Wonderful Long and Busy Weekend~

Well my weekend pretty much started out on Thursday, May 31. My dad and step mom came in town for my brother's graduation from the Police Academy. It was a great ceremony. Although Justin couldn't be there because he was away for work, BOTH of my parents were there and I know that meant a lot to my brother. I didn't really have a chance to get some good pictures because I was trying to help entertain Annaliese, but she did so well. She is really starting to get used to being around a big crowd and allow other people to hold her. 


Anyway, seeing my brother walk across that stage and receive his certification as Cadet Columbis made us all so very proud. He is going to make a great police officer! 


Then Friday night we had a little graduation party for my brother, Alex. My dad and step mom, Jackie, usually always kick us out of the kitchen when they come to visit (and no we don't stop them) and I'm ok with that! They are far better in the kitchen than Justin or I, so I will never stop them as long as they want to cook. There were cold cuts subs, tuna subs, pasta salad, potato salad, fruit tray, chips and dips and a few cases of choice alcoholic beverages. My mom brought her famous "New York style" cheesecake which everyone devoured. Alex had a few friends come over to help celebrate and that was nice. Annaliese allowed us all to have some "adult time" and napped for a few hours in the evening and still slept through the night when everyone left to go home. How nice of her :) Friday was also my mother-in-law's birthday. She came to celebrate with us all over Alex's graduation and we surprised her with a few gifts and cards and made it a partial joint graduation and birthday party.

Saturday came and my dad, Jackie and I took Annaliese and went over to a Tastefully Simple party at SIL Jenn and BIL Ashley's house that Jenn was hosting for a mutual friend, Sierra who just became a consultant. There was so much food and a good many people there to help Sierra and Jenn out. Annaliese had fun too! After we left there, we came home to change and headed with my brother and Justin out to meet Justin's Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike and his mom, Elaine for dinner. My mom stayed at our house to watch Annaliese. We all went to the Shippensburg University Luhrs Center to see the oldies groups The Platters, The Coasters, and The Drifters perform. It was a great show! So very different from what music is today. My husband and I have so many common interests but music is definitely a huge one. We love oldies, classics, jazz and pretty much anything that's not modern. I'm not saying that I don't own a few Lady Gaga songs but my preference is still classic rock, what I grew up to. Anyway we had a great time, and this was part of our gift to Elaine, Alex, my dad and Jackie, since their birthdays are all in June.

My dad, Jackie, Elaine, and Alex

On Sunday, Annaliese and I had a scheduled photo shoot with Yarnell Photography which is a local photographer in our area. They had put a status on Facebook that if you "liked" their status they would randomly choose a winner of a free "Mommy and Me" shoot for the month of May for Mother's Day. Lucky me! I won! I was so happy to have won this shoot because Justin and I have wanted to get Annaliese's pictures done for a long time. We intended to have her newborn pictures done by Yarnell Photography, but due to the loss of my Yiayia and soon after that, the loss of Justin's father, we had lost the momentum to get her pictures taken professionally. Then time flew by and she is 6 days from being 8 months old already! Anyway, here are a few of the pictures that were taken and edited by Yarnell Photography. They are really amazing and do great work!

My dad and Jackie left to go back home to NJ after we got back from getting our pictures taken. It's always sad to see them drive away and I'm usually down and depressed for the rest of the day. Which I was. But knowing that we will be in NJ to visit them for Father's Day weekend is a little better than not knowing when I'll see them next. 

It was a perfect weekend with friends and family for nothing but good reasons and good fun. What more can you ask for? Oh and I forgot to mention that Monday, Justin had off work. We had planned to take Annaliese swimming for the first time, but the weather hasn't been that great and it only got up to about 70°, so that wasn't really a good temperature to go swimming in. So we stayed home. Annaliese took a long mid day nap so we were actually able to relax and watch a movie together! I know, shocking right? Mommy and Daddy time during the day? On a weekday? That's almost unheard of! But we enjoyed our relax time and watched The Muppets, yes it was my choice, but we both enjoyed the movie, regardless of what Justin says. Hehe! 

And that concludes our long and busy weekend. I'm actually amazed that I was able to blog today! I hope to blog again soon! Hopefully sooner than later! Well off to feed the little one! 

What did you do last weekend?