I'm so excited that in 1 week we'll be leaving Florida and heading back to PA! I haven't been home in over 4 months! This is the longest I've ever been away from home. For Tom, it's no big deal. Before I came around he only ever went home for Christmas so visiting PA several times over the past year to see me and go visit his family and mine, it's been like no time at all for him to go home. I'm so used to just being a drive away from home so it's been a bit of a struggle being far away...kind of on my own. I know....I know...I have Tom, which is great. But I like to have my own friends and do my own thing and atleast 9-10 hours a day I'm by myself figuring things out down here. It is nice to come home to Tom though after a hard day and feeling like I have no one to talk to, but I don't have the friends and support system I had in PA down in Florida. I know that takes time, and part of me is nervous that as soon as I get adjusted to Florida we'll be off again and maybe even farther away. But I'm not worrying about that for now. I'm just very excited to have the chance to go home for a few days!
So very boring post...but hopefully more to write about tomorrow! Definitely more to write about after this weekend and next week!
12/15/09
12/14/09
Bad Blogger :(
I'm a very bad blogger lately. Things just get busy...life takes you every which direction and before you know it, it's 3 months later and the blog has been left unedited and there are some very upset readers...(sorry amy! haha)
Well life since then...wedding plans are going great! Everyone keeps asking me how the planning is going, and honestly, it's been pretty slow lately. It still feels too far away and like I have plenty of time to do things but just like the blog, I'm sure time will fly by and before I know it, I'll be 3 months til the wedding and LOTS left to do.
The biggest accomplishment of the wedding planning lately was booking some musicians for the wedding ceremony. We still need a piano player so if anyone knows of anyone in Altoona let me know! We have a dear friend who will be singing, which I'm very excited about and a few instruments playing to make the wedding oh, so beautiful!
But let's see...what have we done lately.... Halloween came and went. Tom and I didn't do much for Halloween, just carved pumpkins and watched some scary movies. My parents visited and we rode bikes and hung out on the beach for a weekend, which is great to be able to do in November!
Thanksgiving we stayed in Florida, celebrated with some friends and just had a very relaxing weekend. We decided to decorate for our first Christmas living together so we got a tree and lots of decorations by stalking out local sales and buying cheap stuff at the BX to save money but still make our house look like Christmas and I think we did a really good job! We may have gone a little overboard on the lights, we don't even need to turn on any other lights in our living room anymore when the christmas lights are all on but it's fun and festive! The big debate was whether or not to decorate outside. I told Tom we didn't need to, to save money on electric and buying lights...also part of me was a little embarassed of the overgrown bushes in our front yard that desperately needed trimmed so to kind of avoid the argument, I told Tom the ONLY way I'd even start to consider lights outside would be if he trimmed the bushes. Sure enough, the next day, he was outside trimming the bushes! Obviously, he really wanted to put up lights outside so my next line of defense without just telling him straight up no was that HE would be the one on the roof figuring out the lights and I would help untangle or clean up inside but the lights outside was all up to him if he wanted to do them...an hour later he was up on the roof, yelling for me to toss him up another strand and as excited as a school girl over lights haha.
Overall, I'm glad we did them. Most of our neighborhood is very festive. A few houses down the street they even have music and their lights turn on and off to the music. The guy on the next block has what looks like a carnival of wintery animals and christmasy things...including a ferris wheel, many trees, reindeer, blow up snowmen and all kinds of dancing people. I'm glad we just stopped at icicle lights but the houses with no decorations on our street just look sad so I'm glad we have something after all. Here's a view of the house from across the street!
Well life since then...wedding plans are going great! Everyone keeps asking me how the planning is going, and honestly, it's been pretty slow lately. It still feels too far away and like I have plenty of time to do things but just like the blog, I'm sure time will fly by and before I know it, I'll be 3 months til the wedding and LOTS left to do.
The biggest accomplishment of the wedding planning lately was booking some musicians for the wedding ceremony. We still need a piano player so if anyone knows of anyone in Altoona let me know! We have a dear friend who will be singing, which I'm very excited about and a few instruments playing to make the wedding oh, so beautiful!
But let's see...what have we done lately.... Halloween came and went. Tom and I didn't do much for Halloween, just carved pumpkins and watched some scary movies. My parents visited and we rode bikes and hung out on the beach for a weekend, which is great to be able to do in November!
The next weekend we went to Alabama! We visited my big sister in Birmingham then went to a University of Alabama game (which was part of Tom's birthday present). Tom loves Alabama and it was fun seeing Kelly, seeing Alabama and we had a great time.
It has been great weather so we've had lots of chances to go outside and enjoyt he nice weather. Here is a picture at a park just down the street from our house.
