So, I hear it's May now?

Life is such a beautiful, wonderful, crazy thing. Like the old adage, 'April showers bring May flowers', one day you're plugging along, kinda bored but hanging in there with the day-to-day of it all, and then you realize that so many plans you've been working on really ARE coming together. Here's what we've got going this month:

1. We have had four different groups over this week. Barbecuing and croquet for the win!
2. We have installed 2 new pathways in the backyard (no more walking through dirt between the deck and patio!) and planted a dozen new perennials and herbs.
3. This Saturday we are running the Detroit Color Me Rad color run.
4. Sunday is Mothers Day and our annual family pictures.
5. My boss quit and moved across the country (sad face)
6. We saw Iron Man 3 at an advanced screening - before it came out in theaters!
7. Motor City Comic Con in 2 weeks.
8. The opening of lake season and getting the water toys in over Memorial Day.
9. We're headed to a Star Trek Convention in Chicago at the end of the month.

Oh, and I am taking the next step in my career and starting a new job on Monday.

I hope you've got as many flowers blooming as I do!

Ps - I have also been making steady progress on the costumes, and will post an update on those soon.

Knock, Knock...

As I was running up and down the stairs this week doing laundry, I noticed something odd in the hallway.

It appears that somebody has moved into my house.

When I knocked nobody answered, so I opened the door (that was rude, I know)... I wonder where it goes!

iPhone fun

So I got a new iPhone, and I've been having so much fun with it! An app that I love is called Photosynth. It stitches together panoramas for you! While sitting in the backyard this weekend I tried it out.



It's not perfect, especially while I was trying to get around the patio umbrella, but now you can be IN our backyard with me! I wish I'd done it when the trees were REALLY going crazy.

As you can see, we've been sloooooowly cleaning up all the tree and fence mess. Hopefully we'll get rid of it all soon, we'll need room for the new fence that's on its way!

A Change and a Question

Well, I've decided that I'm going to expand what I talk about on here a bit. I realize the byline is 'the to-do list of a young Ann Arbor couple' and all I've talked about is our home adventures! I have a lot more that fits under that umbrella that I'd like to document. So there's that.

In other news today I got to deal with a super fun surprise... Yours-truly was not aware that an airline can up and change your flight plans on you, WITHOUT ASKING. So when I got a notice that our flights for our vacation this summer had been changed (to a time that would not at all work) I was 'curious' to say the least. After a long conversation on the phone in which the phrase 'this is unacceptable' was tossed around, we finally got things rearranged into a usable scenario. So now... Brian and I have 24 hours to kill in the Big Easy before we get in a pretty boat and sail off to other super cool destinations.

So my question is... if you had 1 day in New Orleans, what would you do? Where would you stay? Help!

Wedding Recap 3: The Ceremony

I swear we're almost done with these... I have some fun stuff we did to our bathroom last week to post once I find my camera cord! For now though, lets continue the wedding recap before I forget everything that happened.

When Betty motioned for the girls to come upstairs I was so nervous! But we walked up the steps and got in line and I could see through the mullioned glass that everyone was seated in the church and it looked beautiful. I saw a few people sneak in late too at this point. But this is when everything became ok, I just wasn't nervous anymore! It's go time!

Here are some pictures of the gorgeous church taken by my oh-so-talented friend Samara:

Inside, and then outside:

The ceremony was short, sweet, and beautiful. And nothing went wrong. I'm sure we didn't step at all the right points, but I doubt you could tell.  Here is my dad walking me down the aisle:

The minister (who we LOVE btw) did a great piece. It was about your 'marriage box'. You can only get out of marriage what you put into it. It stuck with out guests as well because several people told me at the reception how much they liked that message. We lit our beautiful unity candle, and suddenly after only 20 or so short minutes he was pronouncing us married and I got to kiss my new husband!

Back out we go:

Then our parents and us stood near the door and had our receiving line. Brian and I laughed about it later because we both got skipped by a few people. Then we went back up to the alter to sign the license and take our family photos. Our photographer was the amazing Amanda Williams, and she is a goddess! She was so efficient! After those pictures we went to take our more fun/artsy shots with our wedding party while everyone else headed off to the cocktail hour.

We don't have our professional shots back yet, but she did send us a couple sneak peaks from the after-ceremony pictures! Midway through we had to take a time-out to take off my cathedral veil and bustle up my giant dress! Neither were easy tasks...

(I made my bolero, you like?)

I'm really excited to get the rest back. After that it was up to the reception, which we could see through the windows of the Michigan Union, was going to be awesome!

Witness Our Spooktacular Return to Blogging!

Whew! Well guess who's baaaack? No, not the McRib Sandwich. It's us!

