Our friend Annabel's 1st birthday

We headed to the Faust's house for Annabel's 1st birthday.  It was a super hot day but the kids had a great time.  They had a bouncy house out back so Jack enjoyed the heck out of that.  Here is a picture of our friends Nate, Heather, Braden, and Annabel.

Jack was wet and it wasn't from water.

 The De Angelo families eating some cake.

 Isabella enjoyed the juice that was available.  Yum!  We were glad we were able to share Annabel's special day with her.

Odar-Payne family visits

Our friends Shirin & Ted (from business school) visited us at the beginning of August.  They moved to Chappaqua, NY from Texas when we moved to PA.  So now we are about 2 hours away from them.  It was actually the first time we had met their children Veronica and Graham even though it hasn't been that long since we saw them last. ;-)  They know how to make cute babies quickly!  Veronica is 2 and Graham just turned 1.  

Isabella enjoyed her new friends.  She read her books to Mr. Ted.

And showed Veronica how all the cool toys worked

Veronica and Jack became fast friends.

 Graham was having fun crawling around and exploring some different surroundings.  

 What a cute little boy!

 I think all the excitement and playing made Veronica pretty sleepy.  We put on a TV show for some quiet time.

 We enjoyed catching up with Ted and Shirin (who is pregnant with #3 and due in September).  We hope to visit them in NY after the baby is born.

Isabella also loved the baby.  She adores all babies and loves playing with them and walking them around.

 We blew up the bouncy house for some indoor active play time.  Veronica loved it and Jack and her had a blast jumping together.

 

  We gave Graham his birthday gift from us.  He seemed to like the bag.

Isabella practiced her photography and took a couple pictures of us.

What a great visit!  Can't wait for the next one.

My 32nd birthday

I am sure at some point in the future I will stop publishing my age so we can all lose track of the years, but this  year I celebrated my 32nd birthday.  My friend Marla made me a cake.  It was the day after my weekend away so we just invited Ben & Lisa and their family over for dinner and cake.  My big birthday present was my weekend away.

Defending the Faith Conference

So Nick was so kind to encourage me to go to the Defending the Faith Conference at Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH.  It was the weekend before my birthday so it was a wonderful birthday.  These people are some of my "heroes" so it was great to get to listen to them speak and meet them in person.  

Here is Scott Hahn. Many of you know and love him.  What an inspiring and brilliant theologian

 Most of our speakers for the weekend.  It included Kimberly Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Steve Ray, and Fr. Mitch Pacwa, to name a few.

It was my first visit to Franciscan University and the campus was beautiful.  My sister-in-law Cristina and I made the trip together and we stayed on campus.  I am so glad we did.  It was nice to just walk back to the room at the end of a long day.

They had this beautiful chapel open late for prayer.

 Nativity

 The most exciting thing for me that weekend was getting to meet Kimberly Hahn.  She has written some fantastic books (my favorite Life Giving Love) and I found her conversion story to be so inspiring.  She was as sweet in person as I expected she would be.  Cristina got me her book on homeschooling and so I had her sign it for me.  

Dion DiMucci from Dion & the Belmonts (Run Around Sue) spoke about his spiritual journey.  He was very entertaining and his story was great.

They had this beautiful statue of the Blessed Mother on the stage all weekend.

 Here we all are. My mother and father-in-law also attended the conference that weekend.  I hope we can come back in the years to come.

Family visits

We were so happy to have many family members visit this summer.  Unfortunately I am not that good at documenting all of the visits, but Aunt Liz and Santino came to visit earlier in the summer and then in mid July Great Grandpa Ray came down with Nonna for dinner.  Isabella and Jack absolutely love their Great Grandpa Ray!

 Nick's cousin Julia also came to visit at the end of July and was kind enough to stay over the weekend that I was out of town at a conference.  Here she is doing some "school" with the kids.

Playdoh fun!

 I am not sure why Nick took this picture, but I actually like it. :)

 Nick took the kids and Julia to the Lackawanna Coal mine.

 Jack like the yellow train that they took down to the mine.

Apparently it was in the 50s down there in the mine so they all bundled up.

Julia also played dress up with her.  Isabella really looks up to those kids.  She absolutely loved having her visit.