Thursday and Rehearsal Dinner

The next three posts are from our whirlwind weekend in Philly! I was NOT on my photo taking game, but lots of other people were, so hopefully in the future I can bombard you with lots of images of the fun we had. We got in Wednesday at about 6 after circling Philly for an hour waiting to land. We had cheesesteaks - YUM - and then headed to our great hotel. It was perfect!
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Friday I got up with the girls and took them to breakfast then Paul took them to play in the pool while I got a workout in. I joined them in the pool and we swam for about an hour together! It was so relaxing and fun! After that we headed over to his parents house where they had a surprise waiting!

Getting some help from my girls blowing out the candles!

It was the most delicious light sponge cake with a vanilla mousse and berries. So yummy! =)

PopPop made his specialty - flipped pancakes! Carly swears the flipping makes them better and I believe her. =)

Haha - she asked me to take a photo just like this. Funny girl!

Yes she's giving me the hand. She didn't want ANY interruptions with playing with PopPop. For the record, I got this exact same response when she was dancing with her favorite Auntie at the wedding reception. Junior high is going to be SO FUN.

Pretty hair on the way to the rehearsal! She was so excited and proud to see that the junior bridesmaid had a side hairdo too.

*Sniff* Practicing their vows! It was so sweet!

The rehearsal dinner was at a beautiful restaurant near the church called Cafe Valentino. Carly was fascinated with South Philly - she couldn't understand where all the yards and trees went and absolutely did not believe me when I told her that those buildings were people's houses. =)

The food was incredible - just so good and the girls ate everything. Carly was so awesome. I handed her an artichoke and she said, "What's this?" I told her and she said, "Oh, I don't remember that but can I try it?" That's my girl! So proud of her. She left our table by the time the desserts rolled in and from what I hear she was killing some cannolis. Bree did really well, too! I think it was because there was food constantly for all three hours. =)

Auntie Amanda and Uncle Pete came over to deliver the girls' their sweet flowergirl gifts. They had little personalized canvas bags with jewelry boxes, picture books, coloring books...you name it. So sweet! Carly loves her bracelet with her name on it!

Getting some fashion tips from Aunt Diane and Aunt Anna.

One of the cool things in Carly's bag was some vintage-y paper dolls! Aunt Diane was helping her figure them out.

Bree was about done for the night! But she got a second wind when she figured out that I'd let her drink my water.

Like THIS. She went through a couple of glasses that way. Sadly, she also pulled Paul's wine glass down her right side and my thankfully-not-that-hot coffee down her left side. I'm putting that dress through the Liz Fischer Stain Removal Bootcamp right now so we'll see how well it works five days out.

Paul giving his mini-toast. His for real toast was GREAT! So proud of him =)

Zombie baby. It was so late!