AHHHHHHH!

So Busy, Barely time to Breathe-but still alive.
Cake Lady bailed today-had to book one in a hurry-Thank God for Cakes by Christine.
Finally got a hold of reception place-she didn't sound as if she'd be cleaning-so we might be cleaning on Thursday.
School is good-very busy, midterms due next week.
We have all our stuff organized into containers; head table, cake table, ceremony, etc.
We have both our rings-yay!
Ceremony stuff is all set, and we have a final head count--160. That's exactly what we expected so we are pretty good.
Talked to florist today-we are good there.
We are finishing putting all our pics in a file for slideshow-probably get it off to Christi and finished this weekend.
If I don't answer my phone, I will call you soon-I shouldn't even be on this blog right now-but needed a little break.
As I wipe the sweat off my brow-I'm going back to wedding work.
Love you all-
Cole

School days

I have been super busy with school and have neglected my wedding blog-sorry guys! School is off to a great start-I feel pretty organized and I absolutely love my class, they are so well behaved-and seem super smart. I have been staying until five or six everyday, which will have to change soon-since practice for swim team will start next week.
We are in full sprint to the wedding date now. Every time I see a calendar I shutter-there is still quite a bit to do, and I am swamped with work. THank goodness for weekends. I will try to post this weekend with all the pictures I have been promising. Have a great week guys.

Rest and Relaxation

Saturday Craig and I went to chuck and con's to swim and hang out with them and the kids. Jackson and Caroline stayed with nin and pop while Christi was in New York for a baby shower. Little C had an "ouwee" on her knee and couldn't swim, but she did get to go on a jeep ride to the river. J can touch the bottom of the pool now, and was definitely not afraig to jump in and swim around. I tought him and Craig to play sharks and Minnows; however, J doesn't like to be tagged so he was all time shark. haha. J went fishing with pop and Craig and caught the most fish-they had some pretty good pictures-I will have to get them on here.
Today I read Twilight for 2 hours and finally finished book one. I really wanted to start book two, but figured I should get some other things done. Like write a post to you all. I started my math planning-but I'm not sure how fast the kids will be willing to start up and do homework. Tomorrow I will be at the school planning all the other subjects with my mentor. Good news! I found out I get $300 at the end of the school year for participating with the mentor program-wish I got that money now. hehe! Only thirty-four more days till the wedding. Things are really flying by now. I am really excited and can't wait to see how all the plans work out. By the way, the lake is back down almost to normal-and most of it is cleaned up.They still haven't opened our cove yet-but I'm guessing by Sept. it will be open, figures!

Still Alive

I'm pretty sure I still haven't recovered fully from my Bachelorette party. It's been almost one week, and I'm still tired. I had a blast and couldn't have asked for a better party. The shower was in the morning-we had Mexican fajitas, sweet corn bread, orange muffins(which were amazing), chicken salsa, and for desert-a chocolate chocolaty cheese cake, yum!
The bach. party was a good time-let's just say there was murder, mystery, and naked gay men. haha! What a combo.
I have been at my classroom everyday this week working on my room. It's pretty bland right now, but I figure with all the lessons between now and ISAT's there will be plenty of posters put up to fill the empty space. I did make a welcome bulletin board that features hard hats-I'm pretty pumped about that. I have pictures, but to be honest, after working on my web page and doing all the prep stuff for school-I barely have the motivation to post on here. I might have to just copy and paste my stuff from school on here to keep everyone updated. Pretty sure, I will only have time for school in the coming weeks. We start on Tuesday. Watch out!
Wedding stuff is flowing right along. WE are struggling with insurance stuff-an ordering all of our liquor, food, and extras. I think it's pretty much down to the nitty gritty now. I need to make little signs and make sure we have all decorations and our vows ready. It's getting so close. At school I'm already called Mrs. Hendry, I hope it's not like ruining the surprise-I've already had to sign my name a few times, kinda weird.
Pray for me in the next week and wish me luck-parent night is Thursday. Woohoo :(

