Great Long Weekend

What a wonderful long weekend. It seemed extra long since our Frontier friends Chris and Julie arrived on Thursday night to kick things off. What fun to have them in our house and catch up! One of the Frontier Interns from our last year was marrying a girl from Charlotte, so we were able to reap the benefits of all their guests being in town.

Saturday morning we went to the Labor Day parade in downtown Matthews, which is apparently on of the largest LD parades in the southeast, or country or something...There must not be a lot of competition in this category, because it wasn't huge. Fun, but not giant. Our friends Bill and Ashley met us with their daughter, Ella. Alden really enjoyed the balloons, floats, and people in animal costumes. She loved the softball players from Matthews Rec. Tractor trailers and softball...what is this leading to??

Bill and Ashley came over for dinner Saturday night, which was great. We have really enjoyed our friendships with folks here in Charlotte. Unfortunately, we missed the late night after-reception festivities with all the young single wedding guests up town. Alden fell asleep, and really, have Matt or I ever been out past 12:00 that often in our whole lives??

Sunday we did church, which we love, and then Shelly, Sarah and Vinton (more Frontier folks) came over on their way out of town. Sarah saved Alden from her first very-near-death experience. We were all talking in the kitchen, and Alden was milling around. Sarah looks into the living room, and Alden is almost to the top of our 8 foot ladder that we had out to hang curtain rods. Matt and I both saw her as Sarah was running into the room to rescue her. Please don't judge our lack of parental supervision...I promise it is better than that.

Sunday afternoon my parents and Ashley met at our house and we went to Nana's 87th birthday party at Aunt Kitty Scott and Uncle Dickie's. It was fun to have everyone together and Alden especially enjoyed playing around their fountain and riding Cousin Scottie's scooter. One of our favorite things about being here is spending time with Nana, and it was really special to get to celebrate her!

Sunday night Matt's college friend Sean and his girlfriend stayed with us on their way to the beach. I had never met them, so it was great to put a name with a face, and have more old friends at the house.

Monday we had breakfast with everyone at Nana's and my parents kept Alden over there so Matt and I could run some errands and get started on some house projects. What a blessing to drive off without her!!! We needed a little break. With my parents help, we got so much done around the house and had a great dinner with them afterwards. No trip to Concord Mills is complete without visiting the fish at Bass Pro Shops, so that pretty much rounded out our long weekend.