PHEW!

I'm so tired. Not that I'm tired for a bad reason. This weekend was a LOT of fun. But, I'm tired. Saturday I had my bachelorette party! It was a blast. Low key, which is what I wanted. We went to Ariake Steak House and then bowling at Brunswick Zone after which we went back to Casey's house (my future sister-in-law) and just hung out. I know it doesn't sound like much fun to some, but I loved it and I'm the bride, so there. ;o)


Saturday, Rob's dad threw him a surprise party. This was AWESOME! As much as his dad complains about Rob's friends coming over (being noisy and leaving a mess) he's gonna miss it when Rob moves out! So, Don decided to have a last hurrah and had a big poker tournament with all of Rob's buddies. Us girls hung out all night and ate pizza... :o)

Sunday, we took some groceries to the house and then a birthday party for Rob's little cousins, Max, Camille, and Alexandra. It was fun! James, Camille, and Sophia practiced walking down the aisle (hallway) for the wedding. They are going to be great!

On a side note, I went grocery shopping this week. I've definitely been worried about this. We're on a budget, obviously and I was really worried about how much money it was going to cost to get all of those basic things for the house - salt, pepper, vegetable oil, etc. But, I've been clipping coupons, and I went through the ads for the week. Overall, I think I did really well! And, I LOVE Super Walmart! As much as I really don't like shopping at Walmart, you can't deny it when their prices are lower than the grocery store's on sale with a coupon!


I'm going to end this post telling you that I'm getting married next week! AHHH!!! I'm super excited and super stressed. But, after the wedding I have a week off! For now I have to get through a week of a period-induced headache (yuck!!) that hopefully doesn't turn into a migraine, again. I don't need that teaching four year olds.


With that said, I can't say I'll be posting much in the next couple of weeks. I'll definitely make one last post before the wedding, but hopefully after all of this is over I can spend some more time on here!

Weekend in Review

What a great weekend! Aside from my incessant coughing, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Saturday, I got up and forced Rob to go out to the house with me and do some work while the weather was nice. I say force because Rob rarely voluntarily goes out to our house to do anything. Maybe its a male/female thing. I can almost always think of something to do out there, whether it be cleaning or organizing or just sitting and enjoying MY house. It's quiet out there. I don't get quiet time very often. About 20 minutes after we got there and watched the informational video on our new security system, Rob sits on the couch and, as I'm putting away all of HIS winter clothes that HE wanted to bring out, says, "Are you ready to go yet? I'm bored." Cue "the staredown." I'm not done yet, therefore you must suffer. Now I'm on a mission to find more to do. Tee hee.

Saturday night we enjoyed dinner at Roadhouse with my brother and sister-in-law, then came back to the house and relaxed. It was great.

Today, I got up and went to Sunday School at church, since I was going to miss the service and headed out to the Square One Brewery to meet some fellow Blogging (and non-blogging) friends. This was my first get together and, in addition to being extremely nervous about driving in St. Louis with a fear of having a coughing spell, I was very nervous about meeting all of these women who I've become such good friends with online. You may remember, I'm really shy. I refused to be shy today and tried my best to be a little outgoing. I'd say I was somewhat successful. Anywho, check us out after a DELICIOUS breakfast and quite a few funny stories.


From left to right, back row: Donna, Brigid, Julia, Ame, Christie, Jen, and Me.
Front Row: Teresa, Amber, Lauren, Kristal, Mary, and Meghan.

I definitely plan on going back to the restaurant, and I hope to eventually make it to another G2G.

This afternoon, however, was a different story. Rob and I decided we'd brave the crowds and head to the Zoo with Ryan and Stephanie. Big mistake. I was warned at the G2G that it was Earth Day. I did not know, however, that they were having a festival for it at Forest Park. So, after sitting on Hampton for and hour and a half just going the mile and a half from I-44 to Forest Park, we decided it wasn't worth it and headed home.

But the evening perked up when we found out that Jeff and Casey (Rob's brother and sister-in-law) are going to buy us a grill for our wedding gift! We are SUPER excited! Also, we headed to Linens-n-Things and ordered a bedroom set. We found it on sale in the ad this week and couldn't pass up the deal. It is VERY similar to the one we registered for except WAY cheaper. We got the comforter, two regular shams, two euro shams, a bed skirt, and two accent pillows for $65! I love it!


Now we start the week over again... but, that just means we are one more week closer to the wedding! 8 weeks and counting!

What a week!

This past week has been crazy! I'm going to go through it step by step, so prepare yourself for a gigantic post!

• Going back to last Saturday... Rob and I's wonderful friends Chris and Samantha got married! It was beautiful! The wedding was at St. Peter Church in St. Charles and the reception was at the Foundry Art Center, definitely a cool place. I'll let the pictures do the talking, though...
  

Sam's SIX flowergirls and FOUR ringbearers! There was a lot of cuteness walking down that aisle!

Sam with Jenn (left) and Lisa (right) her bridesmaids

Cutting the cake!

