celebrate both the graduation and wedding of our niece Hillary (and her now husband Jake). We also got to relax and enjoy some time with my family. It was a great trip!!

We of course enjoyed all of the graduation and wedding festivites for Hillary and Jake. We also did some swimming, visiting and catching up, board game playing, shopping and LOTS of eating. There was a lot of family in town for the celebrations so my Dad's house was full of people and fun activity. I was also very blessed to spend some quality time with my Mom and Grammy - just us three girls. We had yummy Starbucks and played cards, watched TV, drove around to look at some of our old houses, went out for lunch, did a little shopping and talked the day away. It was wonderful and did my heart good!!

We also did lots of baking and cake decorating at my Dad's house. In lieu of a wedding cake, Hillary and Jake had a HUGE cupcake with a variety of other sized cupcakes spread out around their cupcake. Wedding guests were able to come up and grab whatever sized cupcake they wanted - there were 3 sizes to chose from. What an awesome idea!! My step-sister Carla, Hillary's Mom, was the head of the cupcake making and decorating, but all of us enjoyed helping her as much as we could. There was cake batter, cupcake pans and frosting everywhere...homemade, delicious frosting at that. The were so good.

We got to go check out Hillary and Jake's new apartment...it's really cute and perfect for them. We took them a basket of goodies as their wedding gift from us full of stuff for their apartment and new life together. My favorite part of the gift was their "Mr." & "Mrs." mugs. We got them at Lifeway and they have a scripture from Song of Solomon on the inside, "I have found the one my heart loves".

Hillary hadn't made her "BOW"quet for the wedding rehearsal so I had her give me a few of her bows and ribbons and I whipped something up for her. It will be a memory I will treasure - getting to do that for her. After the rehearsal dinner, we decorated for the reception and Uncle John was sweet enough to play with our nephew Brody while we worked in the Fellowship Hall.

Once again, it was a VERY full weekend, but such a great time. It was so wonderful to see and spend time with all of my family and celebrate these special events. Here are just a few more of the MANY pictures we have...