Moving On

I heard it said many times this weekend that "Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer." Boo. This summer flew by. I know we did a lot, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like summer should only be half over and we should be going on another mini vacation. Not so.

We left Philly around 6:45pm on Friday and I was fully prepared for a 6 hour ride. After all, it was Labor Day weekend. We arrived happily in CT around 11pm. The only traffic we encountered was when we were half-way over the George Washington Bridge...not the best place to get stuck, but we managed. D downloaded an audio book called Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline from our local library's website, so that kept us quite entertained for at least three and a half hours of the ride. I actually couldn't wait to ride back to PA so I could find out what happened in the end. She's a local author who sets her books in the Philly area so it's really neat to be able to picture most of the locations she writes about. Anyway, the no traffic made a great start to our three-day weekend.

D was actually more busy than me this visit, which was nice for both of us. He liked hanging out with the guys and I liked being able to relax and not feel so rushed around. Mom and I had a hair appointment Saturday morning, but not much else. Dad, Grandma, and I went on our traditional food shopping spree...we actually hit up two stores which was unusual. That night, D and I ate dinner with his family. Sara and Tony and Ari were there and Ari was her entertaining self. I played the "I'm going to get you" game with her and if I was near Tony, her "base," then she'd run past me to get to her daddy. I thought it was funny that she was running to/past the person who was going to get her, but she saw safety and didn't look back. Poor Tony was trying to play Wii in the meantime, but managed to still do good at whatever he was playing. She kept me entertained for a while, until she was tired and had to go :(. I did manage to snap off these pictures of our Ari-girl:




And here's everyone playing the Wii. I think Dad, Sara, and I were the only ones who weren't playing!



Sunday was another relaxing day. It was great to see some church people again. In between churches, Grandma, Mom, Yana, and I took a little trip to Target:


After church, Dad prepared this yummy dinner for everyone and Ryan and Yana sponsored a very yummy ice cream sundae party:


Monday was our Labor Day Picnic. Dad and Mom love hosting these things, so we had another houseful of people. Some of Yana's family came this time and it was so nice to meet such sweet, sweet people. We had our usual family members there and D's family came, including Ari-girl. I made my pulled-pork recipe and it went over well. I can't take too much credit for it, though, the crockpot did all the work! Here are some of the outtakes: