September 15th - catching up again!

On September 15th, Kari, Darrin and Katelyn hosted a 'farewell' party for our friends Jen and Dave who are moving to Charleston, South Carolina. Jenna, Evan, Eliza and Ellie came all the way down from Pittsburgh! Padma, Kerry and Christopher also joined us. It was a lot of fun, although I had to leave early to go to my friend Amanda's bachelorette party.

Ellie loves the slide!
Padma and Jen
Christopher's not sure what to do with all these girls around!!
Kari relaxes between pictures...

Eliza, Katelyn and Ellie play in the moonbounce.

Jenna and Darrin in the kitchen...

Dave just got his Phd. from Virginia Tech (well, he GETS it in December, but he's successfully defended his dissertation) so I made him this shirt...

Another day, another dollar! (I hope)

Last weekend was a blast with a picnic at Kari's house and a bachelorette party. I was pretty productive, too, pulling everything out of every corner of my house to clean, price and sell in a Yard Sale tomorrow. Here's hoping I get rid of a lot of junk and maybe make a few dollars in the process!

One bad thing ... my bike was taken. :-( This is NOT good news, because now is prime bike-riding weather in Richmond! I really missed it this week.

Yesterday at work they had a United Way fundraiser. It was a HUGE success! I took a few videos of the performances, and here's one that about made me bust a gut. I'm sure he made a fortune for the United Way, because everyone was cracking up. Who has the guts to sing Feelings acapella?

Have a great weekend everyone!
- Aunt Crazy

U.S. Open

After the family reunion, I met my friend Paul in New York City for a couple of days. On Tuesday, we went to the US Open. I don't know anything about tennis, but I appreciate the event. Here are a few pictures:

These were our seats ... beautiful stadium!

Djokovic - Monaco match...

Kennedy Family Reunion

On Labor Day weekend, the Kennedy family met in Albany, NY for a family reunion. In addition to just wanting to get together, it was my Aunt Morag and Uncle Don's 50th wedding anniversary!

Above is Shirl (Morag's oldest and closest friend), my Aunt Morag, Isabel, me, and Andy, my cousin and Isabel's husband. I am wearing the Kennedy tartan in a skirt, which my Aunt Morag gave to me. It was my grandmother's.

We attended the Scottish Games in the Altamont Fairground. It was a blast! We even walked in the Parade of Tartans!

We had Meat Pies and Bridies for lunch. Above is my cousin Zach with Kyla, and Chris and Joey looking on.

Saturday night we enjoyed a nice dinner to celebrate Morag and Don's anniversary. Kelly, Chris and my brother Bill are pictured above. Christopher wore the Kennedy tartan tie as he brought in the steaming haggis on a silver platter. It was hilarious, but he did a great job!

Lauren kept interrupting the toasts because we made the mistake of telling her beforehand that she would get some cake. My poor Uncle Don was giving the most amazing, wonderful speech, but unfortunately at one point everyone laughed because Lauren was screaming "But I want it NOW!" in the background. You can see that Uncle Bill finally brought her some, and it made her quite happy.

Here is a picture of the whole Stauffer family (sans spouses and children, that is.) Doug and Aundy are fraternal twins.

Sunday we enjoyed a casual barbeque at Morag and Don's house. Here Aunt Morag and I are with Greg, Joey, Chris, Zach and Dominik.

More catching up... Cary Visit in August

I just can't help myself. In my opinion, you can NEVER have too many pictures of my beautiful neices on a web site.

I went down to Cary on the weekend of July 20th. It was a lot of fun! We had beautiful weather, albeit dry and hot.

Much to the fury of my sister and brother-in-law, I taught Lauren the joy of making mudpies!

I think she liked it, but she liked the post-mudpie-hosedown the best. That girl LOVES water!

Saturday afternoon we all went down to the Cary Park pool. It's pretty cool! You can drink beer and there's a HUGE water slide. Below is my brother holding up Lauren, who is looking at her Dad over to the right.

We also got to take a look at the lot where my Mom is building her new house, and she picked out all the options. I know she's so excited to finally have a PLAN for the next year!

Here is Kyla on the couch just smiling her little face off... I picked this outfit out for her that morning. I think the little "mary janes" socks are the best part.

Catching up!

I haven't written in a LONG time, so here are a few things I might not have posted info about before...

First, much to my chagrin, my neighbor Chris and his girlfriend got engaged and moved to London - all in a month! OK, OK, so a lot of it was in the works for longer than that, but talk about LIFE CHANGES! I'm very happy for them, and I hope to see them next May when I'm over for Simon and Samantha's wedding.