Beautiful bouquets! There was a red rose in each of their bouquets in memory of our dear friend Meghan who died in a car accident last year.

Rob and I with Chris and Sam

• Sunday I got to see another good friend again. I hadn't seen her in almost a year and she's pregnant! Well, she must be, considering it was her baby shower. It was adorable. She's a bit of a country girl and it was a camping theme with camouflage and even a fake campfire. It was so much fun! She is adorable too. Just makes me all the more jealous of pregnant ladies! I'm definitely not having kids for a long time though, so don't get any ideas!
• Last week started the race to get my homework done. I'm wanting to finish all of my "pre-assigned" stuff for school so I don't have to think about it anymore. I didn't do too bad, but I had a LOT to do, so I was good and didn't blog while I was doing homework. It was tough though!
• Last Friday I went to the Drunken Fish for the first time with Chris and Sam and Jennifer. It was so good to get together with them and talk about her wedding and mine coming up! I'm so jealous right now! I want to be married.... Sigh... soon enough! So the Drunken Fish was not at all what I expected. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but for some reason I was disappointed. The food was pretty good. I didn't get Sushi since I've yet to bring myself to try it, but I got a beef noodle bowl which was fabulous. I have to say, though, I found the restaurant to be a little dirty in general - hidden by the low lighting. It was small and I had a hard time understanding our waitress, but they served Pepsi, which made me pretty happy... :o)
• On Saturday I continued the race to finish the homework before going to the City Museum for Ryan's birthday. This was a definitely fun, but I have my reservations. So this place is supposed to be a big playground for adults (well, kids too) right? Cool, I can't remember what Tumble Drum was like, time to relive my inner kiddo. Enter me, ready to play. So, I'm feeling pretty brave, going up really high and crawling through tubes I'm way to big for while my knees are crying and decide to follow the crowd. Big mistake. They all decide to go into a tunnel to which we have no idea where it leads, nor what comes after the "descent." After the "descent" is a VERY dark, VERY narrow, VERY short tunnel that was NEVER ENDING. I'm not really a claustrophobic and not really afraid of the dark, I mean I tend to concentrate more on spiders in the dark, small places than the places being small and dark. Not this place. It was terrifying. Well, take a look for yourself: this is lit up by a flash, imagine it pitch black. Yeah, not cool at all. Especially when the floor decided to go up and make the dark, small tunnel even smaller. Yeah, wow. Warning for future visitors - don't descend the thing that looks like a well. Its super scary. But I'll share some other fun pictures from the night as well...

Eric serenading Ryan on the piano...

Denny and Rob with the creepy mask...

The gigantic kaleidescope

Here it is. THE HOLE. Yeah, imagine it pitch black, totally not cool.

Ryan the birthday boy and his girlfriend Stephanie, they are so cute!

• On Sunday I had a shower! But, first let me backtrack to Saturday night after the City Museum. Cue barfing. Yup, all night. Good old mother nature decided to bestow upon me the gift of the stomach flu the night before the shower I've been looking forward to for weeks. Come Sunday morning I was feeling a little weak and slightly nauseas, but I forced down some applesauce and put on a happy face before heading to the shower. Once at the shower, I was okay. I didn't get to enjoy the lunch at Java G's but I got a lot of awesome gifts and got to see some family I hadn't seen in a while! Say a little prayer for Rob's Aunt Billie though. She passed out when the shower was ending and hit her head on a table. We had to call and ambulance and it was definitely a scary moment. From what I understand she is doing fine now, but they are running tests to figure out why it happened.

So concludes my week of chaos... now we are two months from the wedding! Let the two months of chaos begin! I have a bunch of stuff to do still, but everything is coming together now and I can't wait! By the way, I'm still working on the house...

My First Shower!

I had my first bridal shower last Saturday! It was so much fun! It was really strange being the center of attention, but I think I handled it pretty well. You can see my "problem" in a couple of the pictures.

Here is said "Problem:"
Okay, first, check out the fabulous cake. It was delicious! Now, if you look very closely you will notice the "problem." Right around my neck area. Looks a bit like hives... maybe like someone has just tried strangling me? This is what happens when I get nervous. I flush a wonderfully vibrant red similar to that of a tomato for all the world to see. This is my current area of worry as far as my looks for the wedding. Forget low lighting, I'll be glowing!

Anyway, back to the shower... I'll just let the pictures tell the story. I got some great gifts and got to hang out with some family and friends (something I don't get to do very often!). It was a blast and Jocelyn, her mom, and Ashley did a wonderful job!

I have another one in two weeks! Woo-hoo!!!

Snow Day Miscellany

A little miscellany to fill a lovely snowy day...

• I have a snow day today! While the morning part of it was self-imposed... Lindenwood actually called off the afternoon classes, people. I'm not joking. They haven't called off school for weather in 20 years or something like that. I'm glad I didn't make myself drive for my morning classes. Woo-hoo for snow days!

