"Oh, they say when you marry in June, you're a bride all of your life..."

June is such a lovely month for weddings. This past weekend, I traveled with Her Highness and Flash Flood to visit some of my most favorite relatives on my Mother's side.The Startup Family (pictured above... picture stolen from Facebook. Thanks, Al!) is a great family, all around. Funny, good-looking, great personalities, smart, and truly on-fire for GOD are just a few of the characteristics I can name about Allison, Don and their three sons: Drew, Will and Nick. (Sidenote: Will has a neat blog where you can read for yourself to see what I'm talking about when it comes to the character of these handsome guys: The Startupdate.)

I have such fond memories of the Startup Family and our fun get togethers. This past weekend will be added to the long list of wonderful memories, as I got to witness the youngest of the Startup boys, Nick, marry the love of his life, Allie. We didn't get to spend nearly enough time together, as you never do at a wedding, but we soaked up every second we could.

Her Highness was honored to be asked to serve at the reception, and thoroughly enjoyed her roll as "waitress." Grinning ear to ear, she walked around to each table asking, "Excuse me, are you finished with your plates?" And would take the empty plates and cups to the trash can for the other wedding guests. Each time someone would respond, "Why, thank-you. Aren't you so cute!" Her Highness would giggle and say, "It's my pleasure." Every few tables she cleared, she would skip over to our table and exclaim, "This is soooo FUN! It's like being a waitress! I really love my job!"

Her Highness' "job" continued after the reception when she got to pass out tiny bells to be rung as the Bride and Groom made their exit to the "limino" that was waiting for them outside the church building, red carpet and all.

Flash Flood soaked up all the attention he got from his Cookie and Grandy. I missed the rest of The Storm, but it was nice to be able to sit and chat without worrying who was sticking their fingers in the groom's cake and who was going to knock over the punch bowl. After the Bride and Groom left, we said our goodbyes and headed out on the second part of our journey, which was a huge surprise for Her Highness....

With her seventh birthday quickly approaching, Cookie and Grandy wanted to give Her Highness an early present. Her Highness is big into the American Girl Dolls and books right now, so Cookie added to her collection and gave her Kit. We then took a quick trip to the American Girl store.

Her Highness excitedly told Cookie as we entered the store, "Oh, wow. This is definitely going to make my Momma's blog!!"

We danced down the aisles and tried on cute (over-priced) hats.

We showed Molly and Kit how good they had it, living in the Hudson House with The Storm. Life with four boys may be rough at times, but they could be living in a glass box like poor Rebecca.

Flash Flood enjoyed looking at the Bitty Babies and tried to strike up a conversation. He was a trouper the entire day.

I'm not so sure the rest of The Storm would have enjoyed our trip quite like he did.

Bert and the boys did some male bonding, which included the usual things men do when they're home alone... not sure what all that entails, but I do know that my house was turned upside down. Well worth it though, as we were all happy to reunite late that night. It's fun to get away sometimes, but I missed that crazy bunch and loved getting tons of hugs and kisses once we finally returned.

Her Highness wasn't the only one to get surprised that day. Bert had one waiting for me too, and her name is Fuzzy Rita............