Things I Loved About Last Weekend

My brother Toby's good friend Alex got married in Dahlonega over the weekend.  My parents rented a cabin so the whole family could go and relax, without worrying about travelling the day of the ceremony.  It was a very fun weekend, although it flew by!  We arrived at Carson's bedtime on Friday night, so she headed straight upstairs, followed shortly thereafter by Mommy :)  We had Saturday morning to play and enjoy the cabin and then shortly after lunch had to start getting ready for the wedding festivities.  BUT we were SO thankful to be able to get away for a bit, spend time with the family, and just breathe, especially in the middle of Brandon's summer season.


So here are some things I loved about this weekend:


The Cabin
The place my mom found was gorgeous!  There was a small river out back, with lots of skipping rocks and rushing water.  It was gorgeous!  And plenty of room for us to all sleep, play, and rest.  A great screened-in porch, rocking chairs...all the things you'd expect in an amazing cabin.

"The Girls"
We got to spend some real quality time with precious Cousin Maddy.  Patrick stayed with Angie's parents for the weekend and had tons of fun there, so kid-wise it was just the girls this weekend.

Sophie the Giraffe
Holy crap. This is Carson's new best friend. And it's not even hers.  Madelyn brought this teething toy with her, and Carson quickly fell in love with Sophie the Giraffe, some French teething miracle toy.  I don't know if it's the texture, the shape, or if it has crack mixed in with the paint used to make her spots, but whatever it is, C is a fan.  So much so that Aunt Angie and Uncle Toby (and Cousin Maddy) were nice enough to let Carson take it home! (Or maybe they were just too grossed out by the amount of Carson's drool that was covering it after the first five minutes :)  )  Merci beaucoup!

The Wildlife
Brandon & I saw 3 deer on the drive to the cabin.  Here's one.

And these baby birds lived on the front porch.

And I saw my first wild turkey (not in a bottle), but wasn't able to get a picture of it.
A Beautiful Wedding
The wedding we attended was at a beautiful location called Wolf Mountain Vineyards.  The ceremony itself was gorgeous, fun, and sweet.  The reception was a blast.  Congratulations, Alex and Jen!

Carson Dancing
Carson loves music.  She notices it wherever we go.  When we're listening to it at home and the song changes, she stops what she's doing, and looks over at the speaker, evaluates the new song, then goes back to what she was doing.
At the wedding, Brandon & Carson were dancing--and whenever Brandon would stop and stand still, Carson would wiggle all around, trying to get him to go again.  Cracked us up every time.  You can sort of see it in this video--watch her little legs when Brandon stands still.  She does a "giddy-up!" kind of motion until he starts again.





Mary
Mary is my oldest friend (yes, she's 4 days older than me, but that's not what I mean here).  We met in first grade and really became buddies when my family moved into her neighborhood in 3rd grade.  All those crucial moments and experiences of adolescence (first school dances, first boyfriends and kisses, first break-ups (with the news broken to the boy by a friend not ourselves, of course)) --we were together for them.  During high school, Mary's family moved to Florida, but we have kept in touch and still get to see each other, although not nearly enough if you ask me!  We visited each other during college (even though she attended University of Florida (boo!) and I attended UGA), were in each other's weddings, attended each other's baby showers, etc. etc.  Her family is my family.  There are too many fun memories to even attempt to summarize our friendship in this post.  But you get the idea.  Most of us have a friend like Mary--lifelong, true, and priceless.
Well, the groom Alex was Mary's next door neighbor when she still lived in Georgia, so her whole family came up for the wedding.  It was wonderful to see them all again, and especially to spend some time with Mary, her husband Scott, and their precious daughter Reagan.  It felt really good to have our daughters meet and to see, hold, and love each other's daughters after such an enduring and special friendship of our own together.
And yes, Mary really is that much tanner than me.

Things I Did Not Love About This Weekend


The Heat


Dear sweet Lord, the heat and humidity.  No picture for this one, because you all know what the sun looks like.  I think the heat at the wedding would have been much more tolerable if we had been in shorts and tank tops. But when you're all dressed up, hair done, makeup on, holding a baby and maybe drinking a glass of wine...tolerable heat becomes oppressive.  Okay, enough with the dramatics :)


The Broken Leg
So...Brandon's mom and dad came to our house to watch our dogs while we were away for the weekend.  About 45 minutes after we left our house, Brandon's mom called and told us she thought she broke her leg.  After a trip to the ER and an orthopedic doc, it turns out she broke her left fibula and almost broke her other ankle.  So she is now sitting pretty in a cast and a splint.  I'm not sure I believe her, but she swears it wasn't Moe's fault.

The Wildlife
This snake stopped by for a visit.  It is very big.

The End
It's always hard to leave a vacation.  Getting out of that relaxed, stress-free, clock-free mindset always hurts just a little.


But this coming weekend, we get another break when we go to South Carolina to visit Brandon's grandparents.  We were supposed to go a few months ago, but Brandon ended up very sick and not up for the trip, so we're super-excited to finally get to take Carson for a visit.
But that's another post!