NJ Festival of Ballooning

Remember last year when we watched the balloon festival from a distance? We actually went to the airport to see them this year!

It was incredibly cool. They do a mass inflation and assentation right around sunset.

So fun to see all the balloons come to life.

But that’s not all there was, though. There were lots of booths of vendors doing and giving away neat things. Like, Snapple. There was a chalk artist doing a festival mural. It poured about a half hour after I snapped this and washed away. So sad! I can’t imagine working in such a temporary medium!

There were a lot of food companies there giving away samples. The Sweedish Fish truck was my favorite. It says, “This truck contains Sweedish Fish. Please eat them.” We did. We ended up with so much candy it looks like we were trick-or-treating.

We got some food and then headed to a tent because it was starting to drizzle. Perfect timing because it started pouring a few minutes later. Luckily, things cleared up quickly and the balloons could fly.

Aside from the regular balloons, they had a bunch of fun-shaped ones. There was an astronaut balloon. They played Rocket Man as it went up.

It was the 30th year of the festival so they had a cake balloon. It was gigantic.

And my personal favorite, the dinosaur!

It was a really fun afternoon.

Photo Booth Photo Dump

Photo booths are clearly the big wedding trend right now. All four weddings we went to had them. The pictures are awkward and mildly embarrassing so I totally had to share them.

From John & Catie’s wedding:

From Tara & Doug’s Wedding:

From Andrea & Tim’s wedding:

From Dave & Jenn’s wedding:

Awesome, right?

David & Jenn’s Wedding

Last weekend, we went up to Scranton for our friends’, David and Jenn’s, wedding.

Mark was bringing up the gifts at the ceremony, so we started at rehearsal.

And moved on to the rehearsal dinner, which was at this gorgeous venue down the street from the hotel.

The next day we were back to the church for the real deal.

It was a really nice ceremony. As the newlyweds walked down the aisle, their friends started singing “All You Need is Love”. It was beautiful, and so sweet.

It was a gorgeous day. And, check out the trolley – that was the bridal party transportation!

My pink dress (and Mark’s pink tie!) ended up matching perfectly with the wedding colors. I loved the ballroom so much.

The whole thing was gorgeous.

We had a blast. It was such a fun reception. And then, at the end of the night, a jazz band took over. They did a few laps around the ballroom and everyone was like, grab your stuff and follow the band!

The band then led the parade of guests outside, where there was a police escort waiting. It was a parade! The band played and everyone danced a half mile back to the hotel bar.

And the party kept going. For hours. We finally went up to our room around 1 am because we were exhausted. The party was still going full-force, though!

The next morning, we met up with everyone again for brunch in the hotel lobby. I’m in favor of any meal that involves a chocolate buffet, but this one was really special because the room was so pretty.

It was such a fun weekend – and we were completely exhausted by the end! We came home and crashed (largely ignoring everything that should have gotten done for a few days – which is why this post is coming so late!)

Congrats again, David and Jenn! Hope you’re enjoying Hawaii!

3 Years

Three years ago today, I was getting ready to walk down the aisle and marry Mark.

Our celebrating today is pretty low-key. Mark’s working and I’m laid up with a pulled back, but we did swap gifs before he headed out the door this morning.

Since the 3rd anniversary is traditionally a leather gift, I got luggage tags made for him.

He got me a new heart necklace (that I’m currently wearing, so it’s too hard to get a picture of!) and a bottle of sparkling pineapple wine from the winery in Maui.

In some ways, I can’t believe it was only three years ago – I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime since then. In other ways, it’s shocking to me that it’s already been three years since that day.

I’m thankful everyday that I have such an amazing man in my life. He’s really more than I could have ever dreamed of.

Happy Anniversary, Mark! I love you!

Shiny & New

When we moved in, I quickly learned I hated our washing machine. Even when a load was balanced, the machine had a tendency to run across the room. Yes, run. By the time you got downstairs, it could be three feet away from where you left it. But it worked, so we left it.

A few months ago, the washer started making this awful noise during the spin cycles. It sounded like an airplane taking off – no joke. But it worked, so we left it.

The day before we left for vacation, the washer stopped spinning at all. Just quit. I consulted our handyman (aka, Dad), and he said it was time for new ones. I cried, no! I don’t need to spend the money! But inside I was doing a little victory dance.

This afternoon, these beauties were delivered:

I’ve been drooling over the Electrolux commercials since forever, but I’d always thought they’d be an if-we-ever-won-the-lottery purchase. When we went shopping, I was expecting something more modest. We were both pleasantly surprised to find out that they were not only on sale, but there was also a manufacturer’s rebate being offered – making them on par or cheaper than similar sets.

I sort of want to just sit in the basement and stare at them. Or, wash everything in the house.

Tara & Douglas’s Wedding

From the Outer Banks, we drove straight back to the Jersey Shore for Tara and Doug’s wedding. It wasn’t the easiest weekend for a wedding – it was 95 degrees and really humid, and there was a water main break that had the entire county under a boil water order. Everything went off without a hitch, though!

The ceremony was beautiful. I loved, loved, loved Tara’s dress. So gorgeous on her!

Doug and the groomsmen surprised Tara at the reception by stripping to I’m Too Sexy. They all had different superhero shirts under their tuxes!

Dessert was out of control. There was SO MUCH. In addition to the wedding cake and grooms cake, there were pastries, chocolate covered strawberries, cookies and a whole bunch of other cakes. We stuffed ourselves silly!

College buddies! I have the same picture of the three of us at Kristen’s wedding.

And our husbands. I can’t believe we’re all married!

The place was beautiful. I love being able to look out the ocean at night.

We ended the night by raiding the candy buffet. So. Fun.

Outer Banks

The day after Andrea’s wedding, we drove down to the Outer Banks for a week’s vacation with some of our college friends. We rented one of those big houses and just spent the week relaxing. It was glorious.

The first evening, we flew a kite on the beach as the sun set. It was one of those times you look around and find yourself in awe of the world – great friends, beautiful scenery and absolutely nothing else in the world to be doing.

The first night, we also celebrated the boys’ winning soccer season. They’re all on the same rec team and won the league championship the day before!

We spent a lot of time on the beach. The water was so clear and so calm.

I found some sand toys in one of the closets at the house, so I brought them down to the beach one day to make a castle.

Our house had a pool (and a hot tub!) too, so we swapped over to that when the beach got too hot.

My other favorite part of the house was the 4th floor reading nook. It had two walls of windows looking out over the beach. I think we all took turns laying in that chair reading.

Tuesday night was my birthday so we all went out to dinner at a Mexican place I picked. The food was awesome. And the birthday surprise was that the waiter brought out a sombrero and ice cream sundae for me. It was a blast.

Afterwards, we went back to the house and played Bezzerwizzer – my birthday gift from Mark. It turned out to be a crowd favorite. We played it every night until we left!

There were also beach game. Football.

And ladderball. I defended my streak and won again!

We played mini golf one night. I did embarrassingly bad.  Mark did well, though.

Our last day there, the crowd went tubing. Mark and I didn’t go, but we helped shuttle everyone up there. It was a gorgeous spot on the bay.

We did a little shopping instead. Mark’s been reading again since he’s free from CFA studying for the summer so we both had a good time browsing the book store.

We also ended up with a bunch of other goodies: a new cookbook, a sweatshirt, a pillow for the hammock and another Christmas ornament for the tree.

It was such a relaxing week!