Summer vacation 2013, starts... NOW!

We we found out last December that Brian's sister Cathryn was engaged and planning a summer wedding, the gears in my mind started working overtime and I began thinking about an extended vacation for the kids and I this summer. I figured if we had to spend the moolah on 4 airline tickets for the wedding (we wouldn't have missed it for the world, and they asked Tate and Macy to be in the wedding!), I thought we should stay long enough so the grandparents didn't miss the kids anymore! 6 weeks? That should do it...

Here is the happy couple. Isn't this the cutest engagement photo? Can't you just feel Peter's excitement about marrying Cathryn when you look at this picture?

 She is showing off the necklace, because he proposed with a necklace instead of a ring, just like Cathryn and Brian's dad did many years ago.

Okay, so here we come Knoxville!

We flew out on Saturday June 15th and it was so wonderful to fly as a family of 4!

 (I got to sit by myself each flight too! While I wasn't lucky enough to get first class, just being across the aisle was a big treat!)

Another treat- stumbling upon Dunkin Donuts in the Dallas/Ft Worth airport-

 My kids now get even more excited than I do when we see DD!

We finally arrived at Gill and George's close to 1am. The kids got a second wind and just HAD to have some play time, of.course.

The next day was Father's Day! We realized that for the last 5 years, Brian has been with his father, George, on Father's Day, even though we have not lived within driving distance, sometimes not even in the same country! I joked that that also means that I have been with George on Father's Day as well, and boy is my dad pissed!

We took George out for dinner at a local brewery- here he is with 3 of his 7 children and 2 of his 11 grandchildren-

 The kids were thrilled to get some time with Auntie Cathryn pre-wedding!

 In fact, I was a little worried about how the kids were going to feel about new Uncle Peter. As a kid, I was very close with an older cousin of mine, Colleen. When I met her fiancee for the first time, I instantly disliked him. For no reason at all. He tried SOOOO hard to win me over too. I remember them taking me to an amusement park and I ignored him the entire day. (He ended up being a great guy who finally won me over!) I wondered if my kids were going to feel jealous of Peter...

NOPE! They met him on Wednesday night when he got to town and within about 13 minutes, they were in love. (He is a total techy guru and Tate especially loved that Peter would just hand over his phone and constantly had new games and apps for them to play!)

But, no game playing for us adults- there seemed to be LOTS of wedding prep to do all week!

Cathryn and I made the kids shirts for the wedding rehearsal-

 Instead of "Ring Bearer," they were jokingly calling Tate, "Ring Security" since he would actually carry their rings down the aisle at the wedding.

A little puffy paint, fabric markers and some iron on adhesive and here you go, our masterpieces-

In a separate room, the guys were hard at work, also crafting-

How about some fun brother/brother-in-law bonding, with glue guns!

 Thursday night lots of family members piled into town and we went to Sweet P's BBQ, as featured on the show Man vs Food! While we didn't try to challenge any eating records that night, we did have fun-

Hey, where are Aaron and Denny? Just like a couple of teenagers to sneak out without paying their bill or posing for the family photo!