Time to Settle

Settlement on the new house is t-3.5 hours!!! I'm planning on spending the whole afternoon over there, starting to clean and get the walls ready for our painting adventure. We're definitely in for a lot of work over the next few weeks...but I can't wait!

Enjoy your weekend! Back next week with tons of pictures and updates!

Am I ready??

On Monday, we took Spencer swimming at the beach in our neighborhood. This is absolutely her favorite thing in the entire world. We can barely walk by the beach without her freaking out and trying to swim. We didn't even think she would like swimming, since she's a hound dog, but maybe she has some lab in her after all. 

Anyways, everything was going great on Monday, and she was fetching sticks and running all around the sand. And then she found a dead fish. WHY is it that all dogs LOVE to roll in dead animals??? Like, what is so appealing about it to them? And once she knew it was there, she wouldn't leave it alone. Lovely. So we dragged her home and proceeded to give her 3 baths to try and get the stink off of her. Her leash and collar also stunk so badly they were making me gag. You all know how ocd I am about cleanliness and smells go hand and hand with that. So while Jake was giving Spencer her 3rd bath, I threw the leash and collar in the washing machine. 

Wait, what??? Yes, you read that correctly. I put a leash in the washer. Umm yeah. A 5 foot metal and vinyl leash. Without a second thought. It started making some interesting noises. I just figured it was clanging around in here. Jake came in the house and it only took about 30 seconds for him to question it. Here is our actual conversation:

J: What the hell is that?

Me: Oh, just some laundry

J: What are you washing? A metal skirt?

Me: No, I put spencer's leash and collar in the wash. 

J: Please tell me you are JOKING. 

Me: No, why, is that a problem?

We walk over to the washing machine, which is now shaking and smells like burning rubber. J literally has to rip the shredded leash out from around the middle part (no idea what it's called). And now we have a broken washer with a burned up clutch (who knew a washer even had a clutch??) 

J: Umm, we're not going to tell Lisa (our landlord) you put a leash in there, we'll just tell her it broke. 

Me: Ok, but won't it be sort of suspicious? 

J: Well, I doubt she would think we would try to wash a leash. 

Me: Oh, right. 

J: Kim, you do know we're buying a house in 4 days right?

Me: Yes

J: And at our new house, we're responsible for fixing things and paying for repairs. And washing machines aren't exactly free. Are you ready for this?

Me: Umm yeah...I promise I won't put any more leashes in the washing machine. 

J: Thank you. 

Me: Look at the bright side, we can start using our washer at the new house on Friday after we settle. 

J: Great...let's stick to clothes.

So, am I ready for home ownership??? Not really sure...ha!

It's here!!!

The bridal salon called me Sunday to let me know that my wedding dress is in!! I'm so excited to see it and try it on! Sadly, this week is insane for us since we close on Friday, so I'm not sure when I will have a chance to get down to the store in the near future. Possibly next Monday on my day off I can drag myself away from house painting to try it on!

This also means that "operation honeymoon" needs to be kicked up a notch. Uh oh. I decided against that second bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream last night. Ha! 

We made it to the Brooks Brothers outlet yesterday morning and purchased J's entire wedding outfit (except shoes) for 60% off. Since everything was on sale, we decided to buy his brother's outfit as well. We got two navy blazers, two white button down shirts and two pairs of khaki's for under $500. I'd say that's a pretty damn good deal. 

Just because I love it so much, here's a picture of my dress...

Ok, don't pay attention to my gross hair. Yuck. 

If you look at the reflection in the mirror, you can see what the dress looks like from the front. We added the beaded sash (taken off another dress in the store) and ended up ordering it separately because we loved it so much. So my dress will be completely unique since the dress and sash are two different designers. We're also having the sash cut and attached to the dress, so there wont be a big huge poofy organza bow over my butt, just a seamless beaded sash all the way around. Sigh, I love my dress!!

Posting may be a bit sparse this week due to the house stuff and packing, but I'll be back soon with tons of updates I'm sure!!

Happy Friday!

I'm so happy it's Friday! And it's a long weekend! Unfortunately, we have 3 weddings at work, so I'm working all weekend (literally!), but I will be off Monday, Tuesday and next Friday to make up for it!! Here's a few things I'm happy and thankful for on this sunny Friday:

** We close on our house in exactly 1 week!! 

** The pool in our new neighborhood opens tomorrow and we are planning on going on Monday. Not really sure that I want to put a bathing suit on at this point, but it will be nice to get some sun!

