Template Challenge!!

I've posted a new Template Challenge at Digital Candy. Come and play!!!! Great template, Great Prize!!!!

I created the prize for this challenge and it coordinates with a little blog freebie (prize) if you read through the previous blog post. Short and sweet today!!!

Married...3 weeks and holding!

Forgive me blog world, for I have sinned its been 2.5 months since I last blogged. So very much to catch up on here. Strap on your seat belts, grab a snack and whatever caffeine laden liquid you prefer 'cause here we go:

Its hard to believe that three weeks ago I was running around like a total crazy girl finishing up the last minute details before our wedding on 8/18/07. We had such a fun and special day, it was all worth it. I just received my photos from the photographer yesterday. Very exciting...can't wait to start scrapping all those. We got such a great deal, the photographer is developing her professional portfolio, so she gave us a cd (actually 5 cd's) with over 300 photos from our wedding day and we have printing rights. I was thrilled at that, then I can scrapbook what I want.

So here are the details of our special day/weekend. I took off from work the week prior to the wedding...a lot was done, but there was so much last minute running around to do. On Thursday, my mom, sister and I had manicures and pedicures...super fun. Friday we set up for the wedding all day at the church where I work. We decided to do it there, because we were not going to have any booze, so we decided to have a BBQ reception at the church after the wedding...keep it simple, right? OK...sorry on to /set-up rehearsal Friday.

Thursday evening we tried on tuxedos...I have a layout to prove it...scroll down! Gabe had a total and complete melt-down when he had to take his tux off. He loved wearing it. I had to keep promising him that he could wear it again in a couple of days. Josh's tux jacket sleeves had to be let out, so I did not manage to get one picture of him in his tux at the bridal shop. We took the tuxes, my dress, my mother's dress, and the bridesmaids dresses over to the church where we were meeting all my parents to commence table cloth ironing. With about 20 table cloths its a good thing we got started early. One less thing to do on Friday.

We spent all day Friday setting up the reception. What took the most time, were the centerpieces of course. Pretty simple, but tedious none-the-less. It was through this process that I determined that I had absolutely no talent for arranging even a simple, simple flower arrangement, even while equipped with color photo and comments from Martha Stewart's magazine. So my sister, came to the rescue and worked it out. And the centerpieces (see below) came out looking quite nice. We had to add three tables to the reception area so I had to run out and buy more flowers at the last minute for the tables. I ordered seven dozen roses for the cake...it was gorgeous. Around 2:30 my best friend from college arrived from New Jersey, we hadn't seen each other in 11 years and that doesn't really count, cause she just crashed at my house over night in route to New Orleans. My nails had gotten ruined from the set-up so my friend and I were ordered away from set up and to the nail salon for manicures and catch up time.

Oh and during this time my wedding cake went missing. My very sweet girlfriend, Dawn, who hosted my bridal shower offered to make the cake for the wedding, she did a trial run at the shower and it looked great and tasted great too. Wednesday before the wedding her three year old became ill. Now she had already made the cakes and was planning to begin icing them that day. I checked in with her and visited with Belle, who just didn't look right. Dawn wasn't too worried(or wasn't letting on to me that she was), they were going to the doctor and would probably need to run a couple of tests, but she felt certain they would be back later that day and she would be able to get to the cake....no worries.

6:30 Thursday morning I received a call from Dawn's husband, Belle had been hospitalized over night and has been running a temp of 105 and Dawn has been at the hospital all night with her. OK...I called Dawn later, she thought they would be released sometime later that day, still not worried. By Thursday evening,they had called in the CDC to figure out what was wrong with her and were doing blood cultures, she was still running a 105 temp. Bypass worry head straight for scared, and oops...there's the whole cake issue to address. So here I am totally worried about my friend's daughter who has become suddenly very ill and now I am trying to get the wedding cake away from her, so she can worry about her daughter without worrying about the cake. Dawn is a total type A and was not wanting to let me down and wanted to finish the cake herself...she was completely exhausted and not thinking straight, but short of breaking into her house (which I considered), I could not wrangle that cake away from her. Finally she had her husband drop the cake off to a baker friend and we picked the cake up at 4:00 pm Friday evening, just before the rehearsal. I sent Alan out to the boonies armed with very little knowledge about the area and a cell phone to retrieve the cake on his way to the rehearsal. So the next order of business...get a couple of friends who had not seen the cake, touched the cake or been near the cake, to assemble the four tiers and the seven dozen rose buds all over the cake first thing Saturday morning, no problem!My college friend and best girlfriend round town jumped in and put it together Saturday morning. So my wedding cake was a labor of love by my three best girlfriends, kinda neat when you think about it. (BTW: Belle is on the mend, it was determined some time on Friday that she had an extremely dangerous strain of an e-coli infection, like the strain that can kill a person. She wasn't released from the hospital until sometime Monday, poor baby. She is still on medicine for this today.)

