October

We had a very lovely October. The leaves changed beautifully and the weather stayed warm for the most part. We've had lots of opportunity to play outside, and we've had fun with Vanessa's school and we've seen lots of family and friends.

I think Vanessa has grown 3/4 of an inch this month. And she looks so grown up with her fancy hair ties. This was my first attempt EVER at putting up her hair, so no laughing. She wanted one of each of the six colors of hair ties I had, and it was a bit of a challenge to find enough space for all of them.

We had a great time at Clifton Day. I think one of the highlights for the girls was feeding the pony. The pony ate right from their little hands!

Later, we met up with Brian, Joanna, and Kyra. A great day, all around!

Here's another picture of the girls feeding the animals. I think this is Elizabeth's first experience with a cow. She must think they're all this size!

On Nana's birthday, Vanessa and Elizabeth got to hang out even more with Uncle Brian, Joanna, and Kyra. The girls are definitely enjoying having their uncle and soon-to-be-aunt living nearby. Aunt Kalena and Uncle John were also up for Nana's birthday. It was wonderful to see them too!

Vanessa and her Nana. Happy birthday Nana!

Elizabeth tasted her first chocolate cake, and... liked it!

For Halloween, Vanessa wanted to be Cinderella. So of course, Elizabeth did too! I happened to have this light blue dance costume on hand because I had bought it for Vanessa's dance class. Elizabeth decided it was close enough! The girls had some serious practicing to do in their costumes before Halloween.

They had to practice all their ballet moves.

Especially those arabesques! I don't know if you can tell that Vanessa's heel is reflective, but both girls' feet were completely covered in glitter by the time they finished dancing. Vanessa's dress shedded glitter all over the house. A few days later when Elizabeth danced on the mat (out of costume), she kept checking to see if her feet were getting shiny.

This is really kind of a private joke -- I'm using a lot of SQL in my database class right now. Vanessa inadvertantly combined these letters while trying to group together purple letters. Purple, by the way, is Vanessa's new favorite color. I think changing favorite colors is just a tactic to get all new clothes...

Silly girl number 1.

Silly girl number 2!

Singing and telling stories

Elizabeth and Vanessa have been singing, singing, singing. I think preschool helps with the singing -- I often hear Vanessa sing "Wheels on the Bus" because they practice that one at school.

Elizabeth on the other hand has been singing "Happy birthday to you," I think because of Nana's recent birthday. Vanessa meanwhile has been playing the Happy Birthday tune on the piano (she has stickers for the letters of the notes on the piano keys to help her out). Elizabeth's other favorite parts of songs to sing are "Row, row, row your boat," "ashes, ashes, we all fall down," "moon, moon, moon," and "up above the." Incidentally, she calls stars "up above the"s.

Vanessa wrote and illustrated a new story today. Here is what she told me to write: "Stegosaurus dived into the water. He got out of the water and then he jumped! And then he turned around and scratched to make these lines."

Vanessa is here with me and she says she wants to write more. Here is what she wants to type (with only a very little bit of spelling help from me):

VANESSA CHLOE MAXTED ME AND MY BABY

Remembering Jessica

My sister-in-law Jessica passed away a year ago this month. I think about her quite often. One of the most painful things about losing her is the loss of that illusion that I had since I was young, that death is too far away to worry about. The truth is that loved ones can be lost and that grief can be very real.

On the other hand, this reminds me to love life and be happy NOW, because you never know what might happen. And that the parts of my loved ones' lives that I have already shared are true gifts, never to be taken for granted.

I miss my sister, but I am so humbled and grateful to have been a part of her life. What an amazing mommy and truly outstanding friend!

October is breast-cancer awareness month, go out and make a difference!

Elizabeth wows us!

The other day, James said he felt like he's been away for a week and Elizabeth grew up while he wasn't watching. I feel the same way -- it's like I turned my back and all of a sudden she's a toddler! Since I was so good about trying to use this blog as a "baby book" for Vanessa to keep track of her milestones, I will also try to keep up with Elizabeth's. Elizabeth is now 16 months old.

