Devorah's rehearsal

Ok - so about a month ago, Mollie's Great Uncle Sam kindly made me a flash drive with all of his gorgeous photos from Devorah's wedding rehearsal. I finall got around to uploading it on my computer and here they are! Thanks to Sam for some really fantastic shots here. (For those of you also on Facebook, many of these may be repeats).
The lovely ladies preparing for the rehearsal - Mollie's cousin, Aliza and Aunts Margie (or Mah-Gee) and Mimi.

Mollie, Auntie Margie and Cailin preparing for the big event. To me, Margie and Mollie really have a family resemblance in this picture.

Here they are practicing for the big event. Aliza is a professional flower girl, having performed this important duty and my and Louie's wedding too. So she was an excellent mentor for Mollie in the proper pace of walking and flower throwing. Margie and the rest of us, on the other hand, were scolded for not taking our duties seriously enough. Ooopy.

Mollie made the mistake of wearing Andrew's Dodgers hat for part of the time. As soon as Louie realized what was going on he made the switch.

The second practice run.

After the lunch, Grandma Liz and Grandpa David/Ahmed hosted a lovely brunch. Mollie probably thought the whole wedding and rehearsal were for her because her great Aunts and Uncles showered her with tons of gifts, including stickers, her favorite.

We also had some time to catch up with family members we don't see nearly often enough - like Cousin Jesse!

We're working with Mollie on getting used to dogs but she's still not loving them. I believe this is a picture of her waving bye bye to Pushkin, Auntie Mimi's pup. Their relationship really improved by the end of the trip.

Playing with cousin Aliza.

Hanging with Auntie DeeDee and Uncle JB

We had a really nice visit from Auntie DeeDee and Uncle JB on the tail end of their honeymoon. Louie thought that JB should have some authentic American BBQ, so we went to Hill Country, this relatively new BBQ place in Chinatown. There happened to be a gospel brunch, which was really fun.The ladies did a lot of dancing while the fellows did a lot of eating.

Mollie showing off her moves.
JB getting in on the action.
Time to get up and get a move on!
After lunch, we walked over to the Newseum for some sightseeing. Here's a cute photo of the newlyweds on the balcony of the museum.
Mollie liked tracing the letters on the wall. Some tourists stopped and took her picture, which only encouraged her to continue on :)
She also had fun playing with the lights in the "in memoriam" section.

"See, Margie, this is how you do it"

After all that museum action, we exited to a rainy DC summer day. But Mollie didn't care - she even found it fun to rub fountain/rain water all over her face and hair.
Once she was soaking wet, we went for a long walk in bright orange ponchos. I cannot believe I didn't get a photo of that - quite the sight to be seen!

Making Challah with Auntie Margie

I think it's safe to say that Margie and Mollie are having a bit of a love affair. When we picked Margie up on Friday, Mollie literally squealed with delight. Then Margie came over to make challah. I forgot to get the camera out for the early phases, but did get some photos of the rolling and braiding.


The end result (pre-baking). It turned out really delicious - thanks, Margie!

MoCo Agricultural Fair

I promise to get back to the wedding and rehearsal pictures, but for now, a quick update from last weekend. Saturday, we tried to go to our friends' birthday party, only to arrive and have Mollie vomit all over the car seat, herself and the floor of the car. Disgusting. So we rested for the rest of Saturday, but she seemed fine after her big barf. So, on Sunday, we headed over to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. Mollie had the best time! First, we played a fishing game where she won this stuffed pink fish. She also enjoyed making her fish face.
Then we walked over to scope out the live animals. We saw cows, sheep, goats, and bunnies.
There was pig racing at the Hogway Speedway.
But Mollie liked the chickens best of all. We had a great time and highly recommend it for any of you in the area (it's in Gaithersburg right off 270).

More from California

After our Monterey trip, we headed back to Marin to visit friends and family. We had a really fun sleep over at Mollie's friend Maddie's house. Here are the girls at their special table. So cute! We had a great time with the grown ups too :)The next day we went with Grandma and Grandpa to Muir Beach. Grandma Liz found this really cool charcoal to color with. We had a great time.
After the beach, we went to Sausalito for lunch and a walk. We had a great meal at Fish on the water, and Mollie fed her noodles to the birds. It was really fun. Afterwards we chased birds and played with the fountain on the water in downtown Sausalito.

Friday we headed back to Forest Knolls for some more coloring and visiting.
And practicing holding pencils under our noses.

Later that day we went swimming at Great Grandma Naomi and Great Grandpa Bob's pool with cousin Jacob. Then there was Friday night dinner, which was awesome, but I have no pictures of it and I'm not entirely sure why that is :) Busy week...
Saturday we went to the farmer's market at the ferry building. Great Uncle Sam taught Mollie the fine art of flying.
And we had a great time hanging out with Riley, Greg, and Trisha. They were kind enough to let us stay with them for the remainder of our trip in their fantastic new house. The girls got along great and it was really fun hanging out with them!