The rehearsal went well. We rehearsed the walking in, the walking out, the giving away, the seating of the mothers...we forgot to rehearse the exchanging of the rings, which apparently would have been a plus, as we learned during the ceremony on Saturday. After the rehearsal, we all went to the rehearsal dinner which took place a small restaurant in the area. My parents had arranged it and set it up while we were setting up the reception area. It was a nice evening. It was nice to see all the people special to us (except Dawn and Belle) there. After the dinner, Casey (Dawn's hubby) took Alan and the boys bowling for a family style bachelor party. My college friend, sister and another friend came to my house to hang out for a while. It was fun to sit down and relax and chat with an old friend.

My friend Kassia left around 1:15 am and I had to be back up at 6:00 am to give Josh his medicine and pack, and write the remaining checks to be given out later in the day and shower and get the boys ready and all of us out of the house by 8:30. I am a very lucky person. Even on the eve of such excitement, I fell right to sleep.

Saturday morning my dad picked up the boys at 8:30 and I was packed and ready to go. I went straight to Starbucks for my fix...a Venti chai tea latte (thank you very much) and then onto the salon to have my hair and makeup done. Had to buy lip gloss from the salon, because I realized, I had not thought about lip stick for the day and had not brought any with me. oh well, new aveda lip gloss for me it is! The girl who did my hair and makeup did a fab job and had me out of there before 10:30. I moseyed...yes moseyed, over to the church and snuck into the reception area to see how things were shaping up. It was starting to look like a real event. My girlfriends had finished the cake and were awaiting my approval. I thought it looked great. Everything was getting exciting. I had to sneak up to the bridal suite to get dressed. I was the first one there, ahead of my mom and sister and step-daughter. My dress laced up the back, and my mom couldn't do it, so my sister was going to have to get busy lacing me up. The photographer came in and started snapping away while were getting ready. She took a ton of shots of odds and ends that really looked nice when I saw them. The grooms pictures were taking place while we were getting ready and then we went into the sanctuary for the bride's side of pictures. I think that really helped to calm my nerves a little bit...although I was not as anxious as I expected, actually I was pretty calm....I think it helped that I had some time to myself that morning. We finished up bridal pictures just 15 minutes before the ceremony started and would you believe it, we actually started on time.

The ceremony was a surreal experience. I expected to be a bundle of nerves and shaky...but I wasn't. I waved to people that I had not seen in forever and before I knew it I was at the alter. My dad gave me away. And a minister whom I work for, and who is just the sweetest man ever, performed the ceremony. He was the most emotional of us all believe it or not. He did our pre-marital counseling and had told us several times that he knew we were just right for one another. The ceremony was over before we knew it but we did have one little snafu...the rings!! We forgot to rehearse that part of the ceremony. So Bruce (the minister) asked for the ring and Alan got it out and while Bruce is going on about the ring and its symbolism, Alan is doing his darnedest to shove that ring on my hot, swollen finger. He finally got it on about the same time that Bruce announced, "Alan, place the ring on Tanya's finger and repeat after me"...Alan and I giggled and Alan let out this big "oops". Bruce then said, "OK, Alan hold the ring on Tanya's finger and repeat after me". It got a chuckle from the crowd. Pretty funny. Minutes later we were married...its still sinking in for us.

We made it to the reception about 45 minutes after the ceremony ended, with pictures completed. All told there were about 100 people for the wedding/reception. We did not sit down and did not get to talk to everyone either. I wished I had had more time with some folks, especially those from out of town. We served BBQ and beans and rolls and chips and fruit salad and a cheese tray. The boys had a blast at the reception, and they were remarkably well-behaved for both the ceremony and reception. I wanted them to have fond memories of the day, because this was not about just Alan and me...this was a huge event for them as well. Gabe was particularly happy, because now Alan can sleep over, and he hopes he will camp out in his room with him.

After the wedding, we drove up to the mountains. We are only a couple of hours from the mountains. We stayed at a friend's cabin in the Linville, NC area. It was so peaceful and quiet. It was a nice getaway for a few days. Alan has promised to take us on a cruise, once he gets settled into a permanent FT position...yes he is still trying to wrangle a FT job....more about that later. We went to grandfather mountain, Linville caverns, we went gem-mining...Alan wasn't really excited about that one, but ended up finding some great stuff and had a lot of fun doing it! We also drove down to Asheville via the Blue Ridge Parkway....which took way tooooooo long, beautiful, but slow.

So we had a nice, nice time. A fun and sentimental and spiritual wedding, shared with friends and family. A fun party afterwards and then we jaunted off for some honeymoon time. All and all it was great.

Now we are back in the real world. School has started, my baby went to kindergarten. My mom starts radiation next week for her cancer. She was diagnosed mid-July and had a complete hysterectomy on July 30. We don't think she will need chemo...which is good. Alan is still looking for a full-time job in his field...he currently has two PT jobs mostly in his field. My oldest son is in 5th grade this year...his last year of elementary school....and I really don't want to think about that. My sister is back in Florida with her hubby. And I am back to the grind...which is not so bad. I now alter my work schedule during the school year so the kids can come home from school instead of going to after-school....it has made a huge difference for my oldest. Its only our first week of the new schedule so I am still getting into a routine. Anyway this has been an incredibly long post and to reward you for your stick-to-it-ness...here's a little prize.

Til next time... and no it won't be months!!