Sunday, August 14, 2005
mike and shana are hitched
I'll post more details tomorrow, but I wanted to be sure and get the photographs up from Shana and Mike's wedding before I headed off to dream time tonight. Click here to view the photographs I took at the wedding reception. I apologize in advance for a couple of the shots being sub par (out of focus or the tops of heads in the picture). I was a little hasty in some of my shot preparation and didn't take enough backup shots to compensate. Overall, I think they came out pretty well though. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 13, 2005
flying baby
One of our "Jersey Cousins", Shana, is getting married tomorrow along the New Jersey shore. We headed out today to join the rest of the family to celebrate her new union. We are all very excited for her and her soon to be husband, Mike, and wish them all the best.
I start to feel old when I think back to our wedding 12 years ago. (Or the weddings of Becky's sisters, Debbie and Sharon) Shana and Laura were just youngsters then. It is amazing to see the wonderful young women that they have become. We've been lucky enough to spend more time with them since and always look forward to any chance to get together. It is too bad that the constraints of distance tend to limit our time together to big family events.
It was a big day for the Lennard family as well. This was Rachel's first trip on an airplane. We met Sharon and Amanda at DFW Airport at 7:15 this morning to prepare for our flight into Philadelphia. After grabbing a bite to eat at the overpriced McDonald's, our stomachs were full and we were ready to take our first trip with a baby in tow. (Why is it when a restaurant has you held captive in an airport they think it is okay to charge you twice as much?) Since Becky and Sharon both like to arrive early to make sure there aren't any problems, we still had plenty of time after eating for a diaper change before beginning to board the plane. So far, so good
Rachel did amazingly well on the flight. Other than being a little fussy on the final descent, she was perfectly content. (She was actually more sedate than some of the adults on the flight.) We stuffed the pacifier into her mouth while we prepared for landing at Philadelphia International Airport hoping it would help to relieve the pressure change on her tiny ears. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to provide quite enough relief, and she was still upset. However, being the happy baby that she is, even the crying was minimal.
After landing and taking care of the next diaper change of the day, we proceeded to the Hertz rental car counter to pick up the minivan we shared with Sharon and Amanda. I was glad to see it included a GPS navigation system since we were unfamiliar with the area and concerned about finding the hotel. As it turns out, we moved at a slow enough pace the written directions from MapQuest were more than sufficient.
We had forgotten about the summer weekend exodus to the Jersey shore that is so popular with the residents in the local area. It is especially necessary when it is as sweltering as it is in New Jersey currently. So, we joined the lines of cars headed from Philly toward Atlantic City. Like tiny rows of ants lined up on their scouting trips for food, we methodically made our way toward the shore. The trip we were expecting to take an hour ended up taking two. By the time we arrived at the Seaview Marriott, we all starving and tired. After checking in, we finally made it to the rooms around 3:00 pm EDT. Bless our Jersey cousins for providing a gift bag with snacks in it. It was perfect for tiding us over in lieu of lunch (since the trek out here ended up keeping us on the road and away from grabbing a bite).
We made sure all of the other Texas relatives had arrived and started getting ready for the rehearsal dinner. The dinner at Gourmet Italian Cuisine was great and a welcome relief for the hunger pains. More important than that, it was our first opportunity to meet Mike and his family. They were wonderful hosts, and we are all looking forward to extending our family even further. As always, it was great getting to see everyone and catch up on the happenings in our lives since the last time we had a chance to visit.
The wedding is here at the Seaview Marriott tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 pm. We will be heading out to the cousins' condo on the shore in the morning. If time allows, we will get together with Becky's sisters, Sharon and Debbie, and head out to the Atlantic City Boardwalk. We'll have Drew and Amanda with us, so there will be more site seeing and less gambling at the casinos which brought new life to the area.
I'll post another entry tomorrow detailing our day -- including photos of course. In the meantime, you can click here to see Rachel's first flight photo and the pictures from the rehearsal dinner this evening.
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