Elizabeth speaks in full sentences now -- not all the time, but a few times a day. Today for example, she said, "I need help" and "I'm running," and other memorable sentences have been "I see bubbles," and "I want to read book." She says ALL kinds of words, including "fountain" and "arabesque." One of her favorite words is "match" when she finds things that do, and she starts counting "one..." when she sees many things that are alike. She knows, says, and signs all her colors and she knows most of her letters. When we read "Where's Spot?" she says "No" when I point to the word "No," and she can identify the word "up" in another book.

She hugs and pretends to feed dolls and LOVES to stack duplos, drive matchbox cars and make toy airplanes fly. She loves playing dress-up, especially with shoes. She can help clean up and especially enjoys sweeping. One of her relatively new skills is blowing her nose -- I just wish she wouldn't blow her nose and then practice one of her other skills, cleaning the table (with the same tissue, argh).

She loves to be just like her big sister, whom she recently learned to call "Sessa" (previously "Yah-yah"). She really loves Vanessa's preschool and I think she would love to go. She also misses tagging along to Vanessa's dance class... I can tell because when she sees a picture of a ballerina, she says, "dance class, go!" and gets up to leave!

Preschool, Mickey, Shamu, and Radars

I decided to take Vanessa Halloween costume shopping in an effort to give mommy some more free time. In a mild upset, she chose Cinderella over what I thought was a lock in Ariel. Here she models her costume for Nana in preparation for her visit to Disney World.

Vanessa has also started school! She goes to school literally a half a mile a way, so Sarah and Elizabeth can drop her off and pick her up in a stroller. Vanessa goes back and forth about being excited about school and not wanting to do it. Usually if we remind her that you have to be 3 to go to school she gets excited about it.

Elizabeth on the other hand loves school and its hard for Sarah to pull her away. She wants to be just like her older sister. Here they hang out after school on the playground.

Switching gears here, as part of my transition to new responsibilities at work, I signed up for a Basic Radar Concepts course in Orlando, Florida. It's an introductory radar course offered by Georgia Tech. I figured that since I'd be in Orlando for three days, I might as well extend my stay, bring the family, and visit some famous theme park in the area.

We stayed at the Disney All-Star Music resort. Because we were going during their "offseason", we got a great deal of $69 a night. Here we are riding the free bus to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios).

No sooner had we walked into Hollywood Studios than a Block Party Parade broke out. Vanessa decided she needed an aerial view of the festivities.

One thing about Florida during the summer/fall is that you should expect some form of rain every day and lots of sun, very little in between. Here you can see that as one smart soul heads for cover, our girls head on out to play.

They really liked playing in really warm rain. I enjoyed a nice sheltered view.

Here is a perfect example of the difficulty of taking pictures of our girls. Right now they look absolutely soaking wet and miserable outside Mickey's hat.

Just 30 seconds later they look so happy! I don't know what Sarah did to elicit that response.

Day 2 of Disney took us to the Animal Kingdom. Here the girls enjoy the tram ride from our car to the front gates.

This was my first trip to the Animal Kingdom since it had been built more recently than I had visited. As you can see, this day's weather was much more typical for Florida in the summer.

Animal Kingdom is sort of a combination zoo and theme park. Here we are on the way to check out some birds.

While waiting for our safari ride, we walked through one of the animal exhibits. We spent a good time here looking at the fish and the hippo (not appearing in this picture).

Here we are on the safari ride. This was really cool. You basically are on a Jurassic Park style ride through the wildlife reserve.

Here the girls check out some elephants. Elizabeth loves elephants.

After getting off the safari, we stumbled upon some drums. My girls are never one to pass up playing some music, so we took a break for a brief jam session.

Walking a little bit down the road, I saw a small sign that said Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger. I knew that Vanessa was just fine with meeting larger than life characters as she had previously tackled the Chick-fil-a cow. She was SO excited to meet Pooh et al. Elizabeth was a bit more tenative.

