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Friday, March 30, 2012

Confessional Friday

Happy Friday and HAPPY SPRING BREAK to all of my fellow teacher friends!! WE MADE IT!

I'm linking up with A Blonde Ambition again for Confessional Friday!


I confess...

1. I am SO happy to be on Spring Break! Okay, this is more of an obvious statement than a confession, but 10 whole days of cleaning and wedding planning?! And I get to watch Kathy Lee and Hoda every day not on the DVR?! Sign me up.



2. We are going to a wedding tomorrow and I'm a teensy bit excited to see Travis in a tux for the first time (He's in the wedding party...obvi)! Plus, he's actually going to be wearing the same tux for our wedding, so it'll be like a little dress rehearsal!

3. It was so, so, so wonderful to go out for dinner with some of my teacher friends last week, because our California girl, Molly was in town! I've been waiting for Jen and Ashley to post their pictures, so this is the only picture I have:


It was so great to see everyone...and for those of us who live in Charlotte, why don't we see each other more?!

4. I definitely just re-brewed my coffee because there were too many coffee grounds in the first cup. BLEH.

5. My knee has been hurting really bad lately! I've been diagnosed with having Patellar Malalignment...basically the bones in my leg/knee don't line up when I am running, causing popping and pain in my knee cap. 
Lucky me, I now get to sport one of these bad boys when I run:

6. I am also totally using this as an excuse to run less. For example, today...I was supposed to run 8 miles, but my "knee hurt" (not really), so I stopped at 4. I could have run further, but I really just wanted to shower and write this confessional post. HA!

7. I just got my last observation of the school year back from my principal, and she said I am doing great! I'm so glad I don't have to worry about any more observations this year...it's such a nerve-wracking process!

8. I am supposed to be leaving for Raleigh at Noon. It is now 11:49 and I have not packed a single item. Not to mention I have nothing to wear to this wedding. I may have to go to the mall real quick.
ETD: Probably like 1:30 or 2. Whoops! Guess I'd better get going!

Have a fabulous weekend!!!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: My First Bridal Shower!

Ohhhh hey friends. Long time, no talk! Things around here have been completely CRAY. My poor house hasn't been cleaned in forever, I'm running around trying to get ready to go away this weekend, and I'm trying to write this grant to get my classroom some iPads! 
But I'm taking a break from all of that to tell you about my shower that was this past weekend!


Kathryn did an amazing job. She literally planned the shower of the century. I mean, this girl went ALL OUT! She got my favorite salad from my favorite restaurant, made yummy pork sliders, artichoke dip, and pasta salad...and THEN, we had a frozen yogurt bar from TCBY!

{amazing hostess with the pork sliders!}

{frozen yogurt bar! it was AMAZEBALLS!}

I had so much fun seeing my family and friends, especially those who I hadn't seen in a while!
Although, can we just talk about how awkward it is to open up tons of presents in front of a bunch of people?! I was sweating profusely!!! Hahah...and let's not even talk about my facial expressions in the pictures taken while I am opening presents! (Those will not be posted...for good reason.)

Anyways, here are some of the better pics...

{everyone watching me open presents=nerve-wracking}


{school friends!}

{my aunt Nancy got me a "Happy Everything" platter! LOVE it!}

{In addition to throwing the shower of the century, this crazy girl also felt like she had to buy me something?! So she bought me a tray to have Travis bring me breakfast in bed! HA!}

{my mom got me some fab china!}

{They made me put the bow bouquet on my head! And I can't believe I am posting the picture...}

{teacher friends!}

{As a party favor, Kathryn had a BEAUTY BAR. I'm telling you, the girl went all out!}

{The Beauty Bar!}

{me with the girl I owe my 1st born child to...I'm just kidding Kathryn, but seriously, IOU big time!}

I feel so lucky and am so grateful to everyone who came and "showered" me with gifts! And I am still getting more presents in the mail!! Thanks everyone, it is much appreciated!!

{the aftermath...AKA my dining room}

Well, looks like I have my spring break project carved out for me!! When I brought everything home, Travis started unpacking it and I FREAKED out!!! 
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I HAVEN'T EVEN WRITTEN THANK YOU NOTES YET!!!" 
Hahah...well now that the thank you's have been written, I think I can unpack and organize everything! Or is it bad luck to use wedding presents before the wedding? I think I heard that somewhere....

And, coming up soon....look what I got in the mail today:

Yep...my Ohio shower is coming up soon! I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends to throw these showers for me!!!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: The Photographers!

Right after we booked our venue, I started looking at photographers, because I heard they book up quickly! This was one area I was willing to splurge on a little bit, because after the wedding, all you have left is the pictures, right?! Well, I emailed one photographer, and she told me to plan on spending $8,000 (yes, eight thousand dollars) on my wedding photography! Am I crazy, or is that a little steep?!?!

Anyways, thankfully, I found a MUCH more reasonable photographer whose style I love! Well, photographers...it is actually a married couple! Elizabeth Scott Photography!



