more picture ideas

I found this website earlier this week. They had a post called "Creative Lineups". I saved ALL of the pictures because I think they are all awesome!! I can't wait to try some of these!

I really like the pool picture! I think we will need to find a pool to take one like this on our day :) The only one I don't think Sean and his guys will go for is the one without their pants! haha!

Here are some more group shots that I have been collecting:

P.S. Hope everyone has a great Halloween weekend! We are going to be heading to Chicago tomorrow...more on that next week :)

dead goose in our freezer

I promised Sean if he shot anything hunting I would blog about it, so here is this post...Last weekend Sean went hunting twice. Once on Saturday night and also on Sunday morning. Him and his buddies shot 3 each time. Apparently it's too hard to tell actually how many each person shot. I don't know why; I would think it would be pretty easy. But, Sean kept this one in the picture below. He cleaned it up and then for some reason brought it back to Iowa City with him. I don't know what he plans on doing with them, because I know that Ashley and I will not be trying them....Anyways way to go!

napkin fail

We have been trying, but not succeeding, to find napkins in the right shade of coral. An idea we had was to dye them ourselves. I had dyed different things before so I didn't think they would be that hard. My mom ordered some white cotton napkins to try it on. We tried a few different "recipes" for different shades or colors.

It was a major fail! They all ended up looking the exact same and they were like a light shade of pink. We were looking for a really saturated coral like the bridemaids' dresses and they most definitely were NOT that color. Now on to plan D...

the rest of the weekend

I made my way home on Friday morning and once I got home I was greeted by Zoey, my family's dog :) Soon after, my mom and I headed out to West Des Moines to meet my cousin at Weddings by Design to get fitted for my bridesmaid dress for her wedding. I got mine ordered and I also got to see her wedding dress that she ordered....gorgeous!! I wish I got a picture of us three there...I'm still working being better at that!

After the first stop, we went to Gordman's and then to Lemon Tree!

Later that night, my brother made us our dinner. It was part of his class at school. He made burgers, cheesy potato casserole, and steamed broccoli. It was really good!

After dinner, we went for a walk with the 2 dogs. (We also had our family friend's dog for the weekend, Callie. Her and Zoey are from the same litter. They play so well with each other and it's sometimes funny to watch them!

Callie

Zoey

Later, Diane, Jana, Matt, and Garrett came over. We watched some Say Yes to the Dress, played, and talked.

Jana, Matt, and Garrett

Garrett with his marshmallow

Saturday morning my mom and I met with Missy out at the Enrichment center. We kind of picked out what type of arrangements and decorations we wanted and where to put them. I think the meeting went great! I always enjoy hearing Missy's ideas! She always has so many good ones!

Right after the meeting we went to Walmart, remember our visit, here. And then my mom took my brother, Abby, and I to the Science Center. I really enjoyed it!! The new exhibit was Body Worlds Vital. It was all about the human body. The exhibit had full human bodies that had been dissected so all you could see was the muscles, and sometimes the organs. It also had lots of like paper thin slices of body parts, a healthy vs. smoker's lung, a healthy liver vs. fatty liver, etc. I won't go into anymore detail in case it might gross you out. But, I really enjoyed it and found it fascinating!! I think that means I'm in the right field :)

another thing it focused on was health and the differences between countries' eating habits

Sunday morning, we made waffles for breakfast, went on a walk, and went to church. After church my dad made salads. They were yummy!

 After lunch, I headed back to Iowa City to still catch up on stuff from last week and got stuff ready for this week. It was really great to be home and just relax with my family :)

save-the-dates...check!

I have had our save-the-dates for a couple weeks now, and the last thing we had to do was get them addressed and sent out. We worked on them Friday night and some on Saturday afternoon. My parents helped me a ton! Thank you again!! All the addresses were in an excel file and then my dad worked his computer magic and made a "merge file" (at least I think it's called) so we could print right onto the envelopes. I really like the envelopes and the stamps my mom picked out :)

People of Walmart

I hope I don't show up on the people of Walmart website! However, after my mom and I's recent visit there it wouldn't surprise me. Just to clarify: NO our pants were NOT see through or too small, our shirts were NOT ripped up, and we were NOT in some crazy costume. But, it was quite an adventure....

We made a trip to Walmart on Saturday afternoon and as always, we end up buying way more than was on our initial list. Doesn't everyone? One place we stopped was the greenhouse...we were looking for a bucket, which was on our list. (Quick note: we had just got done with Missy and we talked about all the greenery and plants that we wanted for the ceremony and reception) Anyway, we ended up finding lots and lots of plants. My mom and I both fell in love with the palms. They were tall, full of color, and fresh-looking. At first we were really confused because there were many different varieties and sizes on the same table and there was only one price tag on the table. The tag on the table said $5 so we loaded up 4 of them and headed down the aisles. We really hoped they really were $5 a piece or we wasted a lot of energy trying to make our cart which was now 5 feet wide and 9 feet tall to the checkout. We got so many looks from people and comments about our forest. We made it to the checkout with only one falling out and spilling dirt. I'd say it was pretty successful considering how crowded Walmart is on a Saturday and how far we had to go.

