honeymoon is booked!

That's right! We booked our honeymoon flights on Tuesday. So do you wanna know where we are going??

I'll give you a few hints...it's south, it has sand, beaches, a pool, and tourists.

Still not narrowing it down??

Ok, here are some options...
A. Dominican Republic
B. Mexico- Riviera Maya
C. Caribbean cruise
D. Key West

and the answer is (drum roll) KEY WEST!!! We are so pumped and we are already counting down the days! It's 233.

Sean and I are heading to the Keys over my week long Thanksgiving break! Even though it is my favorite holiday (and will miss all the amazing food) I know we will have an amazing time! We were trying to plan it out so Sean won't have to take as much time off work. So with this trip he will only have to take 3 days off work for us to go on our week long vay-cay.

In addition, we will be going on a short mini-honeymoon right after we get married (I'm crossing my fingers Sean says Chicago). So, with our plans going accordingly, we will get 2 vacations with Sean only taking 5 days off of work. Not bad :)

So here is a little about the other options listed...
A. Dominican Republic. We were looking into going to a resort in the Dominican Republic over my Christmas break this year. But, we got the estimates back for how much it would cost and WOW we were shocked!! I guess going to a tropical destination in the middle of winter is common? Who knew?

B. Mexico-Riviera Maya. There are plenty of awesome resorts down there but we wanted something a little bit different.

C. Caribbean cruise. I've been on a cruise before and it was great. But, I would have rather stayed at each individual island for a week instead of getting back on a boat.

D. Key West. It's perfect for us! We couldn't ask for a better place for us to spend a relaxing week together. Sean has already said he can't wait to buy books and read them next to the pool all week. I on the other hand can't wait to go to the beach every day and finding the best key lime pie :)

engagement pictures: session 2

As I talked about in my last post, here, my friend Jenni took some more pictures of us 2 weekends ago. Again, we had so much fun with her and the pictures turned out fantastic!! The models were far from being professional or anything, but she did a fabulous job :) There are so many to choose from, but here are a few of my most favorite

When I my dad saw these pictures, apparently the first thing he asked was if I was aware of the holes in my pants. And, yes, yes I was aware. 

I stopped by her apartment last night to pick up the disc of these photos. When I almost arrived I turned a corner and saw a lot of colors in my rear view mirror. I immediately stopped (only after determining it was safe) and was again a little bit of a photographer myself and took a picture of the sunset on my phone. It was gorgeous :) I LOVE sunsets!!

Thank you again, Jen for a fun time and all the amazing pictures!!!

More from Spring Break

well it is officially the first day of Spring!! I did a post on the first day of fall because it was our favorite holiday. I kind of skipped over the first day of winter, but it kind of feels like we skipped the entire season. It never really got super cold or very snowy, which I am perfectly okay with! Probably the prettiest snow fall of the year was just a couple weeks ago and then all of it was gone again in a couple days. That's my favorite; a little snow and then it melts fast.

Anyways, the rest of my spring break was fabulous!! I couldn't have asked for better weather! I laid out a few days and I think I may have even gotten a little color :) That's right in Iowa AND in March!

one night last week it was the same temperature in Punta Cana, Key West, and Ankeny!

Remember our checklist? I got a lot of stuff checked off

1. paint flower pots
2. figure out something old, new, borrowed, and blue
3. book our salon for the day of the wedding
4. blog...yes I have to put it on the to-do list to make sure I do it!
5. scrapbook (not necessarily wedding-related but want to do)
6. finish invitations
7. appointments: decorator, cake, dress, tuxes, caterer, rehearsal dinner caterer, pianist
8. shopping for ties, flower girl dress, and shoes
9. make a map of the Enrichment center
10. figure our escort cards and guestbook
11. and a few other detail things that I'm going to keep secret

We are still on the lookout for ties and I still need to get my sister Abby some shoes for the wedding. I think I am almost set on deciding my old, new, borrowed, blue. And I'm still deciding exactly what to do for our guestbook. 

here's just a tiny sneak peak of our invitation

Most of the invitations are printed...they just need to get put together. In case you were interested in the whole DIY invitation deal. BY FAR the worst part of it was cutting!! I really enjoyed the designing process, but cutting it all out stunk...big time!


This past Sunday my friend and ex-roomy, Jenni, took some extra engagement pictures for us! She's so talented! We also had a lot of fun just hanging out with her for a couple hours that morning :)

here is the first picture she gave to us. I reeeeaally like it :)

Later that day, we played bags outside and I tried to be a little photographer myself by trying to recreate this picture.

here is ours...

 P.S. I had to crop our picture a lot because you could see up my shorts. lol. We'll try again another time :)


All in all, I'd say I had a very successful and awesome break!

more color!

This morning I woke up and read emails. My mom had sent me a post from this scrapbooking website. The topic of this one article/post is all about the color coral! It talked all about how between the 2011 Pantone color of the year being honeysuckle and this year it being Tangerine Tango there is a lot of shades of the color out in the scrapbooking industry! I'm just hoping the men's tie-making companies catch on soon so we can find some neat ties for the guys by the time our wedding rolls around.