Little freelance

Yesterday I took a trip to St. Louis to the Vans Warped Tour. I went last year and just had to go this year too. I went with my friend Abby. There were over 50 bands, and it's awesome because you can get soo close and not have to stay in an assigned area like most concerts. We saw Bad Religion, Less than Jake, 3oh3!, and a bunch of others. I loved seeing all the people dance around and get so excited about their favorite bands. We must have walked at least 50 miles just looking at all the merch tents and looking for band signings. There were a lot of young kids this time-like 10yrs and up. Everything was so expensive-$4 for a water, $6 for lemonade, $5 for a hot dog, and I had to buy a Bad Religion tank top $15. It was soo worth it though. I will post pictures in a little bit, I've got to mail these invitations today or else!!

invites!!

Here are some pictures of the invitations. I think they look pretty good, we have to fix the inserts before they will be done-but otherwise, they turned out pretty good. Also, the flowers were from a friend's wedding-and were pretty so I took a picture. Craig and I took this picture before the wedding in Chicago.

Minor Detail?

So, I might actually freak out this time. It wasn't a big deal to me that my bridesmaid's dress came in and was two sizes too small. I can live with the idea that our initial venue is not going to happen. I'm even coming to terms with the fact that I'm still not in love with my dress or shoes. This might be the straw that broke the camels back. I think invitations are soo important. The save the dates were nice, although not the original idea either. I took all our paper to the print shop here in town to be printed "professionally." Craig and I even went back on Friday to check them, but our minds must not have been really turned on at the time. To start with, they were really nice and printed a map for us-awesome! They even printed our return address on the RSVP-still awesome. The things I'm not happy with, they turned the landscape invitation into the other direction. Two of the inserts are the same size, and the reception card is the size of a business card. I wanted it to fill the pocket and be layered in height. I know this sounds picky, but that's how it looked on the invitation website. Now, I am going to have to do more work making magic with paper so it looks formal and not just thrown together. Craig is going to have a fit when he sees these too, which means-our night should be awesome. Why didn't we elope? I will post a picture of them in a little while, I'm going to try to fabricate something so I can tell Craig that was the plan all along.

Fifty Three Days!

I can't believe it's this close. Craig sent me an email yesterday appologizing for being so grumpy in the morning, and he said I was perfect because I was so patient with him. I actually got a little teary eyed that he thinks I'm perfect-and then I sent him an email asking him for money. haha! Not so perfect after all. I am hoping the janitors from school call me this week and say I can get back in my room. I really want to get everything organized before the first day of school. What the heck have they been doing all summer? :)
Last night I said, "hey Craig let's pick out some songs." He agreed, so we started with the cake cutting, hmm, what song would be played for that? And, who would have guessed we disagreed on every song. Two hours later, and still no song. I reminded him that I have basically two weeks to get everything for the wedding in order, and then I won't really have time to think about it let alone spend hours at a time looking for a song that no one, including us will remember. He said I can pick whatever I want. What the heck have we been doing all summer?
Rem is still itchy, although I think it's getting a little better. She is on her Fit and Trim food now, and always stares at me like I'm being mean or starving her. Maybe it's just my guilty concience. I added pictures of inspiration for our new bedroom. I am hoping for the floating shelves in the first picture. I love it.

