Summer 2011 Road Trip - Day 3

Today has been a long day, but a good one! There were no group plans this morning and we ended up sleeping in until 9:00!!! That is unheard of for both of us, but clearly we needed the rest. We got ready for the day and headed over to Grandma & Grandpa’s house to meet up with the rest of the family who is staying there. To clarify, while we love everyone in Dave’s family and very much enjoy spending time with them, we are staying in a hotel and not with the group because 13+ people in a two bedroom house with 1.5 bathrooms and no air conditioning is a little beyond my comfort zone. Nuff’ said.

We got the opportunity to catch up with aunts, uncles and cousins in the morning before heading over to a local restaurant to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa’s 60th wedding anniversary. 60 years of marriage, can you imagine!?! They are truly an example of what marriage is for Dave and his family (and me) and I am so lucky to be able to celebrate this special occasion with them! It was a very nice party and many of their friends in the area were able to come and give their well wishes and it was nice to be able to meet these people and get to know Dave’s grandparents in a different way, through their stories.

After the party we found out that Grandma had scheduled a family portrait session with a local photography studio. Overall the photo session went well, but we did feel a little pressured to buy the photos afterward because we were told we had to select and buy the pictures today and if we came back later we would not have the option of purchasing photo packages, just single sheets at $15 each. Ugh. So everyone in the family chose the poses we liked and combined our order into one big package which were to include all of the images from the day on a CD. We got the CD home to take a look and there are only really low res photos on there, when we were led to believe we were getting full size images (which is why we made sure to purchase so many prints so that the CD would be free to everyone). Despite the disappointment of the CD we got some good pictures and some nice prints which we hope to frame when we get home. Here are a couple photos of just Dave and me from the shoot:

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out back at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I have tried to get some pictures of the fireflies around here, but they are proving hard to photograph. The more a lengthen the exposure time on the camera, the more of the surrounding light illuminates my photo which washes out the fireflies in the picture. So, here is the best one that I have so far.

Well, we’re off to bed. Tomorrow we’re getting up early and heading to St. Louis with the family for a few days. Grandma and Aunt Jan have come up with activities for all of us to do so it should be a fun trip!