Thanksgiving we stayed in Florida, celebrated with some friends and just had a very relaxing weekend. We decided to decorate for our first Christmas living together so we got a tree and lots of decorations by stalking out local sales and buying cheap stuff at the BX to save money but still make our house look like Christmas and I think we did a really good job! We may have gone a little overboard on the lights, we don't even need to turn on any other lights in our living room anymore when the christmas lights are all on but it's fun and festive! The big debate was whether or not to decorate outside. I told Tom we didn't need to, to save money on electric and buying lights...also part of me was a little embarassed of the overgrown bushes in our front yard that desperately needed trimmed so to kind of avoid the argument, I told Tom the ONLY way I'd even start to consider lights outside would be if he trimmed the bushes. Sure enough, the next day, he was outside trimming the bushes! Obviously, he really wanted to put up lights outside so my next line of defense without just telling him straight up no was that HE would be the one on the roof figuring out the lights and I would help untangle or clean up inside but the lights outside was all up to him if he wanted to do them...an hour later he was up on the roof, yelling for me to toss him up another strand and as excited as a school girl over lights haha. 
Overall, I'm glad we did them. Most of our neighborhood is very festive. A few houses down the street they even have music and their lights turn on and off to the music. The guy on the next block has what looks like a carnival of wintery animals and christmasy things...including a ferris wheel, many trees, reindeer, blow up snowmen and all kinds of dancing people. I'm glad we just stopped at icicle lights but the houses with no decorations on our street just look sad so I'm glad we have something after all. Here's a view of the house from across the street!For the past 2 weekends we've had christmas parties and more this weekend, then next week it's off to Pennsylvania for Christmas which I'm VERY excited for. We have been baking christmas cookies and pies and really trying to get in the christmas spirit and IGNORE the palm trees everywhere.
So I hope everyone (cough cough Amy!) is happy with this update. I promise to get better! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season as much as we are!
10/27/09
Inspiration Boards 2
It has been oh-so-pretty in Northwest Florida the past few days! We've had sunshine, low humidity (who knew that happened in Florida!) and the coolest it's been since I've moved down here! The part I enjoy the most about Florida is that we live close to the Bay and the Gulf so when the wind blows, it's salty fresh air! That's a big change from Pennsylvania. Everywhere you go, you get a fresh breathe of the saltwater. Sooo nice!
Luckily I got to enjoy one last long walk with the dog because today it's back to normal Florida weather, humid and rainy! I knew it wouldn't last long, but glad we had a few days to enjoy the weather!
For today I thought I'd share with you about some other friends weddings. My friend saw my first inspiration board and was having trouble deciding on colors and things to add to her wedding this April so I told her I'd make her an inspiration board or 2 so she could get an idea about some different looks. Here are the 2 I made for her:
Credits: Charlotte Geary Photography (2), Jessamyn Harris, Teresa Lunt, Stephanie Williams
Credits: Gina Carter Photography, Lynn Michelle Photography, Imaginative Studios, Corbin Gurkin Photography
She was leaning with Navy Blue and/or Green so I added some different touches so she could see what she liked together.
I've also decided I LOVE wedding planning. My new dream job is to be an event planner...so let me know if you need some help and you can have free event planning services...until I become rich and famous someday ;) haha I can dream right?
Luckily I got to enjoy one last long walk with the dog because today it's back to normal Florida weather, humid and rainy! I knew it wouldn't last long, but glad we had a few days to enjoy the weather!
For today I thought I'd share with you about some other friends weddings. My friend saw my first inspiration board and was having trouble deciding on colors and things to add to her wedding this April so I told her I'd make her an inspiration board or 2 so she could get an idea about some different looks. Here are the 2 I made for her:
Credits: Charlotte Geary Photography (2), Jessamyn Harris, Teresa Lunt, Stephanie Williams
Credits: Gina Carter Photography, Lynn Michelle Photography, Imaginative Studios, Corbin Gurkin Photography
She was leaning with Navy Blue and/or Green so I added some different touches so she could see what she liked together.
I've also decided I LOVE wedding planning. My new dream job is to be an event planner...so let me know if you need some help and you can have free event planning services...until I become rich and famous someday ;) haha I can dream right?
10/26/09
Dresses
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend!
Other than training at Batch and Body Works for some holiday work hours, Tom and I had a very exciting weekend of doing nothing at all and just spending time together, which was nice. It was such a gorgeous weekend so we walked a lot with the dog, roasted marshmallows, and caught up on rest since we were so busy the weeekend before.