sore sore sore

So, saturday after the swim meet I met up with Craig and a couple of his friends to go on the boat. We got to tube for a little bit, and today I feel like someone tried to yank my arms out of socket for three days in a row. Last night before bed Craig said, "I think I hurt my shoulder," today I realize what he was talking about-it's just sore muscles though.
He told me last night,"make sure I get up on time tomorrow." At 4:30 a.m. Buster meowed over and over until I got up to put him out. I dragged myself back to bed. So at five a.m. when the alarm went off I said, "hey dude, wake up, it's time to go." He said ok. Then at 5:30 I heard the alarm go off again, and I looked at the clock, and yelled,"you really need to get up." Then a tornado of a Craig ripped through the room, throwing all of the folded clothes onto the floor, dumping the laundry basket upside down in an attempt to find his wallet-which was on the kitchen counter-and blaming me for him being late. Oops! We need about 7 alarm clocks just to get that man out of bed in the morning. So when I got back up at 7a.m. I had to pick up all the clothes and make myself ready for swim practice-after 2 1/2 years living together you would think we had our mornings down pat. If I was a nice soon to be wife I would have just stayed up when Buster woke me to make sure my soon to be hubby got himself up, dressed, and had a packed lunch for work. In that alternate universe Craig is a happy man.

woohoo

WOOOHOOOO! I'm gonna get to hear the train, I won tickets to "So you think you can dance?" It's going to be at UofI in October. I had to submit a picture of me dancing to a radio station, so I sent this one! haha,I got the email this morning saying it was hilarious and they wanted me to go! YES! I love that show, and I get to go, first time I have ever won anything.

Getting so close

Today I drove the route to the reception place and finalized our directions for the invitations. I decided to not have everyone go through the country-but take rt32 which is only about 3 mi longer. Hopefully no one will get lost. We are getting so close and last night I told Craig, "it's only two months till the wedding, we might actually make it this time." He was sweet about it and just smiled and gave me a hug. The closer it gets the more excited I get, and really I'm not stressed anymore-now that the reception place is booked. I get the preview of the invites on Friday and then if I approve should have them all in my hands by next Wed. My new plan is to have them mailed by next Friday. Dude left for his business trip today-I slept in till 9. But then I did my running around, mowed, and I'm watering the lawn(well, the sprinkler is) Beth said the fair is in town, I think it's just the animals and stuff but I might check that out tomorrow or Thursday-just something relaxing to do to get me out of the house.
I thought this picture was funny, hopefully that won't be me-at least not until all the parents and grandparents are gone. hahaha!

A new week

I went and saw the centerpieces that Connie put together over the weekend and they are just gorgeous. I could not have done it any better. Yay! I bought two pairs of shoes-one was a slip on ivory sandal that I can spruce up with little pearls and they were only $6. The other was a dark purple suede peep toe high heel with ruffles on the front-they were a little more, but still under $30. I am so excited that I don't have to wear the gold yuckies that I got offline.
I gave the Remster a bath today-she is still all itchy, I don't know what to do with her. I looked up Dust mites and I don't think that's it, mainly cause it's only during the summer that she gets all itchy. I think I'm going to call the vet and ask him what else to do, she is miserable and pretty much licked all the fur off her knees. Poor baby!
Craig is going to be gone on business Tuesday thru Thursday-and I'm a little excited. The alarm goes off at 5 every morning so he can get up and go to work-with him gone, I get to sleep in till 7. woohoo! That reminds me, it's four o'clock I better go make dinner and make it look like I did something today. :)

Engagement announcements

Connie put engagement announcements in several papers. Our neighboor Beth brought one over for me last night from the Shelbyville paper.
It's official, the Timbers is ours! They wouldn't budge on the price, but we took it anyway. A few more details and we are all ready to go. We still need to order candy, print and mail invitations, pick a few more songs, figure out music for the ceremony, and well, the rest is just little stuff. Our list is definitely getting smaller, and now that we have a reception site, we can relax and enjoy it a little bit. The next few weeks are going to flyyyyyy!
Here are our next four weekends:
Jared's bach party, Tara's bach party, Craigs bach party, my bach party. Then I'm in school and there is no time to party!!!
I worked in my classroom on Wed. for 4.5 hours. Then I worked at home yesterday on lesson planning for 3 hours, and I don't feel like I've made much progress, this is going to be a rough semester-I should just get a prescription for prozac now :)
I will post the map about two weeks out, and try to post it so I can still write stuff. maybe Christi can help me with that. By the way-scroll down and see how many days there are till the wedding-whenever I want to make Craig freak out I just tell him how many weeks there are till he marries me...haha! works everytime.

