made: Where or where have I been?

It seems like in the last two weeks I've driven thousands of miles (and quite possibly, I have!) but I took a much needed break and headed to the east coast for a visit with family & friends. The culmination of my visit was a celebration of my cousin Christopher and his beautiful bride, Rose. All in all, it was an amazing getaway.

I started my vacation traveling to Cape May, NJ to spend a few days with my parents and my sister in law who is due to have her first baby any day now. It was adorable to see the curiosity of my son with his aunt's belly. He's discovered his belly button recently (and everyone else's it seems too!) so he just didn't know what to make of a 9 month pregnant belly. (Hopefully she wont mind me sharing, it's just so cute!)

My sister in law is absolutely wonderful. Aside from putting up with my brother, she is such a genuine and good person. I love that she made the trip 9 months pregnant (without my brother!) to spend a few days with our family. My son absolutely adores her and I think the feeling is mutual. I took this picture of them playing and just think it's so cute. I can't wait for her son to arrive and to see our boys play together for years to come!

It was wonderful to relax (and spend some time reading on the beach!) My parents enjoyed having their grandson at the beach, to build sand castles (and then crush them) and to walk along the water carefully making sure NOT to get wet at all. My son took a little while to adapt to bare feet and sand. I just loved seeing his little hands playing in the sand.

We enjoyed our visit and Cape May was as beautiful as ever. It is one of my parents favorite places to visit on earth. I still remember going to Cape May Point and collecting "Cape May Diamonds" at Sunset Beach. I forced my parents to take us there and I think my son enjoyed helping us collect special stones there too!

From Cape May I headed to visit my dear friend Amy who just recently gave birth to her second child, a girl, Abigail. It seems like my friends were prolific at creating boys so a girl is just so....foreign! It was amazing to snuggle Abby, since she's barely 10 pounds now. I don't remember my son ever being so small. It made me miss those sleepless first days of parenthood. Amy and I enjoyed seeing our sons play together. Often we would get caught up in small talk, only to suddenly realize the boys were quiet, AH! And we'd go find them playing so nicely...we kept commenting that the less we involved ourselves the better the boys seemed to behave. Go figure!

In Philadelphia, we visited my alma mater, Villanova University. We visited the book store to buy a license plate cover but I just couldn't bring myself to pay $25+ for something so --useless?! We visited the main landmark of campus-the Oreo-and had a student take our picture. We felt so amazingly--OLD! I couldn't believe that 10 years ago that was us there, walking to class, and starting some of the best friendships of a lifetime!

We attended my dear friend Nicole's son's birthday party. They had a wonderful musician (I'd give him a plug here if I could remember his name) but the kids absolutely LOVED him. It was a great party--and a great after-party for a handful of us who rarely get to see each other and visit. I'm sure Nicole was ready for us to leave, but we just kept talking and talking.

The last leg of my trip was to NY. I spent the night at my parent's house, then headed to pick my husband up at the airport, he spent a night at my parents house, and then all of us headed to Long Island for my cousin's wedding. We were blessed to be able to spend the night with my Aunt & Uncle (the parent's of the groom) who arranged for a babysitter to watch our son at their house while we attended the wedding. The wedding itself was beautiful and brought back memories of my wedding over 4 years ago! Of course, I didn't get any great pictures of the bride & groom, but I did get a nice picture with my parents...so I'll share that one.