Vanessa actually smiled for the camera here. Elizabeth is still a bit unsure.

She seemed to like Eeyore a bit more. Here she gets in some peek-a-boo with him.

Once again, Vanessa snuggled up close. Elizabeth was still keeping her distance.

I think of these three, Vanessa was most excited to see Tigger.

Elizabeth also warmed up to Tigger. I suspect she'll inherit Vanessa's Tigger costume for Halloween, so this was a good meeting for her.

One thing Disney does well are their variants of Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Here Vanessa demonstrates that she knows how to make her Triceratops go up and down.

Tuesday was the first day of my class, so Sarah took the girls to the pool at the hotel and headed out to Epcot later in the day. I think they spent most of their time in the water fountains. I headed over to Epcot for dinner, but we spent the least amount of time there. It's a bit much for the youngins.

Wednesday marked the arrival of Nana to Orlando. She arrived around lunchtime and took the girls to the Magic Kingdom while I was in class.

By the time I got out of class, I found the girls playing in Ariel's grotto.

Think Elizabeth likes the water?

I decided to give Nana and Sarah a break and take Vanessa to meet her favorite little mermaid.

I think she's a bit excited and happy to be sitting next to someone special.

Ariel was very nice. Vanessa was hopping up and down so much it was difficult to get her to sit for a photo.

Elizabeth loved the extra time with Nana.

This is my favorite picture we got there. We're all smiling, looking at the camera, and you can tell where we are. Good job Disney photographer!

On Thursday, Grandma Lou drove over from Lakeland and took the girls to Magic Kingdom while I continued to get firehosed with radar range equations and electronic countermeasures. Vanessa sure loves her Nana.

Apparently Sarah couldn't get the girls away from these cactus statues of Goofy et al in Mickey's backyard.

One thing I really like about Disney is that they let you bring in your own food and drinks if you want. Sarah and the girls took full advantage of this. Just don't try to take those crackers away from Vanessa.

Vanessa enjoyed taking the family for a spin in tea cups from Alice in Wonderland. She insisted on doing the spinning all by herself.

The girls loved all the playgrounds at Walt Disney World.

Vanessa and Elizabeth loved chasing each other in a nice shaded area.

Right near by were there of the princesses. Here we are with Princess Aurora, aka Briar Rose, aka Sleeping Beauty. Vanessa was a bit shy and insisted that Daddy sit with her.

That shyness completly disappeared when we met Cinderella.

Very excited. VERY excited.

By the time we had gotten to Belle, Vanessa was willing to be more open. After telling Belle her name, she also tells her how old she is. Belle shows her that there are many ways to sign three.

Vanessa really enjoyed her visit to the princesses. They were very polite, kind, and patient.

Here the girls wear their matching outfit while in line for the Jungle Cruise. Aren't they cute?

They do love each other so much.

My cousin Cynthia and her daughter McKenna drove over to see the electric parade with us. Here Grandma Lou is laughing as Vanessa decided to eat her ice cream like a cat. It was pretty silly.

On Friday we headed back to Hollywood Studios to see what we missed. Vanessa was a bit scared of the bad guy. That hasn't stopped her from continuing to ask to see him everytime we scan through these pictures.

This was part of the same Jedi Academy show. Basically they pull 12 children from the audience, put them in Jedi robes, give them a lightsaber, teach them how to swing it, and then each in turn gets to fight Darth Vader. Then they get a Padawan diploma. The family in front of us had seen the show six times because their two daughters had already gotten chosen but their son hadn't. Good thing this wasn't around when I was kid, I would have driven my parents nuts.

We finally found Mickey hiding out in the Animation gallery. The girls were very excited to meet him. This might end up being our Christmas card photo this year.

Nana agreed to get in one picture to prove to her coworkers she was at Disney and not just playing golf.

On Saturday we went to Sea World. It's hard to see, but here Vanessa and I are feeding the Dolphins. She LOVED this.