View Timbers in a larger map

we drew a map to the Timbers. Please check this out and I will try to figure out how to get it in the invitation.

The Timbers-YAY!!

Craig and I went to the Timbers tonight to see the restaurant and the lodge. It was way bigger on the inside than we thought. It has high ceilings(with rafters), lots of electrical outlets, refrigerators, restrooms, solid floors, a beautiful scenery, and man I'm so excited. The lady even said she would be a little flexible with price. What a dream come true and a relief. We haven't signed anything yet, we are going to look at our budget, and let her know in the next couple of days how much we want to pay and see if she is ok with that. We will still need to find a few tables and about 100 chairs, but that's way better than floating around in canoes trying to dance to "Stayin alive" ahahaha! She actually had tulle to hang on the deck that runs around the pond, and there's a couple little ponds with a waterfall. Craig thinks one of the best parts is we can stay till 1:30. Party time. The lodge comes with it for two nights. There are six rooms, so we are trying to figure out if we can have people stay with us both nights. It's big enough that Craig and I wouldn't have to sleep in the same room fri. night and not even see each other in the morning. There's even a hot tub-hello relaxation. She said she had a family reunion and there were 22 people there-most of them stayed the night. I'm so excited and can't wait to get the invitations out and start celebrating.
My classroom is getting cleaned this week, so I can put up all my stuff soon. The stress is subsiding, I can actually unclench my teeth for a while. whooo!

Craig and I had a pretty busy weekend. We celebrated our friend Bert's birthday on Friday night. Saturday I had a swim meet in the morning and then we drove to Chicago for a friend's wedding. It was in an architectural artifact museum and was very trendy and cool. The wedding was very special and our friend looked so beautiful in her dress. They had sweet baby rays BBQ ribs, chicken, pulled pork, spicy macaroni salad, and baked beans all served family style. They had a slide show with pictures of their families, and then had a first dance to the Seasons of Love song from RENT. Very cool. They had white cake with strawberry filling that was soooo good. I really enjoyed the service, which focused on Love and the challenges that humanity has faced because of the rules and ideas common to society, in the end "love wins" was what female pastor said. While this marriage was not legal, the bond between them and in the hearts of their family and friends was real.
Poor Craig drove all the way home from Chicago Sat. night. On Sunday I went to my friend Tara's bridal party. It was a lot of fun. The first game we played was to make a dress out of t.p. My team won. We also played a trivia game with questions about the bride and groom, I got 7 out of 10. I couldn't remember one of her cats names, which country they had visited together, and something else that I still can't remember:) She got a lot of nice things, and we are getting excited about her bachelorette party which is a couple weeks away.
When we got home I cooked dinner, mowed the lawn, changed our sheets, and swept the floor. Now I'm pooped and ready to start my relaxing summer week-thank goodness I'm a teacher. Hello lazy weekdays during the summer. Yayay!

Freak Out!

So, I looked on the calendar today, and realized I start school Aug.18. That's about six weeks from now. Which is about ten weeks from our wedding, which means I have a lot to do. I also saw that midterms are due by Sept.19, which means I sure hope I can get the 17th and 18th off. I am going to drive out to Hidden Springs again today and talk to the park staff and see about renting that area. I am hoping we can transfer our permit over there and not have to get a new one. I am also going to cut and sew up the fabric for our table runners today, think I'm going with squares. I would also really like to get this map thing figured out, but it's beyond me, and really we can't make it until we figure out exactly where we are having this reception. I also can't decide if we need to include an accommodations page since nothing near us is available. I can put the Effingham hotels, but I'm thinking our guests can just figure it out.
I looked at the calendar and we only get a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, so our honeymoon will have to wait until Christmas. You know, we get out Dec 22, and have to be back Jan.6th. That's crap, I thought it'd be longer than that. So, Craig and I are thinking about our passports too. What were we thinking!!! Wedding planner would come in handy right now. haha!

