My cousin Kasia comes to visit

on the right is my cousin Kasia who is visiting from Poland and on the left is her friend Sylwia. here we are about to experience a true American tradition....country line dancing!!!!! neither of the girls had ever been country line dancing so we went out and had ourselves a little bit of a hoe down. also as you can see they had a mechanical bull which michael bravely rode like a champ.

Autumn's birthday

for our good friend autumn's birthday we decided to have a giant girlie breakfast at the cracker barrell...yummy! this is rosie

here's the birthday girl on the left and catherine on the right

in the evening a few more of us decided to get together to continue celebrating autumn's 25th birthday. starting from the left is: brooke, autumn, catherine and molly. these are all my PA buddies and we're enjoying a glorious meal at Hot Tomatoes in downtown New Haven.

here's autumn and brooke, autumn is from california

this is jon (also from california) and rosie and of course me and michael

Picnicking at Hammonasset Beach

The boys nate and mike..diggin into some yummy burgers

michael...grilling up some corn on our friends camping grill, oh how we miss grilling every night in our own backyard!

getting our plates ready for a great meal at one of our favorite new spots.

this is perrin and nate hickey....a couple that we frequently hang out with. perrin is one of my fellow pa students and closest friends and that's her husband. we've now gone twice to this really great state park/beach and grilled out, played frisbee, football and bocci ball. it's great to be able to get away every once in a while.

here we are eating delicious burgers!!!

it's no FL beach but it sure is nice to hear the ocean and this will certainly do for around here.

there are pretty sunsets even in CT :)