Here's one more birthday photo of Molly celebrating with Vivy and the Finks this weekend.
And here she is this morning, not happy that it was pajama day at preschool or that Josh got to stay home for a teacher workday and she didn't. Josh, for once, was very happy to have his picture taken.
We headed out to Wilmington this weekend to attend the much-anticipated wedding of our friends Karen and Dean, who have dated for 11 years! I first met Karen when I was 22, and she often has been a voice of wisdom and reason in my life. One of the best parts of the wedding was that many of our dear friends from Wilmington attended, so we caught up with a lot of people we haven't seen in years.
For those of you who have known some of our Wilmington friends, here's the group photo. Hopefully the professional photographer had a camera that allowed a photo without other guests in the bottom corners!
Me and Sally, our cousin who also is friends with Karen's family. It was fun to see a relative at the wedding!
We also took the opportunity to eat at some of our favorite Wilmington restaurants, and today we had lunch at a burrito restaurant with our friend Amy, who graciously kept Josh and Molly during the wedding. This was Molly's first experience with chips and queso dip, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
Amy was a huge hit with the kids. Josh pronounced: "I had fun. I like her," when we left Amy's yesterday, and Molly wailed that she wanted to go to Amy's house as we drove of town today. Luckily we get to see Amy again at a wedding in May.
Before we left, we joined our friends again for some more hang-out time, and I miserably failed at a group photo of the kids who were there. Again, for those of you who know these people, the two on the left are Karl and Jen's kids and the two in the middle are Andy and Suzanne's.
Nemo and Marlin met a horrific death today after Molly (unbeknown to us) turned off the filter and air pump to the tank last night, and the fish went for about 12 hours with no oxygen or filtration. When we got home from church, Nemo was clearly about to die, and he soon sank to the bottom of the tank. Marlin (Nemo and Marlin are a mated pair) laid on top of him while he died. It was like watching Romeo and Juliet.
Chris called the pet store as we were panicking, and they said there's a very small chance for the surviving fish to live because usually it will die of grief over the loss of its mate. Sure enough, within minutes Marlin, who had been pretty peppy before, began nosediving and floating on her side. She died a few minutes later. It was all very tragic.
After several comments about how sad he was because these were the fish he got for his birthday, Josh announced, "We'll be happy with the kittens." Thankfully Homer and Henry, our new kittens, are very tolerant of Josh and Molly and more hardy than Nemo and Marlin. I think Homer and Henry are so grateful to have a home (they were born under a bush, as Josh likes to tell people) that they'll put up with a lot.
After much buildup about the giant blizzard heading toward Charlotte, sure to dump many inches of snow, we woke up to 1-2 inches. As is typical of local weather forecasts, reports of the incoming storm were greatly exaggerated.
Here's one more birthday photo of Molly celebrating with Vivy and the Finks this weekend.
We officially left the Terrible Twos behind today, hopefully to welcome the Terrific Threes! We celebrated Molly's birthday all day, starting with flowers, a balloon and a new toy train at breakfast and cake tonight with our church small group. Molly has told people she turned "30 and a half" today, greatly speeding up the aging process.
We thought giving Molly the birthday Thomas the Tank Engine set was a great idea, but then Josh wanted to play with it too (not like we have 50 other Thomas trains) and all sorts of conflict broke out. Josh got a big lesson in respecting the birthday girl today!
Here are Molly and Josh with their friends Danielle and Jordan before we ate birthday cake tonight.
And just for fun, here's a photo from the weekend of Molly and the cats. The look on Homer's face sums up the cats' feelings for Molly's affections.
We headed out to Wilmington this weekend to attend the much-anticipated wedding of our friends Karen and Dean, who have dated for 11 years! I first met Karen when I was 22, and she often has been a voice of wisdom and reason in my life. One of the best parts of the wedding was that many of our dear friends from Wilmington attended, so we caught up with a lot of people we haven't seen in years.
Me and Sally, our cousin who also is friends with Karen's family. It was fun to see a relative at the wedding!
Amy was a huge hit with the kids. Josh pronounced: "I had fun. I like her," when we left Amy's yesterday, and Molly wailed that she wanted to go to Amy's house as we drove of town today. Luckily we get to see Amy again at a wedding in May.