• I'm so sick of winter. This year has been especially bad with the multiple storms we've had. But overall I'm just tired of being cold. I want summer sun and 90 degree weather, people. Mmmm.... love it.
• We're coming down to the wire with the house. Rob and I bought a dryer on Saturday during Sear's appliance sale. Now all we need is a refrigerator, and furniture, and various other things... :o)
  

• Good news with the house: they fixed our carpet! The seam was REALLY noticeable in the great room and we complained about it, not really expecting much, but they fixed it! Our real estate agent said he's going to get us in on Saturday so we can walk through ourselves before the final walk through with Vantage. I hope so! I want to see it! Say a prayer that everything else that needs to be fixed, gets fixed.
• I'm currently researching home security systems. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm clueless as far as this is concerned, so any suggestions are welcome. Rob and I really want one when the house is done. I've checked out ADT and Brinks websites, so I'm going to make some appointments and talk to some people... we'll see.
  
• We DESPERATELY need to order our invitations for the wedding. We've been waiting until after the house is done because it's quite an expense, but now that I'm not on the loan, I can purchase them. We've pushed our time frame to the max... must do that this weekend.
• I'm officially the computer genius of my house. I successfully fixed the wireless internet on my brother's laptop, after Rob tried and failed. Go me!
• Deanna, who is doing the girls hair for the wedding, gave my hair a trim on Monday. She cut off about 2-3 inches. It should grow back nicely for the wedding. Right now though, I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders (pun intended).
  
• We are approaching the 100 day mark with the wedding. I really need to get back in the gym. I've been successfully using the cold as an excuse to not go. I refuse to go outside in 10 degree weather in those thin gym pants when I'm miserable enough from the cold. But I really want to tone up for the wedding!

• I have a love-hate relationship with blogger. I LOVE blogging, but I hate putting pictures in my posts. First, it only lets you upload five photos at a time. Then getting them where you want and how you want them is a pain as well. But it doesn't help that I'm lazy and hate uploading pictures from my camera to my computer.
• I found out while watching Show Me St. Louis today that a woman that goes to my church is a pet photographer! She comes to peoples houses and takes pictures of their pets! I'm so doing this when we get the house to a livable point! She's got a website here. How fun!
  
• My dad is watching a show on TV about doughnuts, and I'm really growing a craving... Care to join me? Mmmm... chocolate long johns...
  

• My cell phone has gone off the deep end. It keeps turning itself off and on, off and on. The buttons aren't working right. Rob and I are going to go look at a plan on Saturday... I'm kinda bummed because I love my phone: I've had it for almost two years. But compared to my last phone, that's nothing. I had my first phone for about 5 years. It was great. Hopefully we get something good!
• Mom and Dad may be going on a vacation to Hawaii this year. I really hope they can go, they deserve it. But at the same time, I'm VERY jealous. I really want to go on a vacation. We thought about going, too, for our belated honeymoon, but I really don't think we can afford it. That, and our good friends Greg and Valerie (Valerie is a bridesmaid in my wedding) may be getting married in the Caribbean this December, so we'd need to save money for that trip! I can dream though, right?

• I'm now going to take advantage of this dreary, cold period and make some cookies and chicken and dumplings. Mmmm... since I can't have doughnuts....
  

Happy snow days everyone! Drive safe!

:::Sigh::: It's over...

Well, my weekend of heaven is over. Technically, it was over yesterday, but I had a good day yesterday, so I won't count it. I'm currently sitting in the library at Lindenwood fuming over the fact that they are raising tuition and room and board again and thinking about how the heck I'm gonna pay the extra money out of pocket.

See, there are few things that I take pride in. However, one of them is the fact that I scored a 30 on my ACT allowing me to attend Lindenwood University on a full ride academic scholarship. The stipulations of this scholarship are that I have to pay a $300 "student family contribution" (a.k.a. we call it that to get free money out of you) and $120 in activity fees. This is what I pay to go to school, and I can handle it. I work enough to pay it off every semester (on top of books and bills). Well, this past semester they upped that $300 to $500. OUCH. I'm afraid of what it's gonna be next semester. I really don't want to have to take out a loan. Pray for me.

On a lighter note, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend filled with family and fun. The food was wonderful on Thanksgiving day and it was so nice to spend the weekend with my family and not have to worry about what "I have to do tomorrow." We stayed up all night on Thursday rocking out on Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band and went shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, getting our traditional Starbuck's Hot Chocolate at 4:00 in the morning and heading to the mall. I got all of my Christmas shopping done! Woo-hoo!

I also splurged a bit and bought myself a new MP3 player, which I absolutely love:


On Friday we went and saw our hole for the house (see below)! Very exciting! Then we had a really fun evening with some friends and went to see "August Rush" which is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies.

This movie has an absolutely amazing soundtrack which I am currently listening to on my brand new MP3 player. The movie is just beautiful - dialogue, cinematography, music, acting. I loved it!

Afterwards we went to Ariake Japanese Steakhouse which is always a good meal! Sunday I stayed at home and relaxed all day. It was such a great weekend....

Back to reality! But, on the bright side, it's officially the Christmas season!!! I love Christmas! I'll have pictures of our gorgeous tree up soon.