I think Elizabeth liked Sea World even more than Vanessa. She loved watching the rays and sharks whenever she got a chance.

Finally, on our last day in Florida, we went to the Magic Kingdom one last time. I had taken Vanessa on Goofy's Barnstormer the first time, but Mommy loves roller coasters. Here you can see them just coming around the bend.

Finally, on our way out we ran into Jasmine and Aladdin. Vanessa was so excited she couldn't contain herself.

I love this picture because she looks terrified. In reality, she's doing her smile combined with overstimulation because she's so excited. Overall the girls were amazing and definitely encouraged their parents to take them again in a couple of years.

I also highly recommend that Basic Radar Concepts course if you're looking to learn about radars. The professor who taught the class was one the best presenters I've seen, and trust me, I've sat through several degrees worth of college classes at this point in my life. ;)

Vanessa turns 3 and the Maryland Renaissance Festival

So we're very behind on updating the blog. Hopefully we'll get caught up this week.
As Vanessa will tell you any chance she gets, she is now three. Technically this picture here is from our trip to Michigan. We asked her on the morning of the 31st before we flew back how old she was.

Vanessa is obsessed with sequences and order. Here she has arranged her numbers in the right order more or less.

Vanessa insisted that for her part that we wear hats. Elizabeth loved this part.

We had a small get together for her birthday. We had been in Michigan for the previous 5 days, so luckily our guests were willing to overlook any small messes. Here Vanessa hangs out with her friends Abigail, Isabelle, and Nickie as well as Nana and Grandpa.

Aunt Joanna and Vanessa do a little dance. Not sure which one, but it sure looks funny.

Johnny and Liz brought one of Vanessa's favorite things in the world over, Riley! You think they get along alright?

Vanessa was very excited to get a cake with candles.

What you don't see here is that she wanted Daddy to help and he was no help in trying to blow out the candles the first time. Even Daddy's get older I guess.

It wouldn't be a party without presents. Vanessa was very excited to get her own doctor kit.

Isabelle and Elizabeth were excited to help Vanessa open presents. Riley helped too.

Brian and Joanna made it too. We're so glad that they're up in the area now and we'll get to see them more often. They left Kyra at home this time as they figured it'd be too much of a party with both Kyra and Riley.

After a busy weekend of travel and a fun birthday party, Vanessa settles in for story time with Nana and Daddy.

Okay, fast forward a week. In an attempt to give Sarah some time to do school work, I took the girls out for a day trip to the Renaissance Festival in Maryland. Of course, we had to stop at Chick-fil-a. Elizabeth loved the bubble dome.

One of my favorite acts from last year was here once again. Michael Rosman is a comedian/juggler/acrobat. You definitely need to see his show if you're around. Hysterical.

The girls were entranced by his act. One of the few shows at the festival they were willing to sit through.

I think they were most excited about seeing the elephants and the ponies. Being an army of one, I figured trying to hold two girls on an elephant just isn't a good idea. But I suspect next time we go I'm going to have to pony up for the elephant ride. And get in line for the free pony rides.

Elizabeth loved going down the slide in the play area. She's at the age where she wants to be just like her big sister. I also realized here that watching two girls on a crowded playground in the middle of a festival and trying to take pictures just doesn't work all that well.

As a three year old, Vanessa enjoys showing off any skills that a three year old can do that a two year old shouldn't. She keeps this up and we'll give her a go on the rock climbing wall with the bungee cords.

Vanessa also wanted a floral "mane" like the other girls. She calls it a mane because that's what we called her headdress when she was a flower girl.

Of course, what Vanessa does, Elizabeth wants to do better.

We tried watching a sword fighting show, but Vanessa had other ideas. I decided this was "the sign" that we should leave. I think they had a good time though.

Finally, here's my wonderful family sporting some excellent colors. Well, except the oldest one, but at least that's a W&M t-shirt.

