September 2008 Recap

Since I've dedicated the last few posts to September 2007, it is time to go back to the present. My calendar is telling me that it is already September 26th. How did that happen?! Here is a recap of this months happenings...

-My 26th birthday! We usually like to throw one big party in September to celebrate our birthdays, (yes--we throw our own parties. No gifts, just all of our friends and family over to celebrate with us) but we had a big party the last weekend in August for the Tour De Lafayette bike race, so I wasn't really feeling up to organizing another shin-dig. Instead my birthday celebration consisted of 2 parts--a nice dinner out at Sage in Soulard with my husband and two close friends followed by a Sunday afternoon spent at Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta. My family joined us for this one. It was a perfect afternoon for the winery--73 degrees and sunny.

-A fabulous dinner out at Sidney Street. Our good friends are going to start trying for their second baby, so they decided that a big night out was in order. (Translation: Laura wanted to booze it up before going through another 9+ months of sobriety.) Their daughter, Kate, was shipped off to the grandparents for the evening. We went out for before and after dinner cocktails as well. We didn't mess around. I had two martinis, two glasses of champagne and three glasses of red wine. (And a monster hangover of biblical proportions the next day. This one rivaled my college days. I think it was the mix of liquors.)

-Got inspired by the cooler temperatures to plant some mums. They're not quite blooming yet, but they are coming along.

-DH's birthday! He was lucky enough to a have birthday on a Saturday with a Mizzou home game, so we headed down to Columbia for the weekend. As usual, we had a blast. I also got to see my little sister!

-This coming weekend is going to be busy as well. I have a bachelorette party to attend tomorrow which I am very excited about. And in even bigger news--my SIL had her final chemo treatment yesterday, so Saturday we have a big celebratory dinner planned. She started treatment for her Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma back in May and I know it has been a long summer for her. (and her family) She is looking forward to be able to eat and drink whatever she wants on Saturday night. She has a scan on October 8th to see if she is Cancer free. Keep her in your prayers!

September 2007 Continued - The Honeymoon

For our honeymoon we headed out to California. We had done quite a few tropical vacations and wanted to try something different that was still relaxing. We flew into San Francisco, hopped into our convertible and threw the top down. (I must say that a convertible is almost essential if you are planning a trip to California during early October. It was perfect. I think we only put the top up at night when it got a little chilly) 

We started out in Sonoma County, then headed down the coast to Carmel/Monterey and then ended in San Francisco again for a few nights.We were gone for a week and had an absolute blast Here are a few of the highlights...Here is our B&B in Sonoma. (The pic at the top of my blog was taken our little porch.) Check out that tub!

We visited quite a few wineries in three days... 

Lets not forget our hot air balloon ride above the vineyards which was followed by a champagne brunch...

We stayed at the B&B for two nights then moved on to a downtown Sonoma Inn... I'm not even going to try to describe the meals we ate in wine country. My mouth is watering at the mere mention of them.

The drive along Highway 1 down to Monterey. We also drove through miles and miles of strawberry fields. The air smelled like sun-ripened strawberries...heavenly!

Our Monterey B&B...

Finishing up the trip in San Francisco... Well..maybe not. Apparently blogger doesn't feel like uploading any more of my photos, so I guess you don't get any San Fran ones. Another time maybe...

This concludes my "September 2007" posts. I can't believe that a year has gone by. Thanks for bearing with me. I didn't have a blog last year so I had to summarize everything from one of the most exciting months in our lives...a year late. :)

September 2007 Continued - Wedding Part 2

Moving on to the post-ceremony pictures and reception. I need to finish this up so I can move on to the honeymoon and perhaps fill you in on September 2008 before it's over. :) I'll be brief...

One good thing about having a dress that is minimal on the "poofiness" is that it's not too hard to get around. I didn't need much assistance. 

Ummm..where am I going?

The whole crew traipsing around Lafayette Park...

My husband the comedian  giving me a pat during what was supposed to be a serious shot...

Backup refreshments from the limo...

I love this shot of the toast at the end of the best man speech...

The ending of our first dance...

The dance floor was packed until the very end...

But we insisted on one last dance...

The end!

September 2007 Continued...Wedding Part 1

Lets move onto the wedding, shall we? Yep, almost an entire year has past since our wedding. Does this mean that we can't be called "newlyweds" anymore? And does it mean that people will stop asking us the "how's married life" question and move on to "so when are you going to have a baby?" I hope not. 

 

Anyways,  I'm going to post a few pictures from the day. I'm going to try to post more photos that no one has seen before since most of you have probably seen all of my "favorite shots." A lot of these will be candids that were taken when no one thought the photographer was around. Not always the best shots, but they give a clear view of how the day went and it's fun to look at it with a different angle. Oh--and I'm going to break it up into 2 posts because I hate moving tons of photos around within a post. bear with me...

