Okay, I've been extremely busy. I know I said I'd post more often, but honestly, I just haven't had that much time. Here's the shortened version of the long story. I've been going through that little period at the end of the semester involving projects. I swear I've written 60-70 pages of reports in the past week. I'm done though!!! Except for studying for my College Algebra exam (I'm trying to test out of it... wish me luck). Aside from that I've been playing the role of supportive wife to my husband and his new business.
:::Begin shameless plug:::
Rob and his business partners - Matt (the idea maker), Andy (my brother), and Greg (our good friend) are starting a business called The Gamer Lounge. To start this business off they have teamed up with the Mid Rivers Best Buy (all you St. Charles folk know what I'm talking about) to host a Guitar Hero World Tour tournament. Let me tell you, it's gonna be awesome!! They've been working hard to prepare for this by making three of these babies:
Consisting of four 42" Plasma TV's and four XBOX 360's they are The. Bomb. That's right, we dropped a little under 13K one day on the electronics for these. Best Buy loves us.
So, that said, The Gamer Lounge will be hosting a Guitar Hero World Tour tournament on Saturday, December 6, 2008 at the Mid Rivers Best Buy. The entry fee is $20 for a chance to win your choice of a Wii bundle, a PS3 bundle, or a $400 gift card to Best Buy. We will also be raffling a Wii Fit. Come on out check it out! If you want to enter you can go here and pay through PayPal. Or you can enter the day of (if there's space available!). I hope to see you there!!!
Okay, I've done my wifely duty and placed an advertisement on my blog. ;o)
But seriously though, I'm super excited about this and so is Rob. Come support our new adventure!
P.S. If you can't make this one, we're planning another for December 28, details to come soon!
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm married!!! What an amazing week and a half it has been! The wedding went off without a hitch and our week off of work was way too fast. But, I'll start from the beginning.
The week of the wedding was crazy. We were so busy decorating and making sure everything was ready. The rehearsal and dinner were great as well. I was really proud of myself because I never really felt very nervous beforehand. The day of, however was a different story.
I took everyone's advice and made sure I tried to take everything in as well as stayed hydrated and kept food on my stomach. We all met on Friday at the church to get our hair done at about 8am. Deanna, who is AMAZING, was there bright and early and did everyone's hair. She was literally working from 8am until 3:30pm to get everyone done. I couldn't thank her enough! She did a great job on everyone' s hair and kept a beautiful smile on her face all day long! My only pictures from the day of the wedding are of us hanging out getting ready so, here goes!
Deanna (she's gonna hate me for this picture!)
Doing our hair
Playing spoons while waiting...
Doing my makeup
Steaming my veil
I must say, also, that God is good! I literally sat and stared out the window ALL DAY as it rained CONSTANTLY from 8:30am until Clary (our photographer) got there. It didn't stop!! I was pleading with God to make it stop! He did! So, we tramped out in the wet grass in the wooded area behind the church for some pictures. I'm anxiously awaiting these! I'll definitely let you know as soon as they're posted.
The week after the wedding was a great week off. Not exactly what I had pictured, but still wonderful. Remember how I said Rob hadn't moved anything yet? And he promised he would be moved by the wedding? Well, the day after the wedding he breaks the news to me that he doesn't have any UNDERWEAR! What?! So, we head back to his parents' house to get some of his stuff. We also had a LOT of company the week after. I was hoping for some more alone time, but I still had a good time.
One thing I really loved: spending some good quality time with my babies! I got a whole week to love on them and get them used to their new house. They're loving it here! As am I!
Unfortunately, I had to head back to work today... it was bittersweet. I missed my class and am anxious to establish our routine. However, I don't want to start up the day to day boring stuff. Such is life.
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!
I have another shower this weekend! I'm super excited! The lovely ladies at my church are hosting this one and I'm excited to get together for some fun as well as seeing my mom's cousin, Norma, and my bridesmaid Kate. Kate hasn't been able to make it to one yet, since she lives in Springfield, but I know she's excited to come and I can't wait to see her! I'll be sure to post pictures of it later.
Other exciting news... I got my bridesmaids their gifts this week! I wracked my brain for a while trying to come up with something that all of them would like and couldn't think of anything! Then, one day in the shower (this is where I have my best ideas...) I had a stroke of genius. So, we're all going to see Mamma Mia at the Fox on June 8!
I had great plans of doing a nice little get-together with them and giving them all their tickets that way, but I didn't want them to make any plans on the night, so I called all of them. I ::think:: they're excited! I know I am. How perfect that the Fox was playing a show about a wedding?