I've decided today I'm getting serious about bridesmaid dresses! That's right, after months of looking, I will be deciding on one by this weekend! End of story!! I know we still have like 11 months until the wedding but once that is decided on, that's one less thing I need to worry about. The girls can order their dresses, get them in and take their time getting them altered. I also have my neice being a junior bridesmaid so once we pick the bridesmaid dresses it'll be easier to see if she would like the same dress or something a little different. Since she is only in middle school, it kind of depends on how "grown up" of a dress we pick, she might need something a little more age appropriate so decisions need to be made! It's been tricky with so many different opinions on the dress but hopefully Kim and I can go look at dresses this weekend and scratch one thing off of my very long to-do list!
Other than training at Batch and Body Works for some holiday work hours, Tom and I had a very exciting weekend of doing nothing at all and just spending time together, which was nice. It was such a gorgeous weekend so we walked a lot with the dog, roasted marshmallows, and caught up on rest since we were so busy the weeekend before.
I've decided today I'm getting serious about bridesmaid dresses! That's right, after months of looking, I will be deciding on one by this weekend! End of story!! I know we still have like 11 months until the wedding but once that is decided on, that's one less thing I need to worry about. The girls can order their dresses, get them in and take their time getting them altered. I also have my neice being a junior bridesmaid so once we pick the bridesmaid dresses it'll be easier to see if she would like the same dress or something a little different. Since she is only in middle school, it kind of depends on how "grown up" of a dress we pick, she might need something a little more age appropriate so decisions need to be made! It's been tricky with so many different opinions on the dress but hopefully Kim and I can go look at dresses this weekend and scratch one thing off of my very long to-do list!
10/24/09
Inspiration Board
For those of you who have talked to me lately about anything to do with the wedding...you know I've become obsessed (to say the least) with Style Me Pretty. It has some of the most perfect wedding pictures I've ever seen and is really just a gorgeous wedding blog. There are so many ideas and crafts and tips, it's been such a great resource lately. They have this great feature on the site that lets you take either your own pictures or pictures from the blog and make an inspiration board out of it. It's a great way to really take all your ideas of different looks, maybe different colors and designs and put them all together and see how it might work out.
In this case, I'm using my inspiration board so you can see my ideas for our wedding that we've been working on. 
Credits: Jimmy Clemmons Photography, Geoff White Photographers, Megelaine Images (2), Ann Taylor
It's a little rustic and country, but still lots of Pennsylvania Autumn charm that I'm looking for! The cake picture is what really started it all. I loved the cake that I found on The Knot and started from there pulling ideas together and seeing how they worked.
You can head over to The Style Circle on the amazing Style Me Pretty website to make your own inspiration board!
Credits: Jimmy Clemmons Photography, Geoff White Photographers, Megelaine Images (2), Ann Taylor
It's a little rustic and country, but still lots of Pennsylvania Autumn charm that I'm looking for! The cake picture is what really started it all. I loved the cake that I found on The Knot and started from there pulling ideas together and seeing how they worked.
You can head over to The Style Circle on the amazing Style Me Pretty website to make your own inspiration board!
10/23/09
Finally Fall
We're less than a year from the big date and it is FINALLY feeling like fall in bright sunny Florida!
We've been busy planning and working, Tom is working on grad school classes, life is just one adventure after another!
But we haven't been too busy to have some fun too. My mom came for a visit a few weeks ago. We went out to eat, hung out on the beach and looked at bridesmaid and mother of the bride dresses in Fort Walton Beach. We didn't really find anything but it did motivate me to start getting serious about figuring out transportation plans for the bridal party and the rest of our guests to and from the reception site as well as picking out some invitations! Slowly but surely we're getting things done!
This past weekend was the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival! I guess it started out as a picnic in the booming metropolis of Niceville, FL where a bunch of local fisherman would cook some of their fresh mullet and enjoy the lovely fall weather in Florida (aka summer weather in most Northern states). We did sample some of the local mullet. I also decided I am not a mullet fan at all. It's a purpley fish and it's VERY fishy!
We also had fun riding rides, playing games, eating a wide variety of other fried foods...pickles, twinkies, oreos, alligator, funnel cake...soo good! And when the weekend was over, we decided to buy a candle to take away something other than 20lbs from our weekend of the mullet fest. :) We also saw Chuck Wicks and Billy Ray Cyrus! We went on Saturday night with full intentions of seeing Blake Shelton. After seeing the awesome Doctor Zarr's Amazing Funk Monthers, for the second night in a row mind you, we were freezing! No joke, it was 43 degrees when we got to our car around 10:30pm. The concert didnt' get started til after 10 and the entire mullet festival area was PACKED. We were cold and tired so we opted to skip Blake Shelton...mostly because I've seen him before and Tom doesn't exactly LOVE country music haha and head back to the car to warm up and get rested for Billy Ray on Sunday.
We've been busy planning and working, Tom is working on grad school classes, life is just one adventure after another!
