A weekend full of family

We left on Friday morning for a whirlwind trip to visit Tony's family, for a surprise 80th birthday party for Tony's grandmother (Nan). She knew there was going to be a party, but she was told it was for her 2-year-old grandson. We did a small family party for her on Friday night, just to throw her off even more. Saturday morning, we went to breakfast with Tony's dad, and then he took us shopping to buy an outfit for Ari. Then Saturday afternoon was the real party for Nan--we had a whole pavilion to ourselves at a nearby park. She was totally surprised, and there were a ton of people there--all sorts of extended family, and a lot of people that Tony and I haven't seen in a while.

And of course I have pictures.

Ari with a few of her cousins. Anthony and Sofia (who are Tony's cousin's kids, so I guess that makes them Ari's second cousins or something--don't know how that works) and Taryn (Tony's sister Traci's daughter).



Ari and Grammy (Tony's mom)...



I love love love this picture. Look! Ari is smiling! And it's a real smile!



Nan getting ready to cut her cake...





Nan with all her great-grandkids... (Well, minus Anthony, who went home sick.)



Nan with all her grandkids (not including spouses, which is why I'm not in it)...



Tony's immediate family... Taryn, me, Michael, Traci (Taryn and Michael are both Traci's kids--her husband Mike was at work), Mom, Tony, Ari, and Chris.



Saying goodbye... first Ari gave Taryn a hug...



Then she gave Michael a hug and a kiss. I find this picture hilariously disturbing... or disturbingly hilarious. Something like that.



We left around 6:30, and luckily, our trip home was a lot better than the trip down. (We hit a lot of storms and construction on the way down, which made our drive take 3 hours longer than normal.) We got home around 1:30 AM, and of course, you know how it is--you can never just go straight to bed. We were up bright and early for church today, but we were both dragging. In the afternoon, all 3 of us napped, but before naptime, I got a few pictures of Ari. Tony's dad (Pappy) bought her this little bubble gun toy, and she was dying to open it--so we let her play with it for a few minutes before naptime.

Tony got it working first, and she had fun just dancing in the bubbles...



Then of course she wanted to do it herself...



And one last picture...



We went to my parents' house tonight, too--they were kind enough to let us borrow their car for our trip (since Tony's car is having issues, yet again), so we returned the car, had dinner, did some laundry, and just hung out for a little while.

And tomorrow it's back to work as usual, so I should probably think about getting ready for bed...