Here are some more products from the site with all the coral

There is even a whole stack of paper called Coral Couture

4 months!! Whaaat??

That's right! We're exactly 4 months away from getting married!! I didn't think time could go any faster than it was before, but these last 2 months seem like they never happened! I'm even half way through this semester already. Now with time sneaking up on us so much I feel like there is now still so much stuff left to get done!

In addition to it being 4 months until our wedding, today is also exactly 1 year since we got engaged. You can read the story here, but here are a few photos and a sequence of photos when I told my siblings.

Right after Sean popped the question. My mom was waiting by the chairs and took our picture

 

Ashley and her "bling" before she got her real "bling"

on our way down to breakfast

the night we got engaged

Ashley helped me brainstorm what to do for our countdown this month. Since March Madness is currently taking place we decided to do a "Final Four" countdown. So our 4 month countdown list is of 4 of our favorite things that have happened since we got engaged.

1. moved in together. Some people ask if I like living with Sean before we are married. But, I really do! It is much cheaper to live together and I get to see my best friend any time I want :)
2. planning our wedding. Yes, I started looking at wedding blogs, going to bridal shows, and looking at magazines before we got engaged, but now that it's the real deal it's been a lot of fun...and sometimes a bit stressful
3. Sean finished swimming, graduated, and got a job
4. we started referring to ourselves as us and we more. We even share bank accounts now. I may like this more than Sean :)

Last note: Sean texted me this morning saying "Happy 1 year engagement! I slept a lot better last night than I did one year ago!" It's probably true :)

Django and more done!

Last night my family (minus Alex) went out for dinner with some friends, Dennis and Annie, to Django in Des Moines. We met them through our dogs actually. Zoey and Callie (Dennis and Annie's dog) are sisters and they live a couple block away from us. All of us like to to joke about how our families got to know each other. But, we are so thankful that we have because they are so awesome and fun to talk to! The food was also amazing!

Me, Ashley, Abby, Dennis (dad), mom, Annie, and Dennis

And this is Abby during our frightful dinner. lol. I'm sorry Abby I had to. It was too funny :)

 Here is also my to do list with a few more things checked off!

1. paint flower pots
2. figure out something old, new, borrowed, and blue
3. book our salon for the day of the wedding
4. blog...yes I have to put it on the to-do list to make sure I do it!
5. scrapbook (not necessarily wedding-related but want to do)
6. finish invitations
7. appointments: decorator, cake, dress, tuxes, caterer, rehearsal dinner caterer, pianist
8. shopping for ties, flower girl dress, and shoes
9. make a map of the Enrichment center
10. figure our escort cards and guestbook
11. and a few other detail things that I'm going to keep secret

Finishing up designing the invitations. Sorry don't want to spoil the surprise :)

Don't forget to check back later this afternoon for the countdown! How are we already down to 4 months already??

I'm back! Now there's a lot to talk about!

Hello! long time no blog! I've been quite busy! I had 3 exams last week, I had to do a practice counsel on poison ivy, had group meetings, and of course I attended all of my classes. Yes! It was a busy week!! But, now I'm home all week for Spring Break! I have been saving basically pushing everything wedding-related back to this week!

This is my to-do list for or wedding this week...

1. paint flower pots
2. figure out something old, new, borrowed, and blue
3. book our salon for the day of the wedding
4. blog...yes I have to put it on the to-do list to make sure I do it!
5. scrapbook (not necessarily wedding-related but want to do)
6. finish invitations
7. appointments: decorator, cake, dress, tuxes, caterer, rehearsal dinner caterer
8. shopping for ties, flower girl dress, and shoes
9. make a map of the Enrichment center
10. figure our escort cards and guestbook
11. and a few other detail things that I'm going to keep secret

We have crossed a few things off the list already and I feel a little accomplished!! I still have the whole rest of the week left, too! I'm really excited about the weather this week; it's going to be gorgeous!!

So here is about our cake meeting....it was a little bit of an adventure if you wanna ask sometime :) It was my mom, Katie, Sean, and I that all went out to our cake lady's house last Saturday morning. We had a lot of fun visiting and trying her 9 DELICIOUS cakes!! I would have been pleased with any flavor she has, but we were able to narrow it down to 4 flavors. I may have spoiled by diet, but I'm not going to spoil what our cake will look like :)  I did post some pretty ones that we like in the cake post from last September.

 

Katie at Gloria's house

Sean and I

the 9 DELICIOUS cakes: (top left) almond, lemon, strawberry, marble, 2x chocolate, carrot cake, vanilla, butter cake with chocolate buttercream, and red velevet

After the cake tasting we ran a few errands then went to Bridal Connection here in Ankeny for Sean to pick out his and his guys' tuxes. He didn't really want a picture taken, but we made him. Like always :)

Later that night, Sean and I headed to Boone to hang out with his family.

Sean with Reese and Me with Avery

After church on Sunday all of us girls went shopping to look for ties, shoes, and flower girl dresses! I was extremely pleased to see all the coral in all the stores!! Well, all stores EXCEPT for men's stores for ties :( We are still on the look out for coral striped ties if any one sees some!! Here are some pictures of all the coral we saw on Sunday