Here we go...Here I am pretending to get my dress down. We had jimmied it through a vent cover. That was a bad idea. We had to take the whole cover off to get it down...

Me obsessing over my veil placement...

Traipsing around my Mom's backyard after a few group photos...

Back out of the dress for our transport to the church...I was actually pretty relaxed...

Nice to see that the guys were pretty relaxed too...

Someone else was pretty nervous though...

The worst thing about being a bride is missing the part of the ceremony that you spent so much time planning because you are hidden from view. I tried to sneak a peak...

And we're off...

The ceremony had a few laughs...mostly provided by me when during my vows I started getting vaclemt while reciting the line "For richer or for poorer..." Realized how funny it was that the one line I hesitated was THAT line, I along with the rest of the congregation, started cracking up...

Whew...we made it...

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the wedding series.

September 07 Continued...

Lets move on to the Rehearsal dinner, shall we?

September 27th, 2007

Our rehearsal & dinner took place on a Thursday night. It inconvenienced  a few people, but it was worth it knowing how much our groups like their cocktails. I did not want to be a hung over bride and I wanted to fully enjoy the party!

The rehearsal itself went smoothly. My friends made a few comments and were laughing about how ummm...."opinionated" I was during the rehearsal. In general I am a very laid back person, but I was a bride on a mission, Ok? Everything needed to be perfect. 

I am still in love with the dress I wore and luckily I've been able to wear it a few more times. What is hilarious about it is that I found it when I was out shopping by myself at Neiman Marcus. (No, I don't shop there often, but I was determined to find the perfect dress.) I went to pay for it only to find out that they only take American Express and Neiman Marcus credit cards. I didn't have either at the time, so I opened up a Neiman Marcus card. Now I feel like a baller when I open up my wallet and see it. Of course, the only other time I've used it was to by $20 lipgloss. :) Can you tell that I started hitting the tanning bed somewhere between the bachelorette party and the rehearsal?

My In-Laws threw us a beautiful rehearsal dinner at The Hawken house in Webster Groves. It as an adorable little venue that you can rent out and bring your own caterer. This was perfect for us because we are good friends of Legrands Catering in South City. Legrands is a family owned butcher shop and meat market that happens to do a great catering business. You can find us there almost every weekend. My husband worked for them when he was in high school and thinks of them as family. While we couldn't use their catering for the wedding, we were determined to use them for the rehearsal. 

My MIL did an awesome job with the decorating. (And it was only by coincidence that my dress matched the decor...) A bit of a wine connoisseur, FIL did a great job with the wine selection. After a great meal and a few touching toasts we watched at slideshow that my mom and MIL had our photographer put together of photos from our childhood.  

After the party ended we all ended up at a nearby bar to finish off the night. It was a fun evening and the perfect prelude to the wedding!

September 2007 Revisited

With my birthday, my husband's birthday and our anniversary all in the same month, September has and always will be a crazy time for us. September of 2007, however, takes the cake. I'm going to make a few posts about what we were doing around this time last year. With our big anniversary trip coming up, I am anticipating getting a little behind on my posts, so I'm working ahead. You'll probably get all the posts about our wedding any honeymoon a little early, because after we return, I'm sure my blog will be about all things Greek.

We'll start with my birthday/bachelorette party...September 8th, 2007.

I am one of those people who shy away from being the center of attention, so my party was not one of those with matching t-shirts, boas and crowns. (Not that I don't have a blast at those bachelorette parties--I just prefer them to be for someone else!) And unfortunately, I don't have many pictures either. 

We started off at the Clayton Art Fair wandering around and enjoying the crowds. The weather was a little iffy which made it pretty interesting--definitely not one of my greatest hair days. After a little walking around we went to Jbucks for some pre-dinner cocktails and some lingerie gifts. I think we embarrassed the Clayton/JBucks crowd a little bit.  Afterwards we had dinner at Oceano in Clayton. I do have some pics from dinner...

After a fantastic dinner and too many bottles of wine we went to Roxannes for some martinis and a little dancing.

While it was definitely a more subdued bachelorette party than many I've attended, it was definitely  "me" and we all had a blast. 

In case you haven't heard...

I Euro = 1.39 USD

Woo hoo!!! A little better than the 1 Euro=1.56 USD that it was at when we first planned the trip. Anything helps!:)

Did I really just buy these?

So yes, I've once again been a bad bad blogger. 2 weeks with no posts?! Shameful!

Anyways, my next post will be a weekend recap, but first...behold my recent glorious purchase...

Yes, I actually did buy these--and two pairs at that! They are the cheapest water shoes that I could find. They are recommended for swimming at some of Greece's rockiest beaches like the Red Beach...

Apparently my trusty old flip flops wouldn't cut it. I figured that I'd just buy the cheapest ones out there ($9.95!) and then leave them in Greece to make room in my suitcase for some souvenirs. I guess fashion is also taking a vacation.