Hidden what??

I got the invites in the mail today-woohoo. Worked on the layout for the invites, and have yet to get a map figured out. Need to get Craig's help on that one. Dude and I took a drive out to Hidden Springs, which is about 10 miles south of Shelbyville. There was a nice big pavilion which had steps that led down to a grassy area surrounded by trees. It was so pretty-and as far as I'm concerned it's our number one back up spot so far. The lake is still flooded, so it's just about our number one spot all together. There are only like 2 turns and it's sorta secluded which would be nice-but we still need to see if it's available. The night was awesome though, nice quality me and dude time just hanging out looking for our reception site.
I took Remy to the vet today since she keeps itching. He said, first of all, she needs to loose about 23 pounds. :) poor Rem, no more table scraps. He also have her two huge pills to take twice a day, and she got some shots, and blood drawn. I would give her lots of treats to make her feel better-but like I said, she's on a diet. He said the itching is due to allegies.fun stuff. When we got home, I made myself a sandwich and left the bag of hamburger buns on the counter-when Craig and I went out for the night-guess who found them. Remy sure isn't in a hurry to start her diet-so we had to take her for a nice long walk too!! Finally getting ready to settle down and get ready for bed. I'll keep everyone posted on our decision with Hidden Springs.

wowee Malawi

Every year our church goes to Malawi Africa and helps build shallows wells for drinking water. I would love to go;but I'll be in school. I think if I was retired, or if they went in the summer I would be there in a heartbeat. Today I'm going to help my pastor put together a powerpoint to help get people interested in going. If you google Malawi shallow wells you will see some amazing photos and videos. Today I watched a video of a woman with a baby strapped to her back by a piece of fabric climb down into a hole, scoop water with a 5 gallon bucket, lift the bucket onto her head and climb back out of the hole. When she got to the top her piece of fabric started to come untied-so she just left the bucket up there balancing on her head while she tied her sarong back up, turned and smiled at the camera and took off walking on her hike back home. Things like this are amazing to me, and here I am complaining that our washing machine doesn't work-pretty sure they don't even know what a washing machine is. If you read this, take the time out of your day to do something by hand just to remember that there are wayyy less fortunate people than us, and they thank God everyday for the blessing they have. Let's all say MMMM the next time we take a drink of faucet water.

Kitchen aid mixer magic

Mom sent us a Kitchen Aid mixer 600 series!!!! It's awesome and big enough to be professional. I need to start making wedding cakes. Tonight, however; I made one of Craig's and my favorites-lemon bars. It was sooo easy with the new mixer-and very yummy!!
I have to help set up tonight for the swim meet tomorrow. Starting at 7 and hopefuly ending shortly there after. Craig, not wanting to stand out in the hot humid weather decided to catch a movie with Pete and Sandy.
At least I get to look forward to tomorrow. We are going out on the lake after the swim meet. Hopefully I won't be bunt and dehydrated by that time. haha!
Jackson has been doing awesome at swim lessons, and even wears goggles now-I'm so proud and can't wait for tootie to be swimming too. I just wish we lived closer so I could swim with them all the time.

Potty time

I reserved our porta potties and a handwashing station for the reception. Don't ask me why, but I am super excited about this. haha! I recently sent out an email about housewife necessities and here are some of the responses.
Good non-stick pots and pans
great knives-bread,chef, paring.etc
frozen meatballs
can of chicken
wet dry vac
pet hair remover from walmart
plan recipes on a calendar
clean floors and restroom for a quick pass
There were some other, but they slipped my mind. I actually printed out the emails so I could save them and look at them when I get tired of being a housewife. haha!Thanks for the emails ladies.
Craig and I are going to look at tuxes today. I'm going to try to get him to try on an Ivory tux-haha!

