Weekend in Burlington

I have a few pictures, but this post will be text only. The sad fact is that we are pretty certain our sweet little blue camera is gone. One of us must have set it down somewhere in the FunCity arcade this morning and it must have been picked up by someone who didn't feel the need to turn it in. We've searched, called, called other people, had other people search....and it's just not showing up. I'm very sad about several of the photos and videos that we lost. So, rather than describing the weekend and Katie's wedding, I'm going to describe a few of my favorite photos while I can still picture them in my head.
The first was Clara, just after getting her hair done at the salon. She still had on her lavender top, but her hair was all flower-girled up. Lots of curls in back (with lots of hairspray....another photo I've just remembered shows Clara covering her face while the stylist sprays her with lots of hairspray) a tiny tiara on top and two little flower clips. She has her back to the camera, so you can see all of her pretty hair, but she's peeking back at me in the mirror, so you can see her sweet face too.
At the church Katie, already in her wedding gown, helped straighten Clara's big pink bow on the back of her dress. Neither of them were looking at the camera.
A short video caught Clara testing out how well her flower girl dress would twirl.
Another video was taken while the entire bridal party was posing for a group photo. Clara and her compatriot flower girl, Sam, were holding hands together in front and Clara was waving her bouquet to get the gnats away.
At the ceremony I caught a quick shot of Clara and Sam walking across the front of the church. The composition isn't great, but you can see how proud of herself Clara is by the expression on her face.
In between the ceremony and the reception we tried to get the kids to nap. We had taken off Clara's dress, but she still had on her white lacy socks, her Hello Kitty underpants and her fancy hair when she sat down on the bed to read a book.
Mom took a couple of pretty good pictures of Pete, Henry, Clara and I sitting at our table. We also had a couple of me and Clara and of Pete and Henry. It's not too often that we get nice whole-family shots. 
The kids were very excited to dance at the party. I got all 4 cousins to stand still for a brief moment and snapped several shots, trying to get them all to look at once. The best, I thought, was (from left to right) Eleanor, Henry, Anders and Clara. Henry is already all sweaty-headed and is crouching down to the height of the other kids. Eleanor is looking at the camera with a little smile and Anders has his tongue sticking out too the side. Eleanor's dress was full of bright flowers. Anders was in a green shirt with a little dinosaur tie.
I'm not sure I can capture it in words, but I was hoping to frame a beautiful picture of Henry and Clara sitting together on the dance floor. Clara's white dress was fluffed out around her legs and Henry was looking up with a sweet smile.
Later in the night, when Henry fell asleep across two chairs, I took a picture of him sleeping with the dancing in the background.
One of the last shots I took this morning was of Anders and Henry together playing Guitar Hero. They each had the 'guitars' strapped around their necks and they were giving me their best rocking out faces.
I have a slim little bit of hope that somehow the camera might still show up. Hopefully someone picked it up and just got lazy about turning it in to lost and found. They'll probably get tired of hearing from me over the next few days.

Portland

I just realized there might be some folks out there who would like to know what we were up to last weekend! Mom was here to stay with the kids and Pete and I flew out to Portland to visit Ellen and her family and to attend Sarah and Orion's wedding. We had an awesome time!
Here's cute little Gretchen. We had so much fun with her!
We went to Toast for dinner first thing!
This was a delicious beet salad with hazelnuts and horseradish dressing.
This was some sort of fried squash, salami, Brussels sprouts salad.
Friday morning we met up with Rob and Carrie.
After dropping Carrie off for her nail appointment with the ladies we spent some time bumming around town. Of course much time was spent at Powell's.
And a little time was also spent at Rogue.
Friday night was an open-invite pizza party after the rehearsal. We hung out and played a little darts.
Ellen came along and looked cute in her polka-dot maternity top.
Saturday morning meant another breakfast at Toast. Gretchen was proud of her umbrella.
Here are some toasters.
Here's my fancy brother before the ceremony Saturday evening.
And here's the beautiful bride.
The wedding was truly beautiful in every sense. I felt very fortunate to be a part of it.
I was also impressed by the cake.
And the venue wasn't bad either.
The next morning we spent a little valuable time with Gretchen before having to head home. She was a great hostess! She even put on her Iowa shirt to be twins with her pal Pete.
After three nights away from the kids we were pretty happy to be on the plane home. We had treats from Toast and presents from the shops to bring home to share.
Thanks to Ellen and Don for putting us up! And to Orion and Sarah for getting married! XO to all!

Still Recovering

By all rights I should be asleep, considering we were among the first to arrive at Sarah's wedding, and the last to leave. Here are Henry and Clara with Felix and Oliver, entertaining themselves in the hour before the ceremony.
We had first choice of seats, but chose to sit where we might take a quick exit if necessary. Fortunately, it wasn't necessary.
And Anders sat by us.
Here are the kids having some fun during cocktail hour. Somehow I missed any opportunities to get photos of me with my sisters-in-law or with my brothers.
Aunt Paula brought some drawing supplies around for all of the children during the dinner.
Henry and Clara each made some pictures for the bride and groom.
We all enjoyed Paula's punny slide show.
Clara was the party girl on the dance floor.
She was also the last one to leave the dance floor at the end of the night. We watched almost everyone else drive away before taking our tired children home. But don't let Clara fool you...this wasn't her trying to sleep on the dance floor, it was just one of her moves.
Stay tuned for a look at the book Henry wrote during the reception. I think it may become a best seller.
In case I forgot to say it before...Congratulations to Sarah and Josh!!

A couple more from the wedding...

Here are a few more photos we captured on our phones...
Pete and Henry in the limo.
Liz and Van in the limo...
Me and Pete and Henry...Henry thought the changing colored lights in the limo were especially cool.
And our one photo from the reception...Clara and Henry with us at the head table. Instead of salads they got fruit cups. I was also a little jealous of Henry's chicken strips and Clara's huge bowl of mashed potatoes (though my meal was quite tasty as well).

Wedding Weekend

Uncharacteristically, I did not have my camera attached to my person the whole weekend. I wanted to focus on the wedding festivities. Now that I look back, though, I wish I had some more photos! I guess that's what the professional was for.
Here is the crew at the wedding rehearsal, shortly before I found out I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures in the sanctuary. By the way....in case you weren't aware....it was Pete's sister Liz getting married this weekend. There's the groom, Van, in the red tie.
The happiest moment of the weekend for Henry was when Van gave him some Hot Wheels as a gift for being the ring bearer.
Here we are at the rehearsal dinner with the bride and groom, Van's mom and Pete's parents.
Here's a favorite moment from before the wedding. The maid of honor, the two older wedding coordinators and another bridesmaid's sister were all trying to figure out how to play a CD in the room where we were getting ready.
Here are Liz and Tina, once we got the music going.
This is not my favorite picture of myself, but Liz looks lovely, so I'm including it anyway...
I love this shot of Andrea walking across the floor and spraying up her hair.
I didn't take any photos at the reception, which was lovely, so fast forward to this morning. Here is one of the smaller table arrangements. We brought one home as well. I'm systematically dismantling it and creating smaller bouquets all around the house.
And here's the newly married couple. Andrea had their wedding invitation framed as a gift for them. Tomorrow they leave on their honeymoon! Congratulations Liz and Van!!
Maybe if anyone else has pictures from the weekend they'll share with me and I'll post a few more...