whirlwind
After two coffee drinks (one hot, one cold), a snickers bar, a snack pack of pizza flavored combos, one dead cat (sorry town of Ripley), a whole lot of wiper fluid and 16 hours of night driving we have been to Cincy and back. We had a great time seeing family, watching a beautiful couple tie the knot and visiting both of our parents new houses. Yeah, that is right, both sets of our parents are in the process of building their dream retirement home. It is really funny to see how different both are. My parents are building a luxurious log cabin in the woods with green house, heated floors and enough gizmos in that one log cabin that if the world ended they just might be able to feed and power all of Cincinnati for a couple of months. It is almost finished and we got to take a sneak peak. It was really great.
Jay's parents are building a house that have rooms already set aside for grandchildren that are currently alive and even ones that are not here yet. They are building their dream home on the back acreage of Dickie's romping grounds when he was a kid. It was great luck that he could build such a prefect house for them within view of so many happy memories he had in the past. We also got to visit their new house. It was really nice and exciting to plan where furniture is going to go and how to decorate certain rooms.
My parents have been out of my childhood home for over a year now, but Jenanne and Dickie are moving away from the farm this coming week. It was sort of bitter sweet to leave the farm for the last time, knowing that our little family will not be back. The afternoon that we left we got to do some things that I know that Dickie had been looking forward to for a while. Including feeding the catfish one last time and taking C on a tractor ride. She seemed to really enjoy both things and we got some cute pictures of Charlotte at the farm for the last time.
Goodbye old childhood homes, we are excited to create new memories! -melissa
Congratulations Brook and Tristan. Thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!mothers day weekend
This weekend has been great. One of those weekends with a good mixture of getting stuff, being able to relax, see friends and enjoy the great weather we have been having here in RVa. I started the weekend with a girls night with some of my favorite people, we had dinner and drinks at Strawberry Street Cafe. On Saturday me and one of my best friends ran the Susan G Komen 5K. It was a lot of fun and I loved running it on Mother's Day weekend in honor of Beth's mom, Pam.
On Mother's Day we celebrated our usual way with church and lunch at a great little Greek restaurant called Stella's. As C slept away the afternoon we got a lot of stuff done around the house including finishing up painting the front porch. We ended the day with Sweet Frog, hamburgers on the grill and bubbles. It was a great day. Here are some shots of the day. I included a shot of my new super-de-duper new Kitchen Aid mixer that I got today from Jay and C, I am so excited about it and can not wait to use it! 
Thanks Jay, for yet another great Mother's Day! xoxo, Mo
2012 strawberry street festival
This afternoon we met up with some friends at the strawberry street festival. It's a short little street in the city that has a great cafe you should check out if you ever get the chance. There is also an elementary school nearby that holds an annual festival as a fundraiser. We've never been before so we decided to invite some friends and check it out. Here are a few shots from the afternoon. Hope you got out there and enjoyed the weekend like we did! Melissa took this one right when we got there while we were waiting for our friends to meet us.
The school had one of the best playgrounds I've seen at a school. It was neat to see this Stella scooter repurposed as a piece of play equipment. The red bokeh-licious items in the background are drums. One portion of the playground has different types of percussion instruments from xylophones to drums that all had mallets or sticks that were attached so kids could come up and play on them. I bet recess at the school is pretty musical. Made me wish I had something like that at my school when I was a kid.
Like any good festival they had blow ups and bouncy houses. Melissa saw this below and automatically decided that Charlotte should ride the shark slide...with Melissa of course. So we purchased our tickets and up they went.
I managed to grab this shot as they got to the bottom. Charlotte was not amused. Not upset, but not amused. Maybe when she gets a little older.
I love this shot of Scott and Connor. Charlotte and Connor were born about 24 hours apart from each other, so they make great buddies. Connor has been able to throw a ball for a while now so this game was perfect for him. Connor got so excited and I think Scott was having fun too.
Charlotte tried to play a little duckie game, but didn't really know what to do. She loves the water in the bath at home, but I think the germ-a-phobe in her came out and she really didn't want to put her hand in the water.
Street shot of the festival and Charlotte's new favorite way to be carried around. See next two pictures.
Charlotte refused to take her second nap today so by the time we went to the festival, grabbed a bite to eat and started to head home, she was looking a little tired.
What a better way to end an afternoon at a strawberry festival than with some nice raspberries on Charlotte's belly. I love Charlotte and can't wait to celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday. I thought I was lucky when Melissa said "I do" over 7 years ago and now God has given me another girl in my life to love. Tell the people in your life that you love them and enjoy life together.
-jay