Up, up, and away!

We did it! We finally made it to Connor Prairie to use our free balloon ride tickets!!!

The kids and I go to Connor Prairie at least once a week but I obviously wanted to make sure J was with us to enjoy the balloon ride. And thank God he was! When I was younger, I never had any issue with heights but now that I am older, I can't stand them. I really didn't think I would have an issue with the balloon ride since hey, the balloon is tethered but let me tell you, I wanted to get down the minute we got up there. I was holding Matthew in a front carrier which was my saving grace so I could just close my eyes and kiss his head while he was held securely to me.

Thank you, J, for capturing the balloon ride. I love seeing what I missed (since I had my eyes closed most of the time). Gosh I am getting old!

How I preferred to see the balloon: standing on the ground, looking up



On the other hand, Ella was excited to go!



Hold on tight girls!



I still look happy, right? Notice how we are still on the ground :)







I tried to highlight our house but it turned our rather
light and a weird color overall. But for those that don't know, our house is extremely close to Connor Prairie and we can actually see the balloon go up and down when we look out our front door.



I "look" like I am having fun, right? HA!





The ground at last!



We ran into a family from the Y I remembered
when the girls were in ballet. They offered to take pics of our family and on the last shot, he said, "let me zoom in."
Zoom in? Who needs a head, right J?
Gosh this pic makes me laugh!



Then it was ice cream time. Something we all can enjoy :)







The girls had been begging to use the balloon ride passes since they came in the mail a month ago. I hope they remember this ride as 1) it was such a fun experience for a kid!!! 2) I will probably never do this again :)



Nothing like feeling like a pig after you eat a huge amount of ice cream and then turning around and seeing baby pigs run around. Gotta love Connor Prairie!

Michigan Trip

Last weekend Jason and I were able to break away for a trip to Michigan. Friday night we stayed with our friends, Bryan and Rachel. Bryan and Jason used to work together so I have known Bryan for years but I had not gotten to meet Rachel (I was pregnant and sick with Matthew when they got married so we weren't able to make it to their wedding). Thanks to the world of facebook Rachel and I have actually become great friends and have enjoyed sharing mommy tips (their son is 7 months old). It was a great visit!

The Con-Man
The Doleckis were awesome hosts!

We woke up Saturday morning and drove a little over an hour to Monroe, Michigan where Kelly & Brent were getting married. Kelly and I have been friends since our freshman year at Miami University and lived in the same dorm/apartment/house all 4 years. It was a fabulous wedding but kind of bitter sweet as this was the final wedding of the group. We have always loved getting together for all of the many weddings but now we are just going to have to plan trips!

J, Le and Scot before the reception



The first thing we saw walking into the reception was this Group Therapy sign hanging above the bar. This sign was made by Kelly's Uncle and hung on our house Senior year in college. Kind of sums us up, right girls :) Kelly was so creative to bring this back out! I wanted to hang this sign on our current house but Jason thought the neighbors would disapprove.



Here is our group of girls from Group Therapy

Jess & Libby

Me and Liz



I met all of these girls freshman year--most of them in the same dorm and on the same floor as myself. Most of us became sorority sisters, but we all stayed close throughout college and afterward.

The Miami group and our boys.
Since all of us are married (except for Ken and Libby who will be married early next year) this is how our group will look 20 years from now (ok, we might not look the same but we will all be with the same partners) :)

Kelly got the AGD girls corsages and here are the 3 girls who were not AGDs stealing our corsages for a fun pic. They are honorary members :)

Jess, Dave, Libby, Ken

Kelly, Liz, Jess, me

Their first dance
I forget the song they danced to but before that song started an intro of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas started. Why? Well, Kelly (and apparently Brent) loves and I mean LOVES Christmas music. She often starts playing it around August. Her nickname in college was Christmas Kelly! It was hysterical and such a cute touch, Kel!

Liz & Le

John & Jan Landis
Parents of the bride

Kristi, Tyler & Jim Chadwick with Kristy's mom, Lee Held

Le & J

Sorry we interrupted your dinner, Kelly and Brent, but we had to get a picture with the beautiful couple

Me & Kat
Kelly's maiden name is Landis so imagine our confusion when her new last name became
Leciejewski (I had to copy and paste that from facebook to get it right). Kat and I spent all night phonetically spelling it so we can call Kelly by her new married name :)

Mike & Jess

Scot & Kathryn Easterday

The final song: I've got friends in low places (Garth Brooks)



Kelly and Brent did many Polish traditions throughout the wedding and reception. It was such a perfect balance and reflected Kelly's fun loving, caring personality! What a fabulous time with some great friends.

Photo Shoot

Hair today, gone tomorrow

This morning as I was feeding Matthew breakfast the girls were upstairs playing. They have always played very well upstairs together so I didn't think anything of the quiet in my house. Well, I should have been suspicious! I went upstairs and heard Ella say "Hurry, clean up the mess, mom is coming." This is never good to hear!

Well, this is what I saw:

Yup, the girls had done it. They each cut their sister's hair!
Thank goodness we live next to a hair stylist so Jackie was able to fix it within an hour of the incident. At first I was mad, then I cried, then I laughed.

Here is the chunk of hair Laney was missing.

Ella's bangs
They were so short on the left!

Jackie was able to clean up Laney's hair and give her a cute, summer bob.

Isn't it cute?
Although I wanted to cut her hair shorter, I would have liked to have been the one to decide when this was going to happen girls.

Jackie cut Ella's bangs at an angle, trying to make the left not look so short.
Laney keeps saying she now looks like Ella :)

I guess you can tell he has two older sisters.

This was quite a morning especially since before the hair cutting incident, Matthew got stung by a wasp. His finger was huge, but was back to normal in about 6 hours. In true big boy fashion, he only cried for about a minute and then went back to playing with the Worcestershire sauce in the cabinet.

What a crazy few hours!