Summer Fun: A Trip to Columbus & A Wedding

The weekend after we got home from vacation, we packed Moose and the car up and headed north to Columbus to see my family. We hadn't been up there since Christmas, and one of my friends who lived across the street from me growing up, was getting married, so it seemed like the perfect reason to go home. Also, my younger sister, who lives in Colorado came into town that weekend too!

We all arrived Friday night and spent a little time catching up before heading to bed. The wedding was at 2:30 in the afternoon, and the reception wasn't until 5:30,so it kind of took up most of the day. But I was with my family, so I didn't mind.

It was pretty hot that weekend, so before the wedding we took Moose to a little lake near my parents house. There were lots of dogs playing in the lake that day, and Moose was thrilled to have lots of buddies to play with and to be in the water. That dog loves the water. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but I'm pretty sure it was the best day of Moose's life. There is also a 1 mile walking path around the lake, so we went for a walk to dry off. But by the time we made it all the way around the lake, Moose really wanted to go back in the water. So I let him. So much for drying off.

The wedding was Saturday afternoon and evening. It was beautiful. And it was great spending time with our neighbors that we grew up with. The reception was great. It was at a country club. The tables each only seated 6. And when the food came out, it was brought out in serving dishes - Young Life camp style. So we passed around the dishes and served ourselves and ate family style. There was also a cake at each table. I was in heaven. Here is my family at the reception:

Sunday we had family over for brunch, so we got to visit with the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. We also took another trip to the lake so Moose could swim. Seeing Moose have so much fun brings me lots of joy.

Funny story: we took Moose swimming right before we left on Sunday so we would wear him out and he would sleep on the ride home. When Moose swims, he drinks LOTS of lake water. When we got home we started packing his stuff up. Second to the lake, Moose's favorite thing is car rides. So as soon as we began packing up his stuff, he knew we were getting ready to head home, and he proceeded to freak out and his only focus was on getting into the car. About 30 minutes into the trip, while we are driving down I-71 Moose starts whining. This is not uncommon. Then, I hear something in the back, and look, and it is Moose peeing in the back seat. This has never happened, and then I remembered how much Moose peed on Saturday after the lake and that he didn't go to the bathroom before we left. Luckily we were able to get him to stop, and I told Derek to pull over to the side of the interstate. I get his leash out of the truck and it takes me forever to get it on him, then I let him out and he proceeds to pee for a solid 2 minutes on the side of the interstate. It was comical how long it lasted. I just stood there as cars passed and Moose kept peeing. Derek and I were cracking up. Luckily he made it the rest of the way home with no problems.

So that was our trip to Columbus. Lots of quality family time, a fun wedding, and lots of fun for Moose!

Summer Fun: Reds Baseball

Now that I am finally getting around to actually documenting our summer, I think I'll just do a little summer fun series. This summer has been a very different one for us, since our vacation was really early on, and we don't have young life camp for the first time in our marriage, we essentially have had all of June and will have all of July and August to just enjoy summer. No major trips, nothing big to prepare for, it's kind of nice. Don't get me wrong, I definitely miss camp and all of the amazingness that goes with it, but it's nice to just chill for once. And God has been good and provided us with lots of fun people and things to fill our time with. So that is what my Summer Fun posts will be about, good times with good friends this summer.

I'll kick this off with a trip we took up to Cincinnati to see the Reds play. Since I am way backed up on blog posts, this happened the week we got back from vacation. Hunter and Kaelyn, two of our LCA kids who graduated last year are back from college, and Hunter's dad has really good seats to the Reds through his company. So the four of us went up to Cincinnati one afternoon to see the Reds play the Pirates.

I think going to a baseball game is one of those things that should be done each summer. And it was great to have awesome seats too! We stopped and got some Skyline on the way up, and then got stuck in some crazy traffic and had to navigate our way using an iphone and alternate routes. But, we made it by the 3rd inning, before the Reds scored all their runs in the 4th inning. The Pirates came back and made a game of it, but the Reds held on and we got to see Chapman get a save in the 9th by striking out the last batter with a fastball over 100 mph. And I ate dip'n dots.