Our wedding was absolutely the most perfect event we could ever have asked for. So perfect in fact, that I can't decide if I would want to relive it. I think if I were to do that, there's no way it could be that wonderful twice... even though I'd love to have that day again and again and again and.....

I'm collecting pictures from everyone, and I'll do a recap for ya'll next up don't worry.

It's been about a week and a half, (the wedding was on the 23rd of October) and we didn't go on a honeymoon or anything, so what took so long to get back to the blog? Well ya know, LIFE. I've been getting settled in at a new (and totally awesome) job. And we had HALLOWEEN to prepare for!

Halloween is a super big holiday for Brian and I. For several years now we've hosted an annual party. This year was very low key. And the entire week between the wedding and Halloween was spent cleaning up wedding and putting out Halloween! We cheated a little and just shoved some of the wedding mess... what does one do with a bunch of wooden table numbers?

We decorated the crap out of our house, unfortunately there are only a few pictures, and even fewer good ones. I feel like that's what happens when you have to rush things. We made quite a spread though, we only had 8 this year but we had cupcakes, cider, pigs in a blanket (mummy weenies), cookies, chips/salsa, candy, etc etc. And we all ate way too much and imbibed a little too.

Here are a couple of pictures of the food:

 

And our banisters got 'webbed'

And there's a bunch more, but none of the other pictures I took really turned out. Oh well, maybe next year.

Now what's Halloween without some costumes? We had some good ones from guests this year, and Brian and I recycled last year's. Both because of lack of time, and because I really enjoy working with liquid latex...

Yup. Those are some zombie newlyweds. I don't think my faces were quite as believable as last year however. Ah well! Happy Halloween!

Wedding Prep Weekend Extravaganza!

So this weekend was crammed full of wedding prep! On Friday night my maid of honor came out and took me for mani-pedis! It was super super nice, even if we did almost get 'shanked' on our way out! It wasn't in the nicest part of town...

The next morning I had my second dress fitting, it went really well. The bustle is awesome and she's taking it in just a smidge more, so I'll have 1 more fitting before I'm all done.

After lunch my mom and I went to the salon for hair and makeup tests. They totally NAILED the look I was going for, I was thrilled. My mom still isn't satisfied with hers, so we're still figuring that out. Before we left they took my hair down and styled it down so that it would look fab and not ruin the surprise for my bachelorette party!

We had an absolute ball. We had a limo and went to dinner, a chocolate party, wine tasting and VIP'd at a club! I will never forget how awesome that was, I seriously have some of the best friends on the planet! The next day we went to breakfast, and then I went home to celebrate some family birthdays with surf 'n turf!

What a weekend, now it's back to regular life!

Ahhh refreshing weekends are refreshing!

I know what you're thinking. The title to this post is soooo like, deep and stuff. Say what you want but it's true! Brian had to work every day this weekend but we still had a really really nice time. We made it a point to relax and just enjoy ourselves. This is practically the first time this summer we've done this, what with moving and the wedding it's been pretty nuts. Here follows what most would consider a boring play-by-play of said weekend:

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Friday night we relaxed at home with a pizza and "Hot Tub Time Machine" (review: amusing, but definitely not for everybody). Saturday while Brian was at work I went to the zoo with some friends (yaaaay animals!) and went to the mall. I dunno about anybody else but buying jeans sucks, and being successful at buying jeans is just about the best thing ever. Then we went to dinner with said same friends at Vinology.

Vinology Review:
This is a very 'cool' restaurant. Good times were had. HOWEVER, it's very very pricey. I think it would be the perfect place to stop in for a few drinks while out on the town, but we were there for dinner. And the menu of this place is so far up it's own ass that you can't tell what you're ordering through all the snob! I ended up just getting a dessert. So, fun, but probably won't be back soon.

Yesterday Brian worked while I worked on addressing more invitations. Then we went to the lake! It was just us and Matt (Brian's older brother) so it was super low key. I made burgers and corn on the cob. Then we tried some wake boarding. The guys were great of course. Me? yeah I was so good I'll be competing next weekend sucked. Granted it was my very first time trying this but I couldn't even stand up. Then I couldn't even get the board off my feet were so suctioned into the boots. It was embarrassing, but Brian assured me this is fairly normal for a first try. I'm determined to give it another go next time. For now, just imagine that this picture I found on the internet is me looking all cool:

Long Weekends!

Happy belated Memorial Day!

We went to dinner with my parents on Friday, then spent most of the weekend with friends at Brian's Parent's lakehouse. Tubing was painful and fun was had by all. As is evident by this picture:

Ah friends... looking at them explains a lot about me I think.