plugging away

Being part of the swim team in both shelbyville and Sullivan has been an amazing experience. I have learned alot and had some great times. The Sullivan team is always looking for ways to inspire and motivate their swimmers-this year, in October-2x Olympian Matt Greivers is coming to Sullivan to be part of a swim clinic. How lucky are we to have him come and swim in our pool. The best part~the more swimmers that sign up, the more olympians that come with him. Tickets are a little stiff-$75 for kids, $100 for adults, but what a great experience and you get autographs and stuff I'm sure.
We are plugging along with wedding stuff. Craig ordered our table clothes and votives with holders last night. I need to call the guitarist that I met a couple months ago and see if he would be willing to play for us. IT's kind of funny. I subbed for his high school class. He wanted to play guitar instead of study, so I told him to use his notes and write a song he could play for the class-and voila' ! He was really good. I asked if he played at weddings-he told me he was an ordained minister. Turns out, his dad was the minister who had his firetruck tricked into a wedding chapel on Trick my truck. Anyway, I thought I'd give him a call and set up a time to meet, and work out a contract with songs and such.

Too Early??

So, yesterday and today I woke up at 5:15 and decided to get some stuff done. Yesterday I worked on a few wedding things-like ceremony readings and music. Today, with the idea placed by my loving FH, I decided to do laundry. I started a load, hooked up Rem and headed out for a walk. When I got back home at 6:15am I realized-"oh $*!t, the laundry room is flooded." When I stepped in the water covered my toes. I had to use every towel I had in the house to try to mop up the mess-and it was still pouring out the bottom of the washer. That's right folks-the bottom. So apparently it dumped two whole tubs full of water in our laundry room-wash and rinse cycle. So I'm staying home from Shelbyville's practice today to finish cleaning up the mess-heave the soaking towels to the laundro-mat and then, go about my daily business. My question for you, "is 7:30am too early to start drinking?" haha

June showers bring lots of --presents

Christi posted the pictures of the shower, so I borrowed some to show those of you who don't see her blog. It's so hot outside-and I am so lucky to just be sitting at home in the a.c. working on wedding stuff. Ordered the invitation pieces today. yay!

2 down...

Shower number 2 is over and it was a lot of fun. The guests had to play gift bingo-so they actually had to pay attention to what I got. We had everyone vote on my cake-liked it or didn't care for it too much-it was pretty unanimous that the raspberry buttercream was awesome-but the chocolate was just ok. I got tons of stuff-and had great brunch food.
After the shower I got to swim with J-man, Caroline, and Christi. J is getting so good at floating and today even swam freestyle halfway across the pool. Little Sophi screamed at me twice this weekend. She cried so hard the first time I started thinking, "oh my gosh I pulled her arm out of socket." As soon as she saw a glimpse of Christi-she was fine. Definite momma's girl there. Caroline is becoming quite the little talker-she has so many words in her vocabulary it's awesome. She's a little buttercup and she even walked up to me today at the shower and in front of everyone said, "Kiss." She has a nack of making everyone feel good about themselves-and she's just a toddler. haha!
After all that, I am home and putting away all my gifts and Harmony called. I got to talk to her for probably longer than an hour. What an awesome way to end my day!
I better turn in-I have to leave the house at 5:10am for a swim meet in Springfield.

That's what a bride is supposed to do!

These are words I never thought I would hear uttered by my future husband. Apparently he's been waiting for me to do stuff-but wait, I can't do anything without his approval. DOn't even get me started on what a groom is supposed to do...haha! Today I am going to the florist to get some stuff figured out, and I'm going to check back with the liquor store since they never called me back. I also made an executive decision on the rehearsal dinner place-but Craig isn't so sure about it. I am also going to make a list of everything I want on our candy table-sorry sugar lovers-not everything will be candy. I want nuts, and maybe even some homemade fruit rollups, and some various things like that. I just want people to be able to enjoy what's on it and not just pass by another container of m&m's. I thought maybe I could recruit the grandparents to make some heat resistant treats. I am going to make up some signs too for the street-"Hendry Wedding->" I need to drive the streets of Shelbyville and see which way to the lake is the easiest. I'm thinking around the dam would be cool because it's scenic and they can see the wedding tents from the top of the dam. I think that is awesome. THe day after tomorrow is my shower-can't wait to see everyone.

