Mike and Lisa's wedding!

We were excited for Mike and Lisa's wedding up in the DC area! We headed up to Alexandria, VA to our hotel and met Mike and Lisa is historic Old Town Alexandria for the rehersal dinner. Here are the love birds walking down the historic streets:

We all ate dinner at a neat little restaurant / pub down by the Potomac River called the Union Street Public House, the little sign says "Pozsgay & Romito Rehersal Dinner"

They had lots of neat nautical themed decoration like this one:
We all enjoyed a nice dinner and drinks there. We got to see a lot people we haven't seen in awhile, like Jeremy, Marty, etc. Here are some pics from it:It's safe to say that Mike's neices/nephews are a big fans of him!

Jim got a nice gift for being in the wedding party, he got a cool bar-b-que apron, complete with a beer holder, a bottle opener, grill gloves, etc:

On the wedding day, we all traveled to Maryland, just outside of the urban/suburban area to a wonderful state park with a historic mansion. The outdoor wedding had a nice view of some brackish tidal water from a finger off the Chesapeak Bay:
It was a very nice location for a wedding! They sure picked a great spot with a nice view! They had a nice string quartet for the cermony music

Here are the boys:
And Lisa walking down the aisle:
Here is Jim walking out in the recessional:
Here are some pictures of us after the ceremony overlooking the water and in front of the historic mansion:

The reception was a tented reception on the park grounds. Here are the newleyweds during their first dance:
We had a nice dinner, they had a pit-bar-b-que which was very unique for a wedding indeed! It was very tasty. Here are the newleyweds again, eating the meal:
It had been a beautiful day, with sunny skies all day. After it got dark, we started noticing lightning in the distance. It hadn't started raining yet and the winds were calm, so most of us just ignored it. About 15 minutes later the storm hit, and it hit hard! There must have been 60mph winds. The rain came in horizontal and got everybody wet. The tent started shaking, the centerpieces started blowing off the tables, and we all ran into the mansion to take shelter and for safety!
Notice we are all soaked in the picture! It was unfortunate, but Mike and Lisa took it all in stride. Here are some pics of the aftermath in the tent:

It's too bad that the band and the reception ended 1.5-2.0 hours before scheduled, but we had a great time seeing everybody, loved the wedding location, and we were very happy for Mike and Lisa!

Jim loves the bar-b-que apron, here he is using it in the backyard!

Road trip to the mountains!

We decided to take a day trip to the mountains to visit some neat small towns, lounge in a waterfall, and enjoy the Blue Ridge Parkway. We started by loading out two dogs in our CRV and heading up to Boone, NC, a unique little town up in the mountains. The downtown is actually a busy, hopping place. It was a nice surprise to see so many stores, shops, artists, street performers, etc. It probably helps that there is a major college (Appalachain State University) in the town. Anyway, we had lunch at a streetside cafe and tied the dogs to the chairs while we ate:
We then headed over a series of waterfalls. At the lower end of the falls, Kylie jumped right in and started swimming like a crazy dog! She stirred up all the water and had fun fetching sticks in the current under the little fall:

After we all got wet in the falls, we headed towards Blowing Rock, a town with lots of B&Bs, and a downtown so crowded we had no chance of finding parking and just kept driving. Some other time we'll stop there though! We headed up towards the Blue Ridge Parkway and passed a neat sign:

What's wierd is that we kept driving much higher, the Blue Ridge Parkway had elevations of over 5000'.

We pulled off and got some nice pictures at some overlooks:

We then found a cave off the side of the road and check it out. Here is Jim before he went in:

It is amazing how many watefalls there are, we passed some and decided to pull over at one and check it out: Then some storms blew in out of nowhere in and it started raining! It was neat seeing the clouds from the overlooks:

Later on we passed a lake and Kylie took some time to stare out over the water and imagining splashing around! (Or contemplating her life). Notice the canoe out there on the lake, I think Kylie really just wanted to swim out and jump in the boat!

Amber enjoyed the scenery too!

Then we headed home! It was a fun day trip!

Hike and Grilling

A large park near us called Umstead Park has lots of trails, and we had never been before, so we loaded up our two dogs in the back of our car and headed 5 miles over to the entrance to the park:

The park is very "leafy" and we decided to do a 5 mile unpaved trail.


In many areas we had to follow the trail by finding the markers/blazers on the trees, it was a nice remote get-away just a few miles from our house. The dogs really loved being out hiking too!

Then we got home and cooked up some chicken on our new grill!
We even took a zuchinni--from our garden!!!-- and steamed it on the side burner of our grill!

It was a yummy dinner and nice relaxing Saturday!