Finally, the end of our vacation....

The reason behind our vacation....

My cousin got married! It was such an awesome reason for our family to get together. Like i have said, it has been 5 years since we have all been together. We are spread out from coast to coast, so a weekend bbq is not something we can easily to! It is nice to have another cousin married. Before July 3rd, I was the only one of my generation married! Crazy! It was such a beautiful ceremony and reception.
We had to get to the church early for pictures. My cousin and his bride decided to do ALL their pictures before the ceremony. I do have to say how sweet it was to see him carrying around her train, such sweet moments. There was time after the pictures and before the ceremony. That meant that Critter ran around! We actually got him to keep his tie on for the pictures and ceremony. :)

Pumpkin had the special job of helping hand out programs. She was quite nervous about this and caused quite the meltdown of not wanting to even go to the wedding! Luckily the other little boy who was helping was really excited. It became a game to them who could get someone the program first. Luckily us moms were there to keep them from tackling people at the door. Most people were sweet and took one from him and one from Pumpkin :)

We got to the reception first to help with putting rose petals on the tables, even though by the time we got there with the kids my aunts had finished! The kids had a blast running around the dance floor and dancing! So cute...

We tried to get some family pictures in before the bride and groom arrived. I have no idea about the shadow in front of hubby, but it works since he really does not like his picture up here anyway! I realized looking through the pictures that i am hunched over with horrible posture most of the time. I did not realize how much my back was hurting from carrying around an almost 40 pound Critter for days on end! I had to carry him a lot due to new people and getting scared! Too bad that is too hard to photo shop! :)

Not much funnier to a 2 year old than "cheer"s with your dad and spilling your water down your shirt!

Okay...anyone who knows Hubby knows he has a different sense of humor. My cousin and his bride did a money dance. Well....we don't know his bride really well...so who does Hubby dance with? Of course, my cousin. Well...not many people in the family have apparently seen this, even though it is fairly common place among our friends at their weddings! Then of course my uncle had to cut into their dance. It was the talk of the night!

Pumpkin finally got on the dance floor. She spent at least the first half of the reception sitting there, very sad. She finally got to dancing and had a blast! It took awhile until i found out why she took so long. She told me " Mommy, I could not dance at first. There were just too many people out there to dance the way I wanted to"

That is my girl! :)

I tried to get some dances in with my boy!

It was a great time. The kids (and adults) had so much fun! These are certainly memories we will carry with us forever!

Watch out for more emotional posts though....tomorrow Pumpkin finds out who her Kindergarten teacher is and then she starts her first day of Kindergarten on Monday!