New England Nuptials

On Thursday, we headed to Rhode Island for a wedding! Lou's best friend Jeremy (who has always been known to us as "Chow" and will be known to you as "Chow" for the remainder of this post) got married to Ashley - one of the sweetest, most generous and kind, and not to mention beautiful girls we've ever met. They were SO kind to open their home to us so we didn't have to get a hotel (can you imagine have a houseful of people leading up to your wedding day) and they were unbelievable hosts. Seriously, we cannot thank them enough for everything - starting with four big beautiful lobsters for dinner when we arrived. (Did I mention Chow is a chef? So we were basically at our own private Bed & Breakfast!) Anyway, here is Josie meeting her dinner, which was unbelievably delicious and totally fun to eat. (And our little foodie officially enjoys lobster.) On Friday morning, we headed to the beach so that Josie could dip her little toes into the Atlantic like she did in the Pacific all those months ago in Cali.

Moments like these - hanging out on the beach in the morning with a light breeze and big sunshine totally make me question why on earth we live in Cincinnati. It was gorgeous and peaceful and perfect.

And, Chow even caught this big bluefish on his second cast out into the water.
Josie was very impressed. I know she would've eaten him, too but since Chow had a wedding and all, he didn't have time for smoking a bluefish, so we tossed it back and watched it swim away instead.

I love Chow. And, Louie does too. He's such a great guy and was also the best man in Lou's wedding. (And, to further prove my point that he's going to be a great husband - he actually called and left me a "Happy Mother's Day" message on my first mother's day. Too sweet!)
Here are some more beach photos, because you can't have enough beach photos. And here is a quick video of our little "Danger Dog" who - like I say in this video - totally "lives on the edge". She is not afraid of anything! And, just seconds after this video ended, she slipped out of Lou's grip and ran straight for the waves. (Hawaii is going to be very interesting indeed.)

Have you ever seen a more beautiful place for a swingset?
Here she is getting a big kiss and a big face full of New England sunshine!
And a swing ride with Mama because I couldn't resist a swingset with an ocean view either. :)
On to the wedding! :)
The rehearsal and dinner were on Friday. Josie spent the entire rehearsal running around the church, across the aisles and climbing the pews. Needless to say, I was a little nervous for the actual wedding after this little performance at the rehearsal. She actually did very well during the real thing, which I'll get to next. (Oh - and BTW - I'm obsessed with stripes, as evidenced by Josie's outfit pictured here.)
The wedding was at this perfect litttle white chapel on the top of a big green hill above the water. As we were pulling up to it, I said to Louie "I hope it's a little white New England church I'm picturing in my head." And it totally was!
The ceremony was so beautiful. Chow's dad performed the service (and became an officiant just for this event) and they wrote their own vows. It was so touching and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Josie was perfect. Although, as I took the camera out to snap this one photo, I heard giggling in the row behind me and then looked over to find Josie helping herself to a banana - peel and all! Totally yucky, but worth the laugh in the end.
After the wedding, we headed to a beachhouse for photos. We tried and tried to get a good photo taken of us all dolled-up in our wedding best, but Josie had other plans, mostly revolving around getting her tights dirty (that a girl) and climbing stairs.

We'll call this photo "The Reason People Live in Rhode Island"... How beautiful!
On to the reception. The food was incredible!!! Josie, although she enjoyed a few bites of the good stuff, had to get started early on a meal of chicken nuggets and tater tots. This video is here for three reasons. 1) She ate so much chicken over the weekend that she mastered the sign for "chicken"; 2) She dances at the end which I'll say more about in a minute; 3) I don't ever want to forget what happened right before I got the camera out which was really cute and funny. [Chow and Ashley danced to Wilco's "California Stars" for their first dance. Josie was sitting eating and kept stopping to pat her head. I couldn't figure out what on earth she was doing - then I realized what song was on - "I'd like to rest my heavy HEAD tonight on a bed of California Stars..." So, chalk this up as evidence that she totally pays attention to whatever is going on in the background. Too funny.] Of course she stopped doing the head thing as I got the camera out, but here it is anyway.

After she ate her dinner and played for awhile in her high chair while we feasted, she got really fussy so we figured it was sadly about time for us to go home. We decided to start saying our goodbyes since a meltdown was imminent. But, a strange thing happened when we neared the dancefloor. She totally hit a second wind and demanded that I put her down. What happened next was one of my favorite Josie moments so far. During the Jackson 5's "ABC", Josie starting dancing and clapping and giggling and didn't let up for the next hour. She literally stood in the middle of a dance floor of partying adults and teenagers and completely "got down". We didn't have our camera with us, and to be honest, were having so much fun that we didn't want to stop to go get it. But, lots of other people took pictures of her & I'll post those when I get them.

Here is a photo of Louie & Josie dancing just before we left...

And here is Josie passed out in the backseat of the car before we even got out of the parking lot!
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Ewing-Chow and thanks so much for everything!

On one final note, here is Josie when we got home on Sunday night. Her special treat for being such a good girl for the weekend was as many blueberries as she wanted. And I am not kidding - she almost ate one full pound of them!!!!! Her stomach was hard as a rock and she was stained purple from head to toe. Clearly she is enjoying herself. :)
On to Hawaii in a few weeks...