Michigan and Grandparents' 60th Anniversary Celebration

My Grandma Lou and Grandpa Phil celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this year. They decided to hold a belated family celebration up in Northern Michigan at the end of August. I wanted to go up a couple of days earlier and take my family to some of my favorite spots from when I grew up and visited up there. Our first stop was Mackinac Island. Mackinac Island is located where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron. There are no cars allowed on the island and the only way to get there is via boat, helicopter, or in the winter, snowmobile.

The two girls are ready to go on the ferry to Mackinac Island.

Vanessa checks out the water from the upper deck.

Once the boat got going, it was pretty windy. You can see the Mackinac Bridge in the background.

Vanessa insisted on trying ice cream in a cone for the first time. It worked out alright.

One of the best ways to get around the island is by bike. Elizabeth gets strapped in for her first bike ride.

Daddy and Vanessa take the lead to go around the island.

Sarah wanted more of an action shot this time.

Elizabeth enjoyed the bike ride as long as she stayed warm. Luckily the trip around the island is only 8 miles and there was a restroom halfway through.

We stayed at the Boyne Mountain Resort which is about 10 miles south of Petoskey, MI. In the winter it's a huge ski resort. Attached to it is a giant indoor water park called Avalanche Bay. Vanessa decides to show Daddy her b-ball skills.

After swimming, we decided to use our free tokens. Vanessa finished in 13th place.

Not one to let her sister do something that she can do, Elizabeth goes for a spin.

The resort had some acrobats outside so they could tether guests and do some swinging. Vanessa gets some good ideas for her next trick to show us.

This is about as close as we'll get right now to all of us looking at the camera and smiling with open eyes.

We got a kite from the local toy store and showed Vanessa and Elizabeth how it works.

As I said in the last post, Elizabeth loves to play peek-a-boo.

Vanessa like having her own queen size bed. The sides were a bit rough because it was a sofa bed, but she like the game of only getting out of the bed at the base of the bed.

Grandma Lou and Grandpa Phil had a timeshare at the resort. We all got together for lunch on Saturday. Here Nana shows her great nephew Donovan how to play bowling on the Wii. I don't think he liked losing to his great aunt.

All my second cousins flocked to Sarah. I think the school teacher in her came out as they all read Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom. Here she reads to Vanessa, Clare, McKenna, and Elizabeth in the clockwise order.

Clare shows Sarah she knows her alphabet song really well.

Time for lunch!

After lunch it was time to play the Hokey Pokey.

The adults watch the Hokey Pokey continue.

Elizabeth sat this one out.

I'm not sure what they were doing here.

My cousins Laurie and Cynthia lead Clare, Donovan, and McKenna in a game of showing new tricks.

Elizabeth decided it was time for a snack after waking up.

My Great Aunt Jean shows her great great niece how to draw with an electronic game.

Now it was time to play Sarah's modified version of musical chairs. They play Gloria Estefan's Conga and move when its just music and sit down when she sings. It actually works pretty well.

Here everyone is scrambling for their "seat" in modified musical chairs.

McKenna was nice enough to let Vanessa color in some of her coloring books. I think both girls were excited to meet more cousins they hadn't met before.

Before the big party, we decided to feed the kids at Big Boy since they turn in to Gremlins if you don't feed them by 5:00. There was an indoor mini-golf course so we figured we'd kill some time. Elizabeth shows us how to put the balls in the hole and take them out.

Of course Vanessa had a blue ball with a blue club. She actually made this putt with that form. Nana will have to work on that with her.

We finally got to the restaurant for the celebration of my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. It was held in the town of Petoskey where my grandparents lived for many years before retiring to Florida. There were many family members and old friends in attendance. In this picture, Elizabeth loved meeting her second cousin Laurie.

My cousins Matthew and Cynthia play pass the Elizabeth.

I'm not sure exactly who Sarah was hiding from here.

My cousin Laurie entertained Vanessa during part of the festivities.

Aunt Kathy made a nice cake for their party.

Still together after 60 years. Very rare to see nowadays. Congrats Grandma and Grandpa!

