Jenn & Peter's Wedding

Darrin and I went to Jenn and Peter's wedding in Blacksburg. About two weeks earlier, Jenn had asked me to help with her wedding-day details.

We left NoVA on Friday at 2 and had smooth sailing all the way to Blacksburg. Because it was Friday -- and we ALWAYS do Mexican on Fridays -- we went to El Guadalupes. I called Jenn when we were done to tell her we were in town, and I'd get with Carolyn on the details of the ceremony.

The next day, Darrin and I drove all over campus and saw the new alumni center. We met Jamie and her b/f Mark to help set up the DJ equipment. Once everything was set up, we went back to the hotel to change.

The wedding was so pretty! Jennifer's dress had a beautiful red ribbon and upper band. After the ceremony, Darrin and I took the flowers from the wedding to the reception, so we had to hang around for pictures -- and OMG, I about shot the photographer. So... we got to the reception a little early, but I wanted to make sure everything was set up right.

Without going into crazy details, everything was fantastic, and Darrin and I were able to get a little dancing time in too -- and not just the Hokie Pokie!

I was so exhausted on the way home that I almost fell asleep driving more than once.

The box.... the infamous box......

On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Schmidt called Darrin to let him know that he found a "box". Darrin was so excited (OK, so *I* suggested it), but we went down to Newport News to check out this box.

Fortunately, there was a book of family history and a few obituaries in the box for genealogical purposes. We spent all of Saturday evening looking through the rest of the box.. It was full of WWII newspapers fro Piqua and some important items (programs, flyers) from the 1950's-1960's. Apparently this box belonged to Beth Ellen, Darrin's grandmother!! There were some family obituaries in this box, and Mr. Schmidt was happy that we were interested in the box and the family history it contained.

While we were there, we helped his dad pull down the berry nets. We also watched Pirates of the Caribbean, while we had some wine and yummy pizza.

NYC 4th of July

Darrin and I took the Amtrak up to NYC on Monday AM. After arriving at Penn station, we left our bags in the hotel room at the New Yorker and called James to figure out what the afternoon's plans were. He and Nick were with a group getting us tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. When everyone made it back to the hotel, they came up to hang out for a bit before dinner.

James, Darrin and I walked through Central Park together, in a "we'll get there eventually" kinda way... We eventually made it to the Delacorte Theater and met up with everyone once we got to our seats. The weather was great - just warm enough that I didn't freeze to death... the star of the show was Liev Schreiber. Halfway through the show, Nick left suddenly and we didn't see him anymore that night.

The next day, we'd decided to do our own things, as I wasn't too comfortable with being a friend-of-a-friend's party, so James, Darrin and I went venturing on our own. We walked down toward Broadway, went to Lindys for cheesecake, then onto 30 Rockefeller Plaza where we had tickets to go to the observation deck on top of 30 Rock. Darrin called his dad and Sandi from the roof... and there was a cute 4th of July celebration/party upstairs. We went through all the observation decks and got some great pictures.

We walked around Browdway for a while, then went to Fridays for lunch/dinner.... as we were leaving, we were chatting so much that we *almost* forgot to pay the waiter! Oops!

Eventually, we found our way to FDR Drive at the UN Building. We picked an open spot next to the generator (cough cough). We chatted and caught up on some more of life, as the barges came down the river. The fireworks were interesting -- though I wouldn't say they were bigger/better than DC's. We walked back to the hotel in the pack of everyone else -- but then went to meet Nick and everyone at Kevin's house. Everyone was feeling tired, so after we watched James' films from the first semester, we left to go back to the hotel.

Because it was so late and Nick and James both had to be at the airport crazy-early, we said our goodbyes that night. While it was fantastic to see Nick and meet his girlfriend, this trip would've been miserable if James hadn't been on top of some planning some fun things.

Darrin and I spent the rest of the day doing fun stuff of our own -- going to the Library to see the Lions, the Hershey Store, the Park behind the library, walking into Verizon to check about our phone plans, then back to the New Yorker. We retrieved our bags and headed back to the train station to wait for our train to show up.

The train ride was nice and quiet, and I took a lot of wedding catalogs to gather ideas for our wedding... and I think I decided on the reception favor idea. Darrin and I enjoyed each others' company and decided that we wanted to go back at Christmas...