Included in our package was/is an engagement session (which they were kind enough to drive up to Chapel Hill to shoot) with a CD of images, all day wedding coverage with two photographers (that was super important to me because I didn't want to "share" a photog with Trav while we were both getting ready, and I wanted all day because, hello, it's my wedding day, not my wedding-6-to-8-hours!), with CD of the wedding day images, plus a fancy-schmancy leather-bound album! All wayyyy less than $8,000, too! :)
Plus, they are awesome at getting back to me ASAP!
Note to vendors: respond to your clients! We don't like to wait more than a day or two!! 

Check out some of their *amazing* work:









And of course, some from our very own engagement session! 
{Shot at--where else?!--UNC Chapel Hill! DUH!}






I am SO happy with how they turned out!!!
My only regret was that we were not able to get into the football stadium (it was locked)!!!

If you want to see even more engagement pics, check them out here!

So, all in all, I'm super happy and excited about our photographers, and I didn't even have to spend $8,000!


Sunday, March 18, 2012

My First Ride on the Light Rail!

(and other St. Patrick's Day adventures...)


Yes, I have never ridden on the light rail. 

I KNOW. 

Welllll...when you live uptown, like I used to, you don't need to arrange for transportation, you just walk! Unfortunately, we now live in the suburbs. Luckily, the light rail is 1.5 miles from our new house! Travis has been taking it to work everyday, and loves it. 

So this year, for St. Patrick's Day, we decided to make it our main source of transportation!


We went on the largest bar crawl in the world!! This was my 4th time participating, but my first not living in/around the uptown area! 

We walked the 1.5 miles to the light rail...and whyyyyy did I wear jeans?!?! It was SOOO hot!!
{I guess I should be grateful...it has been super rainy in past years, to the point of us leaving because we were soaking wet and freezing!}

Here I am on my first light rail ride ever! It was soo crowded!!! We got on on the 2nd stop, so as the train kept stopping, it got more and more crowded...I am claustrophobic, so by the end, I wanted to throw up! And yes, I realize Travis is making the worst face ever in this picture. UGH.


Apparently, no one else was as excited as I was about being on the light rail! HA!


And here we are...we made it!!! I tried to find my friends....but unfortunately, it's harder than it looks when there's 10,000 people and everyone is wearing the same freaking t-shirt!

{The lovely boys I had the pleasure of spending my day with}

{family photo...we joke that TJ is our adopted son because we always take care of him!}

TJ wanted to try on my sunglasses...

Ryan was CONVINCED he was going to win us an iPad playing this game! Hahha...also notice how his back is wet. I did that...I knocked the drink out of his pocket when he was giving me a piggy-back ride. Yes, we are 5.

With March Madness going on, there was a lot (maybe even too much) of this "staring at the game" business going on....

Ohhh speaking of March Madness, did you all catch that LEHIGH game?!?! CRAY CRAY.

Needless to say, my brackets are terrible. Even the kindergarteners' one:


That's a lot of red!!! 
Kindergarten bracket is in 2nd to last place among our group of friends...awesome.
And I'm not even going to show you my own actual bracket...it is currently sitting in DEAD last place.
This is legit my worst year EVER of making a bracket! I usually win this stuff! What's going on?!?!
Although, Trav showed me how to do the "scenario generator," and it said if I get the rest of my picks right, I could still win! 
Too bad Kendall Marshall just fractured his wrist....UGH. Come on Heels!!!

Here's to hoping my luck improves...!!! Have a great week everyone! :)

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: The Venue!

In these last few Wednesdays before the *BIG DAY* (14 Wednesdays, to be exact, but who's counting?!), I thought I'd go back and re-live some of my wedding planning drama fun with you all, since I have not had this blog throughout my entire planning process! I'll tackle one aspect each week....I thought I'd go in the order that things happened since our engagement. 

So, today, I'll start with....our venue! 

The church was the easy part...
My dad is a Presbyterian minister, so I always knew I wanted/had to get married in a Presbyterian church. Preferably, a pretty white one. Lucky for me, my friend Mallery, told me about a super amazing (and pretty and white!) Presbyterian church that she was getting married in. We started going, loved it, joined, and now we are getting married there!

{super cute, right?!}

Next decision...was where to have the reception.
OH MY.
First, let me preface this by saying, I feel like my mom and I looked at almost every possible reception venue in Charlotte. Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration...but I got about 3956727 emails from different places, and when my mom came down to look with me, we went to like 10 different venues!!!


We checked out....













Whew! I am exhausted just remembering everything!! 
Mind you, we looked at all of these over 2 days...and it was CIAA weekend! If you're not from Charlotte, CIAA is this basketball tournament they have uptown and the traffic IS INSANE. Like, we were over 45 minutes late to our appointment at Bentley's! By the end of it, everything was running together, and we ended up asking the same questions 39174 times!

We finally narrowed it down to Bentley's (I'm glad I didn't cancel that appointment...the owner waited almost an hour for us, and had 2 glasses of wine waiting for my mom and I when we got off the elevator!) and Roof With A View. 
After agonizing about it for a week and making a pro-con list (because that's what I do...make lists...I'm a dork), we finally decided on Bentley's! Surprisingly, it was about the same price as Roof With A View, but with a bit more of a *wow* factor!

I'm so excited to have my wedding there!!! It's completely gorgeous, with floor-to-ceiling views of Charlotte! (Although, I'm a little afraid of heights, so I just won't get too close to the windows!)

Come back next Wednesday when I discuss another exciting aspect of wedding planning!! WOOHOO!!