Cutting the cake. Didn't they do this 60 years ago?

Not sure about the use of a knife as a serving tool, but whatever works.

Elizabeth had enough excitement for awhile and found a nice place to sleep in Bumpa's lap.

Grandma Lou couldn't quite follow the directions to the game of see which spouse knows the other better. She kept saying her answers aloud instead of writing them down.

This is the first wave of photos with Grandpa Phil and Grandma Lou and their great grandkids. From left to right, Sarah, Elizabeth, Great Uncle Horace, Grandpa Phil, Vanessa, Clare, McKenna, Grandma Lou, and Donovan.

The next wave of my first cousins. From left to right, Darren, Cynthia, Grandpa Phil, Melanie, Grandma Lou, Matthew, Sarah, Elizabeth, and myself.

Here's the wiser crew. From left to right, my Aunt Kathy, Grandpa Phil, Grandma Lou, Uncle Kevin, Aunt Dee, my Dad (Bumpa), and my Mom (Nana).

After leaving Petoskey, we decided to stop at the Sleeping Bear Dunes near Lake Michigan. This was always a fun stop when I was a kid. Most of the fun is climbing up the first hill and running or rolling back down. We decided to go easy on the girls and just go as far as they wanted. It was cooler up there so we left the jackets on.

You can start to see the scale of the dunes here. One of these days we'll have to make the full hike up and down to Lake Michigan.

Elizabeth loved playing in the sand.

Elizabeth loved helping Mommy build in the sand.

Vanessa still wasn't sure about this cool sand and getting our feet dirty. I showed her how you can write cool things in the sand, like her name.

I'd say Elizabeth really enjoyed this stop.

Once she got more comfortable, Vanessa showed Daddy the right way to lay in the sand.

Another great view of the dunes.

We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City the night before we flew back. They had a ton of kids things to do. Here Vanessa has her PJs on and is ready for the story hour.

Vanessa seemed to enjoy the story hour well enough, though I think she liked cuddling with Daddy as much as listening to the story.

That's probably it for tonight. I'll try to post birthday pictures tomorrow before we head out to Disney World on Sunday.

Long time no post

I guess we've been busy this summer. We're going to Disney World next week so I figured I'd start getting us caught up.
Vanessa has decided that she needs to help with everything now. This apparently included vacuuming Mommy's car. I don't mind if she wants to pick up this job. ;)

One of the things that has kept us busy this summer is dance class. Vanessa is a bit introverted and took a couple of weeks to warm up to the class and everyone. The first half was ballet and second half was tap. I think she liked the tap better since she could make a lot of noise. Here she is with Ms. Christina and the rest of the class in a circle.

Elizabeth liked visiting dance class as much as Vanessa did taking it. She's much more outgoing and loved chasing all the other girls. Guess we have to sign her up next year.

Vanessa shows how she can be tall like the teacher.

Bustin a tap move here.

Both our daughters loved peek-a-boo. They play it with each other ALOT. Wonder what's underneath this blanket?

It's an Elizabeth!

With all the love of dinosaurs in our house now, we decided to take a trip out to Dinosaur Land in Front Royal.

Help, a shark has swallowed my family whole!

This is Vanessa's favorite dinosaur, a Stegosaurus. In fact, if you see Vanessa, she'll probably want to know your name, your age, your favorite color, and your favorite dinosaur.

Vanessa stands next to a baby T-Rex, Daddy's favorite dinosaur. Ignore all this recent research that paints T-Rex as more of a vulture like scavenger, it was a vicious predator! ;)

Elizabeth loved running around the dinosaurs. Here she is next to a family of Triceratops, Sarah's favorite dinosaur.

Vanessa got in on the happy bouncing action.

Eventually Vanessa wanted a ride on Daddy's shoulders. Here the two of us and Elizabeth check out a Styracosaurus.

Elizabeth shows us just how tall this dinosaur is.