** I have my hair trial for the wedding next Thursday and I'm really excited!

** We've made a lot of progress on packing. Really it's just clothes left, which of course, is what I have the most of. It may take me all day Tuesday just to tackle my clothes!

** I've been running with Spencer every day this week and plan on keeping that up indefinitely...operation honeymoon is in full gear! 

** We finally decided on all our paint colors for the new house. We're buying all the paint and supplies next week so we can get started right after we settle. We have a TON of painting to do in the next few weeks. 

** So you think you can dance is back on and it was so good last night! I love that show!

** J and I get married in 3 months!!! OMG!! YAY!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Memorial Day weekend!! 

My favorite part of a holiday weekend....the cookouts!!

Help Please!

As the days tick down until we settle on the new house (next Friday!!), I've started looking into all the "stuff" we need to buy. My current obsession...window coverings for our 2 sliding glass doors. Both our living room and basement have sliding glass doors out to the deck and yard.

Right now they both look like this...

Only without the ugly 80's furniture. But you get the idea. Two huge bare glass doors.

The main problem is that our house is on the corner, so I'm majorly worried about privacy. I feel like any cars that drive by will get a perfect view into our living room. Eventually, we would love to replace both doors with doors like this:

Lovely framed french doors. But unfortunately, after we looked at doors at Home Depot and pretty much had a heart attack over the price, we realized this is quite a ways off.

So we will have to make due and find some nice curtains/blinds/etc. to use in the meantime. My question is, are there any options besides these? The dreaded vertical blinds!

I know they make "nice" vertical blinds, but I didn't know if there was something else that would provide a good amount of privacy and still look nice. We will be using both doors quite a bit, as that's the way we will let Spencer out into the yard, so I don't want anything super hard to manage or like big bulky curtains I'm constantly having to open. But I do want something that lets a lot of light into the room. Also, budget is somewhat of an issue, so probably nothing that has to be custom made or anything like that.

So any help or advice would be majorly appreciated. Even if it's to tell me that vertical blinds are the way to go. Thanks!!!

Spring Time!

This morning my mom and I went over to the wedding venue to check it out again. We actually hadn't been there since November, when we first booked it. I realized I hadn't seen it now that it's spring and all the flowers and trees are blooming in the gardens. It made quite a difference to see it looking pretty!! I'm even more in love with it!! 

Also, I'm super excited because the venue got a new tent (where we will having dinner) and it's pretty and draped in fabric! The old one was just a plain old boring tent and we were considering having it draped for the wedding, so I'm even more happy that we won't have to worry about that now.  Onto the pics that I took!

The ceremony site. We'll be standing on the deck and all the chairs will be in the grass. 

Cocktail Hour spot - lawn and gardens off to the side of where the ceremony will be held. I love that there's lots of shade since it will most likely be super hot. 

The View!!

Looking out from cocktail hour to the tent and the pavilion house where the dancing takes place. I think we're going to set the cocktail hour bar under the big tree. 

The Tent! I love the draping. I think we're going to look into renting a chandelier for the center beam. 

Pretty gardens!

Entrance walk way through the gardens. 

I got alot more ideas for decor and flowers as well. We're meeting with the florist in a few weeks to go over details. 

I am getting SO EXCITED!!!! 

Holy Crap!!!

Just watched the Grey's Anatomy finale. All I can say is WOW. I'm in a state of shock!! 

Fabulous!!!

Exciting news on the wedding planning front....we're doing something super fun and unique for the reception!!! An Ice Cream Cart, full of yummy ice cream treats!!

I found a company that will deliver a cart full of ice cream "novelties" to your reception and guests can help themselves (or you can also pay them extra to have an attendant to pass them out - not sure which one we will do yet). 

Since the wedding is in early September and it will probably be HOT as you know what, I think this is such a good idea! Our caterer had offered to do like sorbet served with our cake, but we decided that would melt in like 2 seconds. I know you can also hire like Cold Stone Creamery to come to your reception and mix ice cream, but I also see that getting very melty and messy. 

I've obviously seen a bunch of weddings with tons of different ideas, but I've never seen ice cream treats like this at a wedding. Who wouldn't like to eat something cold after working up a sweat on the dance floor? 

