The 4th of July, A New Room, and A Cousin's Wedding

These are going to be in reverse order beginning with the most recent.

Yesterday we were able to attend the wedding of Tammy's cousin, Melissa, in Mechanicsburg, PA. We drove up and changed clothes at Tammy's aunt and uncle's house and then went to the church for the ceremony. The Ceremony was very nice and sweet. The reception was held at the Officer's Club on the Naval Base there in Mechanicsburg. It was beautiful. The pics from the wedding are in reverse order as well. Isabella was a dancing fool.

Isabella fell and was a little upset....at least, until a Bon Jovi song came on.


Dancing with her Daddy


What a cutie pie!


Isabella and Caleb (Tammy's cousin, Chris's son)


Melissa dancing with her Dad, Rich


Isabella trying to sneak onto the dance floor


Melissa and Adam dancing


We're kind of trying to start potty training. I just thought this picture was funny though.


As we were working on getting stuff organized and cleaned out in the two small bedrooms, I went to check on Isabella to see what she was doing and this is what I found.


The craziness on carpet cleaning day. All the stuff that was still upstairs ended up in the Master Bedroom and the little bit of a hallway upstairs.


Ken preparing to clean some carpets in the small bedrooms (yes he was still in his pajamas)


Doesn't everybody sit and watch TV in a big fancy hat?


This isn't a desk?


On the 4th of July, we had a big barbeque at Linda & Mike's and did fireworks that evening. It was Mike's last weekend before he deployed, so we made the best of it. It was a lot of fun, even though it was very tiring.

Playing in the sprinkler with her cousin's on the 4th of July


Just a funny picture


Olive anyone? She wouldn't eat it but she liked putting it on her finger.

USMC Evening Parade

So, last night we went up to the Marine Barracks at 8th & I in Washington DC to see the Evening Parade. We actually chose to drive up and take the free shuttle over from the parking area, rather than take the metro. Why not, its free other than gas. We got there relatively easily, the directions they provided were great. We had to be in our seats fairly early, so we sat there for a little while, and then the sky decided to open up and it poured. We finally decided to run for cover when we started to hear thunder. They have covered areas that people could wait in, so we took cover there and waited for a while.

Isabella had fun enjoying a banana with Aunt Linda while we waited for the rain to stop. I'm not sure if you can tell how wet Ken is or not, but he was the most soaked of all of us.


The rain eventually stopped and we returned to our seats. And this was a great sunset we got while we waited for the parade to start.



Isabella watching the band. She's wearing a t-shirt of Linda's that was dry. It was basically a dress on her, but it was dry. (Sorry about the finger on the lens)


This is about the only good shot I got of the parade. As you can see, it was dark and the lighting wasn't the greatest for pictures. This is the USMC Band.

A few improvements....

So we're slowly changing some things around the house. We debated on replacing our couches, but chose to just get couch covers for right now. They don't look half bad either, even though they still need a little smoothing.



One of the reasons that we chose not to replace the couches right now is because we're afraid our laptop is going to die any minute. So we chose to replace that instead. Its very nice and so much faster than our old one. It came today so I'm quite excited about it. And it has a built in card reader so I don't have to dig out the cables for the digital camera all the time. It also has a built in web-cam so no more finding the camera and hooking that up when I need either. So nice to have everything built in.

Gardening

So Ken decided that he needed to do something with our flower beds since we ripped out the bushes that were in them. Through the spring, we had just had some hanging pots on a few shepherd's hooks. Well, Isabella decided to "help." Here's some pictures for you.











And here's the finished result until the plants really take root and spread a little. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I have to say, I'm pretty keen on the black mulch.



On a side note, Isabella has started to get into trouble a little playing with things on top of the piano. One of the things that she likes to play with is this "castle." Its really a small Nativity sculpture.


But then again, she thinks this is a castle too.


And don't ask me why, but she decided this evening while Ken went out with the missionaries that it would be a good idea to eat a red crayon. Crazy child!

Mike's Graduation

So this past Saturday was Ken's nephews graduation. Most of the high schools around here hold their graduation at George Mason University's Patriot Center (Basketball arena/events center). Isabella had fun. She liked that the main hallway was a big place to run. Then she was a little miss gigglebox with her cousin, Katlyn. But at least she was well behaved, for the most part. She wasn't fussing or crying, so that was good. Of course, Mike's last name starts with "W" so we had to wait until the very end to see Mike cross the podium. Here's a few pictures from afterwards (thanks Teresa).

Ken kept trying to see if Isabella would cooperate for a picture with Mike. As you can see, she wasn't too happy about that.


But she eventually decided to get a closer look at the new graduate.


And here's a pretty good picture of Ken and Isabella, despite the fact Ken looks confused. I'm not sure who he was talking to.


Congratulations Mike! Good luck at college in the fall.