I wanted to make a post about my shower a couple of weeks ago so, even though it's a little late, here you go!
This was thrown by my awesome future mother-in-law, Ginger, Rob's Aunt Nina, and his Aunt Mari. They did such a great job, I was just so overwhelmed! I really wish I wasn't so sick! Hopefully I covered it up well...
Me and the girls, from left to right: Me, Valerie, Katie (and baby!), Sam, and Ashley
My beautiful cake, courtesy of Aunt Mari
The Loot... ;o)
Our new rug!
Dishes! Woo-hoo! No more styrofoam!
One beloved pot. I also got a skillet. I'm currently coveting the set on our registry...
An afghan lovingly made my mom. :o)
Me and the moms!
And of course, the real star of the show... Isabella! She is being held by aunt Deanna here...
And, since this post is somewhat wedding related... mom and I exposed our green thumbs today and made the flower pots to decorate the front entrance of the church today. I think they turned out gorgeous!
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.
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!
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...
For my wedding addicted readers, or, my recovering wedding addicted readers, I thought I'd make a post about the progress with the wedding. After sitting idle for quite a while with wedding stuff, it's kind of exciting that I've finally reached a point where I am a little more active in the wedding planning process. Why? Because I'm almost two months away!! 10 weeks! Time flies so fast. I can't believe that I've been engaged for a year and a half. But, through it all, I still can't wait for it to be here!
Saturday, my lovely friend Sam is getting married which is making it all the more real for me. I'm so happy too that mother nature has decided to give the world some relief from her incessant goal of recreating the flood that only Noah survived to give her the perfect spring day. 65 degrees and sunny! Woo-hoo! Who could have asked for a better day? I'll definitely be back with pictures of this event next week!
Back to my wedding... I mailed out invitations today! But, this seemingly joyous experience has been marred forever by the US Post Office's decision to charge me for the extra 0.1 oz. that my invitations weigh. That's right, remember my earlier post showing a picture of my lovely invitations with their nice purple stamps sitting so pleasantly in the corner? Yup, they are now accompanied by a lovely 17 cent stamp showing the most beautiful, and majestic, of animals. A ram. Yes, you heard me right, a ram. See for yourself...
Now, don't get me wrong. I think I've been pretty good about not flipping out about stuff with the wedding. I mean, I was fully prepared to buy the American flag stamps because I thought the pretty purple ones cost more. But, I'll admit that after all the work I put into the invites and how perfect they looked when I was finished, I was thoroughly disappointed when they weighed in at 1.1 oz requiring me to fork out another 17 cents a piece on ugly stamps to ruin my perfect invitations. Regardless, I'm so happy to have crossed this milestone! Invitations are out! Let's hope the RSVP's start rolling in! And for those of you near and dear to me reading this, yes, I need a response from you even if you think I know you're coming! I already have my mom and dad's, yes, I have a respond card from those I live with, that means I need one from you too!
Next. I had my first dress fitting last week! It went awesome! While I was there, I picked up several of the bridesmaids dresses and saw the flowergirl dresses! They look awesome! The wedding will be gorgeous. Check out this post and this post to see the dresses...
Today, I discussed the ceremony music with Russell. This is something that has kind of sat in the back of my head for a long time. Much to the disappointment of my dear mom, who dreamed of me walking down the aisle to the Bridal March... I don't think that's what we'll be using. I'm not sure but here's what I've got it narrowed down to for the day. For before the ceremony while the guests are finding seats, I'll be playing a selection of songs from my all time favorite movie, Pride & Prejudice.
If you haven't seen this movie, see it. And, while you're watching it, listen to the music! It is gorgeous!!! For the processional I've got it narrowed down to three:
I think all would be awesome. We'll see what Rob says....
The recessional will be a surprise though!
Finally, Rob and I have to set up our pre-marital "counseling" with our pastor. I'm kinda nervous about this. Obviously, I have no idea what to expect. I hate not knowing what to expect. I suppose it must be done though...
I'll leave you with some wedding related funnies tonight...
I just married the love of my life Rob! I'm figuring out what it means to be a wife and homeowner as we just moved into our newly-built first house. I'm trying my best to make it look like a home. I think I've been pretty successful... I love to spend time with my puppies, Oliver and Dudley and I love doting on my adorable nephew, James and niece, Isabella. I'm a full time student in the process of getting a bachelor's in education and am in love with life!
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