Gettin a little crazy

So, I wanted to play with make-up today. It's been so long since I've done that. Usually I just slap on a little bit and go, if I put any on at all. So today I busted out my old makeup bags and did my face. I tried purple eyeshadow today. I did each side of my face a little different to see which way I liked, then tried eyebrow pencil, then tried lipstick-that's why there are so many face shots. I got a little carried away when I tried to make my veil. I just played around with it today-and it kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger each time I tried it. Then I looked at the picture and was like-Wow, so I pretty much tripled the size of the veil. I need a stationary head so I can put it on something else besides myself. Any volunteers?? I had a lot of fun, by myself-a little silly but whatever!

95 days!

Craig is ordering our tent today. Woohoo! I received two more family wedding photos, and am still waiting on a couple more. I received another box in the mail today-jumbo paper lanterns to hang at the reception. We had some small ones-and now we have some jumbo ones too. I won our flower girl baskets. I think they are so cute and can't wait to decorate them with pretty little flowers. I think tomorrow I am going to work on a slide show to play at our rehearsal dinner of Craig and me. I've seen this done at weddings and thought I'd do it for our rehearsal instead. Craig gave the OK for dance lessons, so I'm going on a hunt for a place close to here. There is a dance studio here in town, but I'm not sure if it's just for little kids or not. ha ha! I can't wait. Craig said he would actually practice at home with me-so cute. Other than all of that, I'm going to work on our invitations this week and in a few more weeks they will be sent out-yikes! Everything is going by so fast. I'm looking forward to my shower this weekend at Cindy's.
I visited my family in Iowa this weekend and had a blast. It was a long drive but well worth it. Dad and I spent 6 hours just the two of us on sat. We went to breakfast and then the Aquarium/steamboat museum. He helped me take pictures with my new camera, I touched a real live sturgeon, and we just got to talk which was awesome. The sturgeon felt like wet suede in case you wanted to know!! I will attach photos a little later. I need to get motivated and off this computer.

Candy Cones??

Last night I created a demo of our candy cones. I like the purple one the best. I am thinking I need to make them a little smaller and figure out how to get the seam to hold. I like the idea of them being hand-made, it's special that way. Here's my dilemma~that's a lot of paper to waste, and I can see them being thrown on the ground and I'd have to beat some people up after having spent numerous hours making them. Still in the process of deciding.
The secret shopper struck again. Every week or so we get a box in the mail-from ebay-and I think to myself "what in the world can this be?" Last year Craig bought 10 vats of tulle, paper lantern balls, Eiffel tower vases, and lots of wood veneer and wood blocks-- without me knowing. This year he purchased tall round vases, about 6 clear glass (mini) candy dishes, and then yesterday 200 icicle lights--without me knowing. He knew he was busted when I said "what's in the box?" Before he opened it he looked at me with a smile and said "are you mad" My response was "I can't be mad at you because you can't help the way you are, but I am very frustrated." With that he opened the box, I just shook my head and went about my business. At least our front porch will have extra light this Christmas.
I also posted a picture of a bouquet that I love. So pretty, but probably expensive-I'll have to ask the florist.
If you want a good laugh, zoom in on Berkley's face. He was not happy I was working on "HIS" counter.

