Megan & Ben's Wedding...

And our time in Tampa...Next 4 are new too!

Well...we are back! We went to FL for ten days, and our time was jam packed with things to do. When you only visit once about every 5(+) years, you have to see all the family, and hopefully some friends :)

I don't have all the pictures off my camera, but I do have some, so I will start with those. First up was Ben (my brother) and Megan's wedding. We flew straight into Tampa on Friday the 12th and stayed there for 3 days. We spent the day Saturday setting up for the wedding. I have been working on figuring out my camera on manual mode, but up until this trip I didn't really have a reason/need to use it a lot so this trip really helped me get the hang of the settings. I am LOVING it! I took tons of pictures because of this, and Jesse even remarked "I didn't know all you were going to do this trip is take pictures!" Oh well!!!

The wedding was on the beach at Siesta Key. It was beautiful. Here are some of my pics (completely unedited!) from the ceremony:

The heart that they stood in...blue was their color (it was really big and I had to get on Jesse's shoulders to be up high enough to get a good pic)

Megan's oldest...Devin

Ben's oldest boy/middle child...Reece

Ben's youngest...Kirk

Megan's youngest...Aiden

The sunset just before the ceremony

Ben's oldest/the only girl...Alyssa

All of them just after the kiss!

They did a great job including the kids. And you can't see from this picture but my mom is a notary and she was able to marry them! It was a sweet moment for all of us :)

I am still working on night settings so I pretty much gave up when they weren't coming out. Here is a decent one of their tables.

The Beach...

I was hoping to spend more time, like a day, at the beach but like I said, we were pretty busy and all our time was pretty much booked. The free time we were able to find was about 2 hours on Sunday, so off to the beach we headed, with a few extra's in tow!

Daddy playing with our boys in the sand

Ryder LOVED it!

Chase wouldn't smile

See the group in the back ground? They were headed out a little ways...the next 2 pictures are with my telephoto lens from the same spot as this one.

Said group :)

Just a view of the horizon

Nephews (Reece & Kirk) building a sand scultpture

Ryder...I have tons of pictures of him simply because it was almost impossible for me to get him to look directly at me!

Niece, Alyssa

Kirk

Reece

Aiden - Megan's youngest/new nephew

Ammy (my mom) trying to teach Tyler how to body surf!

Ryder by the water

Kind of a smile : /

And a (horrible) picture of us...yes, we were there!

Papa - my dad

Tyler

Ammy and her grandaughters

Again...all unedited! Florida beach is SOOOO much different than California beach. The sand is powdery and white and the water is actually warm. I was in Heaven! Probably one of the things I miss the MOST about FL.

Banana Bay Club...

This is where we stayed while we were in Tampa. Ben & Megan rented out the whole place for family/friends. I'm not really sure how to classify it...there were 7 units, 5 of them connected like a motel and then 2 separate units. It was really nice and the kids basically stayed with my parents most of the time...awesome!

Row of units

Our room - #3

There was also a bedroom and a bathroom. It was the perfect little space for us

This is the common area/pool. When we walked up Chase asked me if this was the hot tub! It was pretty small :)

The waterway off the dock

Looking back at the units from the end of the dock area. This is where the reception was, on the dock, common area and under the tent.

Grandkids...

The last couple of years, when all the grandkids were living in AZ, my parents have done a Nativity picture with the kids for their Christmas card. When we knew we would all be together in FL, we decided it would be the perfect time to get them a picture with all their grandkids (esp. since now there are 2 more!) for their card this year. We opted out on the Nativity scene, figuring that a beachy theme would be just as great :)

It's a lot of work to get 8 kids (and 2 grown-ups!) to all look at the camera and smile at the same time ;)

The East's...

The last thing we did while we were in Tampa was go to visit some old family friends...always a great time!

Parents: Clark & Elaine, Kids: Jamie, Jonathan (not there), Brendan. Jamie is just a few years older than me and was a friend when I lived in FL, also a friend of Ben and Megan's. She is a wedding planner and helped M & B with theirs. It was SOOO great to see (and work with) her, and her hubby and 2 boys! Brendan is only 17?, I was around when he was born and I babysat him often, although I'm sure he doesn't remember :)

Chase, Tyler, Taylor, Jack, Ryder

The kids plus me and Jamie

My mom and Elaine

My dad, mom, Elaine and Clark

Elaine, Clark, Brendan, Jamie holding Taylor, Jamey (yep she married another Jamey!) holding Jack