My cousin Susie and I grew up together, we're the same age and attended k-12 together. On September 6th she got married and we were lucky to join in the celebrations. Thursday prior to the wedding was the bachelorette party. Clearly I am not out late these days of my life, but we were out till 3:30am! It was a lot of fun and seeing some old faces was a good time also. We started out having a dinner party at one of the bridesmaid's houses, we also went k-12 together. Then a limo picked us all up and we headed to Saratoga for some bar hopping. The track finished the week prior so the bar scene was a wee bit empty, but we had a great time anyway.
I also took the opportunity to add to my sewing creations and made a cute corduroy clutch to match my outfit for the evening. I made it on my mom's machine which is all computerized, I made her put the pedal on it, but I'm definitely partial to my 1976 machine! I forgot my lil' camera for the party but I did take a pic of my purse...It matches because I wore chocolate pants and a turquoise top. I made a few errors in it, but overall I'm happy with it. I made it from the
Bend the Rules book again. The only thing I'd really change is to make it longer/wider, but it fit my wallet and cell phone fine.
Oh right...back to the wedding, Susie and Brendan got married at
Echo Lake Lodge, which was really beautiful. Unfortunately it rained so we didn't get to enjoy the grounds as much as we'd like but the ceremony and reception were a lot of fun. I caught up with all my cousins (well almost all, there are a lot). I hadn't seen my cousin Megan in a long time and it was great to play wingman with her. Susie and Brendan are a very loving couple. It was beautiful to watch Brendan's face during the ceremony, he couldn't stop looking at Susie and he obviously adores her. She deserves so much happiness, I wish them all the best!
The day after the wedding my cousin Matt (Susie's brother), his wife Julie and their baby Mattie came over to visit and play with the girls. Mattie is 18 mths old and this was the first time we'd met her, so we had to take the opportunity to get these gals together. They were very cute.
At the end of July/beginning of August we took a lovely trip to Maine to visit my brother and attend my good friend Jen Kieley's wedding. I think we chose the most beautiful week to be in Maine, the whether was for the most part really lovely and made me want to live there. Then I had to remember that, like upstate New York, winter is a LONG season in Maine...so I'll stick with Virginia. My brother was kind enough to let the Santiago familia crash his one bedroom apartment and wreck havoc on his beautiful space for Wednesday night (our arrival night, and Monday night the night before our departure). He does have the most amazing apartment, it's very unique and just all around awesome. Being the exceptional Uncle Eyes that he is, he even bought toys for the girls to play with and invited his good friend who has a son the same age as Luli over to play. It was so nice to meet Patrick's friends and spend some much need quality time with my brother.
On Thursday we drove up to Belfast Maine and made a few stops along the way to enjoy as much of Maine as we could. We stopped at a Fish Hatchery and the guys were nice enough to give us a little tour and answer all of our questions. They even pulled out some fish at different ages for us to see their growth and how beautiful their color was. Pretty cool. Then we continued on to our hotel and the Lobster Bake wedding party before the wedding! It was a gorgeous night and we indulged in blueberry soup (a winner for the kids, and adults), lots of lobster, blueberry pie, and smore's by the fire pit. We had a great time and got to see a few old friends from our days in co-op country.
On Friday we toured around Belfast, which is a really adorable New England town. It had lots of shopping lots boats, and yummy restaurants with lobster rolls aplenty! In town we ran into even more friends (not surprising, it's a small town and we were all here for the wedding of the decade)! Then it was time to get back to the hotel, hopefully get the girls a nap and get dressed for the big night! 
It was really special to be here for Jen and Brad's wedding. They've been together for so long and been through so much. Jen has always been a great friend and is the reason I even went on date with Oscar to begin with. I wouldn't have missed her big day for the world. Unfortunately it did POUR during the ceremony so that was a bit of a damper. We couldn't hear anything and I really wanted to hear the vows they'd prepared for each other. The reception was a lot of fun and I think Luli dominated the bride and her family's time on the dance floor. While Fiona clung to her new best friend Caroline!
On Saturday we departed for Bar Harbour to enjoy some time in Acadia National Park. Wow is it beautiful there. We swam in the ocean, swam in a lake, hiked, picnicked, and took tons of pictures...which are all in an album to the left here. Then we ventured back to Portland to spend our last night with Uncle Eyes and return home to our normal lives.