I got a picture from mom from her wedding to Vince. I am going to set up some wedding photos on our sign in table at the reception. I saw a picture of this in a magazine and thought it was just beautiful. I made a sample of a paper cone for our treat table, but haven't downloaded the picture yet. maybe I will put it up after I go for a walk with Remy. Tuff decision. So you think you can dance, or go for a walk with my chunky doggy?

bejeweled

I went shopping today and found my jewelry for the wedding. My diamond earrings will go along nicely with the diamond and pearl drop earrings I bought today. The necklace is a simple pearl and sterling silver. I would also like to get a diamond cross to carry with my bouquet or wear along with the pearls.

Time to start running

Tomorrow marks the end of no return, the final countdown, the last leg of the race, the beginning of the end, etc... Tomorrow there will be 100 days until the wedding. That means I need to start running....around getting stuff done. I am going to go get the rest of the flowers, I bid on baskets for flower girls, reserve tent, order tuxes, make veil, pick out food, order kegs, wine, and champagne, make hair appt., pick out first dance song, and everything else. In the mean time our house is getting appraised today- so I helped Craig clean(like that's what they are looking at) and made sure the basement was dry.
I am going to Iowa this weekend for my cousin's high school grad. party. I'm so thankful it's only a few hours drive so I can go to things like this and not have to spend a fortune getting there.
All my girls have their dresses ordered-yay! and we are all set to go in that area-assuming they arrive before the week of the wedding. I can see why bridezilla is a popular show. I don't think I'm there yet-but that's because I have awesome family and friends. If it weren't for that I could easily slip into a funk and be "not so pleasant". Craig might see some of that-but that's what husbands are for right? They are like a coffee filter-they catch all the gross stuff so what comes out for everyone to enjoy is a caffeinated delight!

dresses and headaches and storms oh my!!!

Yesterday I met up with my college friend Jen to get her fitted for her dress. It was a good time-except the sales girl who helped us was a little dingy and didn't know what she was doing. Jen said, I need an 8,9,or 10. So the girl walked away and said, "all we have is a 14 and 21 so we'll just have to try this on and guess what size you are." So, I walked over to the back wall and pulled off an 8, 10, and 12. When I took them to the girl she said, "oh, haha, you should work here." EXACTLY. When are we going to meet some sales people who know how to do their job. Jen had to order her size from D.C. and they said if she needed any other size it wouldn't be in until after the wedding. YIKES! I posted a pick of her in a yellow dress in our style. Ours will be Victorian Lilac. For any of my girls reading this, I recommend a slip underneath unless you want to go commando! :)
Craig and I took Remy for a walk to the lake last night to see how the water situation is doing. It's going down, and should be dry for the wedding. Today, however, it is storming and guess what--RAINING! DRought, drought, drought!please. If you look at the picture of the two trees and the water behind it. Well, that water behind it is covering our reception site. Common July 1st.
I checked on kegs for the wedding, and so far, it looks good. Only like $86 a keg. Not bad. Now I need to check on champagne and wine and our drink situation is set. I ordered a cute little girls longaberger purse for my flower girl-Whoever that may be!! It's still up in the air who gets that position.

Never underestimate the damage fear does to faith. When we are afraid we focus on self. When we focus on self we are unable to love.

God is love and love is God’s presence.

This is a quote from last weeks sermon at our church. I cried pretty much through the whole service. Which happens almost every Sunday.

Well, plans are coming along -talked to the hotel in town yesterday-TOTALLY BOOKED! So I've been hunting down B&B's, little motels, and maybe even neighbors to help accomodate our out of town guests. I think we are pretty much set-some are staying at the Huschuh House B&B, some are staying at the Country B&B, and some are heading to Effingham to stay the night. I figure since our party is over at 10pm most people shouldn't be that intoxicated as not to drive home if needed.
We are going boating tomorrow-I CAN'T WAIT!! I'm literally elated.
I talked to a restaurant that I thought I wanted to host our rehearsal dinner-THe Firefly Grill. This is where I had my College Grad dinner. She quoted me 2,000. Haha! She must have lost her mind somewhere in Chicago. So the hunt is on for another restaurant. I'm still partial to a BBQ or Monicals Pizza.