But we haven't been too busy to have some fun too. My mom came for a visit a few weeks ago. We went out to eat, hung out on the beach and looked at bridesmaid and mother of the bride dresses in Fort Walton Beach. We didn't really find anything but it did motivate me to start getting serious about figuring out transportation plans for the bridal party and the rest of our guests to and from the reception site as well as picking out some invitations! Slowly but surely we're getting things done!
This past weekend was the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival! I guess it started out as a picnic in the booming metropolis of Niceville, FL where a bunch of local fisherman would cook some of their fresh mullet and enjoy the lovely fall weather in Florida (aka summer weather in most Northern states). We did sample some of the local mullet. I also decided I am not a mullet fan at all. It's a purpley fish and it's VERY fishy!
We also had fun riding rides, playing games, eating a wide variety of other fried foods...pickles, twinkies, oreos, alligator, funnel cake...soo good! And when the weekend was over, we decided to buy a candle to take away something other than 20lbs from our weekend of the mullet fest. :) We also saw Chuck Wicks and Billy Ray Cyrus! We went on Saturday night with full intentions of seeing Blake Shelton. After seeing the awesome Doctor Zarr's Amazing Funk Monthers, for the second night in a row mind you, we were freezing! No joke, it was 43 degrees when we got to our car around 10:30pm. The concert didnt' get started til after 10 and the entire mullet festival area was PACKED. We were cold and tired so we opted to skip Blake Shelton...mostly because I've seen him before and Tom doesn't exactly LOVE country music haha and head back to the car to warm up and get rested for Billy Ray on Sunday.Overall it was a great weekend and we had so much fun! We can't wait to go back next year! It will be our last fall in Florida more than likely. We'll be moving the next summer to our next base so we have 1 last year to live it up!
9/30/09
1 Year and 2 Days!
We've actually done a lot of planning so far but I just decided to start this blog. I'll post updates of what we've done for planning.
Here's what we've got so far:
The date of course...October 2, 2010.
The church...
St. Patrick's in Newry, PA. I went to elementary school at the school across the street. The church has been rebuilt since I went to school there but it still has the same statues, stained glass windows and a lot of the older church. It was built right next to the site of the old church and very similar so it is still a special place for me.
The reception site...
Scotch Valley Country Club. For a fall wedding, my mother wasn't really sure how the weather would hold up. So the compromise was a ballroom with lots of windows and in the country so you can see all the trees and leaves changing and still get a bit of an outdoor effect. The ballroom is surrounded by windows, overlooking the gorgeous Central Pennsylvania mountains and about 4 miles from civilization so close enough that it's easy to get to but still not in the middle of Altoona.
I also have the dress...you don't get to see that though!
We booked all the vendors...florist, dj, photographer, but have zero details worked out! We need to figure out times, centerpieces, bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, invitations, transportation, extra decorations, food, ceremony music...the list probably will never end.
We've been engaged for almost 5 months now, I feel like I think about the wedding 24/7 but still not much is done. It's time to really start actualy buying things, putting together ideas and hopefully ending up with the perfect wedding day!
So this post isn't all about just the wedding planning...Tom has been away in California for almost 2 weeks and is finally coming home so I've very excited! We have all kinds of fall plans for October scheduled like pumpkin carving, the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival, making apple spice donuts, but since we're in Florida, it's still great weather for the beach too! My mom is coming tomorrow and we're hoping to get lots of wedding things done. I'll keep you posted on all the details as they start to come together :)
Here's what we've got so far:
The date of course...October 2, 2010.
The church...
The reception site...
Scotch Valley Country Club. For a fall wedding, my mother wasn't really sure how the weather would hold up. So the compromise was a ballroom with lots of windows and in the country so you can see all the trees and leaves changing and still get a bit of an outdoor effect. The ballroom is surrounded by windows, overlooking the gorgeous Central Pennsylvania mountains and about 4 miles from civilization so close enough that it's easy to get to but still not in the middle of Altoona.
I also have the dress...you don't get to see that though!
We booked all the vendors...florist, dj, photographer, but have zero details worked out! We need to figure out times, centerpieces, bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, invitations, transportation, extra decorations, food, ceremony music...the list probably will never end.
We've been engaged for almost 5 months now, I feel like I think about the wedding 24/7 but still not much is done. It's time to really start actualy buying things, putting together ideas and hopefully ending up with the perfect wedding day!
So this post isn't all about just the wedding planning...Tom has been away in California for almost 2 weeks and is finally coming home so I've very excited! We have all kinds of fall plans for October scheduled like pumpkin carving, the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival, making apple spice donuts, but since we're in Florida, it's still great weather for the beach too! My mom is coming tomorrow and we're hoping to get lots of wedding things done. I'll keep you posted on all the details as they start to come together :)
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