My mom is going to try and keep them over the winter and hopefully they will look good for our wedding. Some we have found to rent are not as big or nice looking and they rent for $35 a piece. We got 4 for $20! I really hope they last!!

cheers to the freakin' weekend!

you know...that song Rihanna sings? Cheers, I'll drink to that song? Well it couldn't be anymore fitting after this week. It has been the longest/shortest week ever! Long because it couldn't get over fast enough and short because there wasn't enough time to do everything. But, now I have 3 tests down and it's time to relax! This afternoon I was able to catch up on a few things like picking up my room, a little bit of cleaning, checking blogs, shaving my legs...sorry too much information? Anyways, I feel like I am finally back to real life!

Here's the game plan for this weekend:
Tonight I will be going out to eat with a friend and then off to the P2 bar crawl! Tomorrow morning I will be heading home and maybe probably stopping at the outlet mall in Williamsburg on the way. Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment for ordering my bridesmaid dress for my cousin's wedding (she is getting married 2 weeks before Sean and I). Then, Saturday morning my mom and I are going to meet with our decorator out at the Enrichment center to make some initial plans on "decorating" the venue...more on that later. Sunday, I will be doing a lot of relaxing and maybe a little studying/preparing for next week/maybe another blog post :)

Also, since this is "our" (Sean AND my) blog I thought I would give an update on his weekend plans. He will be heading home after work tomorrow afternoon. While he is at home he wants to go hunting, golf, maybe go to the ISU game, and also a bunch of relaxing. Sean is finishing his last week of his first graduate course so he won't have much studying to do either.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

PS sorry no pictures or anything exciting. Just thought I'd give a little update.

9 months and 9 questions

Today marks the 9 month countdown! Time is flying by!! To mark this day I found 9 random questions for each of us to answer:

Are you a morning person or a night person?
S: night, even though I usually get up really early
A: morning! I hate staying up late!

Who is your celebrity crush?
S: Diane Kruger or Mila Kunis
A: Ashton Kutcher!!!

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
S: Working in a management role wherever we end up and starting a family
A: Working, living in a suburb of a bigger city (maybe Kansas City), and hopefully starting a family

What is your favorite thing to wear?
S: grey sweatpants, white t-shirt, and my black Moosejaw hoodie zip-up
A: Sweatshirts and flip flops!!

What would be your chosen super power?
S: flying
A: super intelligence

What is your perfect pizza?
S: Casey's taco pizza
A: no sauce, fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced tomatoes, garlic, and onions in a fire brick oven. Pretty much the "venus" pizza from Moonlight Pizza in Salida, CO

What is something you miss from childhood?
S: not having worries or stresses
A: less studying and homework

If you could open your own business what would it be?
S: gun shop, outdoor shop, or something with hunting
A: something with baking, maybe a bakery or cafe

How would you like to spend a Sunday morning?
S: in front of the tv watching movies and a large breakfast with biscuits and gravy, eggs, pancakes, bacon, and orange juice
A: Sunday newspaper ads, food network, and Sunday brunch

Hope this helps you get to a know us a little bit better :) hope you have a great weekend!

aisle style

I know I haven't done many posts lately regarding our wedding. Again, that is because not much planning is going on. I'm trying to stay caught up on school. 3 tests next week. eeek! But, I need a break from the library and my notes, so I'm going to make a post :)

As you can tell from the title this post is about the aisle of the ceremony. I am already not looking forward to this part...walking down the aisle during the ceremony. I have told Sean on multiple occasions I would rather be standing up at the alter and everyone watch him walk down the aisle. There are many reasons that I already lose sleep worrying about this (not really, but I may soon) 1. I have to walk down stairs 2. I will be wearing a long dress AND walking down stairs 3. I am not graceful 4. I trip a lot 5. I don't like people watching me. There are more reasons, but they are minor compared to those above.

Here are a bunch of pictures I have collected of aisles with style:

ombre. maybe with petals

so simple

Have you guys seen this picture or another like it? This would most DEFINITELY NOT be for me! It would make the aisle wayyy longer than it needs to be and I may get dizzy.

humor

I know this blog is supposed to be about our wedding...the invitations, dresses, flowers, etc. But not a whole lot is going on with wedding planning. Except, we did set up our next meeting with our decorator in a couple weeks.

So instead, today I'm going to talk about humor. I think humor/laughter is a big part of why I love Sean so much. We both love to laugh...at shows, TV, random videos, each other, etc. Sean likes to say that I'm not funny, but I really am :) Sean likes to think that he's funny...he is. Sometimes :) However, he knows my fake laugh. Like when I think he's trying to be funny, but it's really stupid. He knows based on my laugh. We have the same sense of humor and like watching the same shows.

I thought I would share some things that we find funny. First, here are some of our favorite clips from our favorite TV shows.

How I Met Your Mother

The Big Bang Theory

Scrubs

And, here are some funny pictures/words that I find funny. Some of them are SO true like this one:

this one I had to look at for a while to see what was actually going on!

I just thought this one was cute :)

My life lately...

This one I really liked. I think that Sean probably finds me reeeeeally annoying sometimes. But, he has to put up with it FOREVER :)