Mommy and Elizabeth pose in front of Mommy's favorite, the Triceratops.

One last photo in this set. Vanessa found one of my lightsabers and hasn't stopped playing with it since. I've convinced her that she can only hit the ground with it to make the clash noise, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Rachael and Edgar's wedding

All the talk in our house this week is about being married. "Mommy, Elizabeth and I are married!" says Vanessa, excitedly holding her sister's hand. "Mommy, this frog, this frog, and Vanessa are married!" says Vanessa, holding up two frogs. And so on. Well, I guess Vanessa enjoyed being a flower girl! The whole family had a wonderful time at Rachael and Edgar's wedding.


But first, I just wanted to post a few pictures of happenings before the wedding. My friend Lisa came over to visit. Elizabeth was fascinated by her necklace, and made fast friends! Vanessa has been talking and thinking about Lisa's visit a lot -- she even spelled Lisa on the fridge with magnet letters this week (well, she spelled it Liza, but what the hey).

We took Elizabeth and Vanessa to a science museum in Roanoke in the morning before the wedding. They both thought it was pretty cool to play with the giant plasma ball.

I think my personal favorite exhibit was the TORNADO OF STEAM! Elizabeth thought it was pretty neat too, but Vanessa wouldn't go near it.

The girls enjoyed seeing themselves on a TV screen with a digitally inserted background.

On to the wedding! The girls both loved running around in the open spaces of the church before the ceremony started.

Vanessa and Elizabeth have been so affectionate with each other lately. My favorite is when they give each other a spontaneous kiss (usually when Elizabeth asks for one by puckering and saying "mmm?")

Vanessa made it down the aisle, no stage fright, no trip-ups! She took her job pretty seriously.

Elizabeth was mostly quiet during the ceremony, thanks to falling asleep part way through it. This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my girls!

And I'm glad to have gotten a pretty good shot of all four of us!

I can't fully express how nice it was to pass off Elizabeth to Grandpa while I went back in to prepare Vanessa for the photo shoot. That little girl is getting really heavy lately! Grandpa never seems to mind though...

A picture of the lovely couple. They both looked just radiant and happy!

I'm glad we had a chance to hang out a bit with Kalena and John! Uncle John kept Elizabeth entertained through a good part of the wedding ceremony. It was so sweet to watch Elizabeth bonding with her uncle!

At the reception (as opposed to the seriousness of the ceremony), we saw LOTS of smiles from Vanessa! Vanessa's always happy to be around her Nana!

These candles captured Vanessa's and Elizabeth's attention during the reception. They really were quite pretty.

Vanessa and her daddy do a little dancing on the sidelines, while Rachael and her dad dance the father-daughter dance.

A girl came to Rachael's wedding wearing a flower girl dress from another recent wedding. She took little Vanessa under her wing, passing the torch of flower-girl-dom.

On the way back home, we decided to stop at Luray Caverns. I think it was probably my first visit. It was definitely Elizabeth's first visit, but Vanessa had come there once before with James. In any case, both girls thoroughly enjoyed it. Vanessa said her favorite part was the formation that looked like sunny-side-up eggs. My favorite part was the "Dream Lake," where the water made a perfect mirror for the stalactites above. I think Elizabeth might have liked the stalactite organ best. This picture is one of Elizabeth running and dancing around in the open space near the organ.

Vanessa, Daddy, and Elizabeth in front of the organ (a little part of it is visible in the background).

When I watered our grass with a sprinkler last week, Vanessa decided she needed an umbrella. Of course she needed an umbrella, never mind that she was already soaking wet from playing in the sprinkler already!

Our garden produced corn this year! Yay! Squirrels 1, James 1. And very tasty corn it is. I don't know where our squirrels are this year, but I definitely don't miss them.

I wanted to end this post with a quote from the day of the wedding. James mentioned very quietly to Vanessa during the wedding ceremony that some of the writing in the hymnals was in Latin. "Daddy!" Vanessa exclaimed, "I have Aladdin on my underwear!"