August

Um...where did the month of August go?  And how is it already September?  As usual, we've been super busy the past month with the usual: earthquakes, hurricanes and a wedding.  No biggie!  :) 

At the beginning of August, Juliann finished her second gymnastics class.  She really enjoyed the balance beam and the trampoline and loves to practice her seat drops on our bed.  Here she is on her last day at the gym doing what she does best, being dramatic!  Don't ask me why she's posed like this-its not a skill she learned because it was a regular gymnastics class, not rhythmic! 

 
The second week of August we took a road trip to Cincinnati for David's brother's (Peter) 30th birthday party.  The 8 hour drive was beautiful and relatively uneventful, even with 2 kids in tow!  We made it in record time and spent the next few days enjoying the beautiful weather and the town of Indian Hill where we stayed with Peter's in-laws, the Perins.  Anne threw Peter an amazing birthday party with delicious food and even orchestrated a beer tasting area for the guests-how creative and so Peter!  I told David he'd better step-it-up with the planning for my party in October!  ;)  When we asked Juliann what her favorite part of the trip was, she quickly replied the Zoo.  The Cincinnati Zoo was amazing and the 3+ hours we spent there were not nearly enough.  We would love to go back again on our next trip to visit Peter and Anne. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring the camera and have no pictures to document our trip.  :(

Next up was my sisters wedding.  She called me at the beginning of August and said she and her Ryan (my brother's name is also Ryan so we've always referred to her boyfriend as HER Ryan) were going to elope near Wilmington and they wanted David and I to be their witnesses.  I knew my sister and how much she'd always wanted a beach wedding so I found an officiant that could marry them on the beach near Emerald Isle.  Then I decided she needed to have a cake and flowers so I went to work!  I spent the entire weekend and few days before learning how to make a 2 tier wedding cake.  Don't ask me what I was thinking.  I've only taken one simple cake decorating class through Michaels but I was determined to make them a 2 tier cake so that they could save the top for their anniversary.  I learned how to make fondant from scratch to make star fish accents and also made seashell chocolates to put on and around the cake.  Unfortunately, we had some troubles getting into our place once we got down there so the chocolates melted and the starfish wilted.  Despite all of this, I was still super proud of myself and think it turned out pretty darn good!  :)

Final product after a 4+hr car ride

Thankfully mom came up the Monday before to help me with the kids and supplies!  We decided to run errands on Tuesday the 23rd and while we were out shopping in the West End, we experienced an earthquake!  Now, this is not the first earthquake I've ever felt here in Virginia.  There was a small one not far from Charlottesville a few years ago when I was getting my masters at UVa but I don't remember it being that big of a deal or lasting for very long.  The one on Tuesday was a completely different story.  I know the West Coast gets them all the time but we just aren't used to them here and this one lasted for what seemed like 2 minutes. I was checking out at Michaels and suddenly heard what sounded like a helicopter overhead.  The cashier looked at me and asked if something was landing on top of the building and that's exactly what it sounded like was happening.  Not a second later everything started shaking.  Things were falling off the walls, the floor was moving under my feet and the lights were swaying.  It was crazy and scary, especially because mom had gone next door with the girls.  Afterwards, I tried to call mom but couldn't get through to her.  We ended up meeting outside and I was glad that they were all okay.  Everyone around us was talking about what had just happened.  Poor Jules was scared to death and now anytime she hears a loud noise she yells, "What was that?"  And we thought thunderstorms were hard to explain to her-sheesh!  Since then, we've had a few aftershocks but nothing like the initial quake we felt, thankfully!

Mom left with the girls on Wednesday and I set to work icing the cake.  By this point, the news was all over the impending hurricane, Irene, and her potential course up the East Coast.  The wedding was moved from Saturday evening to Friday afternoon.  We were determined to have this wedding (I mean, I was going to do it myself if I had to since I'd made this cake!) and David and I decided to go to Emerald Isle as planned on Thursday morning.  While it sounds kind of stupid to be heading down towards the path of a hurricane, we knew it wasn't supposed to hit until sometime on Saturday so we had a few days and planned to be safely back at home before Irene hit.  Additionally, they were still unsure of her exact path so we were playing things by ear!  When we got down on Thursday around noon, we sat on the beach until check-in.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us check-in to our condo because the town of Emerald Isle had issued an evacuation for that evening.  Great.  So, plan B was to head an hour south to Topsail.  We found a hotel off the island and after we checked in (and got the cake in the AC) we headed to the beach for a bit.  At 4:00, the officiant calls and asks if we can have the wedding at 7pm THAT NIGHT!  Sure, why not!  So at just before 8:00 on a sunset beach, my sister and Ryan were married.  It was truly romantic and you'd never know a hurricane was churning out in the ocean-it was GORGEOUS!  I was so happy for them both and things worked our as they were supposed to (especially since Topsail evacuated at 6am the next morning)!

 Heather and I before the ceremony

 Vows

Rings

 Husband and Wife!

We made it home by noon on Friday and since we were without kids, we relaxed at the pool and enjoyed a lazy day/evening.  The next day was a completely different story.  Starting around 10am we had rain and winds that lasted well into that night.  We lost power around 1pm and it was out for the next 52+ hours.  The winds were unbelievably strong and snapping branches right and left.  Our neighbors tree narrowly missed our house and fence.  Luckily we had no damage and clean up consisted of a few large limbs, branches and leaves.  Driving around on Sunday, we saw too many trees uprooted to count and power line poles snapped in half.  The Richmond area was hit pretty hard.  The lack of power was not so much fun (I was so glad the kids weren't here) and we had to through out everything in both of our fridges.  :(  I gave up on Monday and I headed to the lake with mom and the girls.  Ironically, our power came back on 30 minutes after I got down there.

The neighbors tree

I decided to stay for the week with the girls (David got to enjoy life as a bachelor at home) and enjoyed spending time with my parents before their big move, as well as Heather and Ryan and Ryan and Meredith. David eventually joined for the Labor Day weekend and now its back to reality and the month of September!

So that was our crazy August.  How was yours?!?