Here's what the cart will look like...

And here's what it will be filled with...

Well not all of that. Obviously we don't need any of the cartoon character ice cream. I'm mainly thinking Creamsicles, Choco-Tacos, Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches and Crunch Ice Cream bars. All the favorites from the ice cream man! 

It was pretty easy to convince J and my parents this was the best idea ever. And I had been trying to find something really different for the reception to make it super fun, and I think this will be perfect!! Plus, since J and I both have a major sweet tooth, especially for ice cream, I think it really goes well with our wedding!! Yay for ice cream!!

Monday Blahs

Being off from work on Mondays can have it's benefits, but it can also be super boring. No one else is off that day, so I pretty much run errands, clean and hang out the dog. Of course, I probably should be actually taking today to start packing, since we move in 4 weeks, but I'm procrastinating!!

The fabulous Amy at The Pink Tutu (who is also my sorority grandlittle from college!!!) tagged me. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but oh well:

Eight Things Tag 

Eight Things I Look Forward to:

**Settling on our new house on May 29th

**Moving into the house, painting and decorating it.

**OUR WEDDING...OBVIOUSLY!

**Our upcoming summer trip to Block Island, Rhode Island for a wedding in July

**Our Honeymoon!!!!! Woo Hoo Aruba!

**Spending the last few months of 2009 married!!! 

**Enjoying our new house all summer, especially the community pool 

**J's 30th birthday in October!! I'm starting to get fun ideas for a party! 

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do:

**Skip the next 4 months, wake up and have it be September 5th so I can marry J

**Have our honeymoon last for a month instead of a week

**Win a shopping spree to Home Depot so we can do a bunch of stuff to the new house

**Hire people to pack and move for us

**Have an unlimited budget to spend on shopping, especially at J.Crew

**Get 5 more dogs!! haha

**Travel and visit every country on my wish list, especially Australia and Fiji

**Be a stay at home mom someday!

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:

**Went to breakfast with my parents for Mother's Day

**Took my parents and my BFF K over to the new house to show it to them...they loved it!

**Met up with one of my old roommates at a park near her house and went for a VERY long hike...12 miles! Craziness! I can't move today!

**Got a thank you note in the mail from our landlord, thanking us for helping give positive reviews of our house to her potential new tenants. And she enclosed a $100 Visa gift card...yay!

**Figured out our ceremony music! More on that later!

**Went to dinner at my parents house and had yummy crab cakes! 

**Caught up with J, he was away all weekend on a fishing trip with some of his friends. Got to hear a lot of fishing details...haha

**Laundry - I started a bunch of loads, but I haven't finished any

Eight Shows I Watch:

**Gossip Girl

**Grey's Anatomy

**American Idol 

**One Tree Hill

**So you think you can dance (So excited it starts again soon!!)

**90201 reruns

**Desperate Housewives

Off to run a few errands!!! Happy Monday!

Finally!

So I have been agonizing over wedding shoes. I can't believe it's been so much harder to find shoes than anything else. I mean, I picked my dress out in 1 day. In fact, every other wedding decision has been super easy compared to the shoes! I had quite a bit of criteria for them...

1. I wanted them to be comfortable, but still cute.

2. They needed to have an ankle strap. I can't wear sling backs to save my life and I didn't want completely open backs because I didn't want them to slip off.

3. I wanted them to be strappy...meaning, no pumps or peep toes. I'm counting on 90 degree weather for the wedding...I don't want my feet to sweat.

4. No colored shoes. This was my mom's rule, not mine. I really wanted bright green shoes, but that got vetoed. Since my mom has pretty much gone along with every other decision I've made, I decided it wasn't worth fighting over shoes and I agreed to ivory ones.

5. I wanted to wear them all night (this goes back to the comfort criteria in #1). I don't want to change into flip flops or anything else...I want to wear these all night until our grand exit.

I ordered and returned about 4 pairs from various websites. None of them were right. I seriously have spent HOURS searching. Well I think I finally found them:

From J.Crew, obviously! I ordered these and they should be here tomorrow. Cross your fingers that they fit and are comfortable!

My favorite part about these shoes? The flower! My bridesmaids will be wearing a navy J.Crew flower belt, with their lemon yellow J.Crew dresses:

I love that it sort of ties it all in together! So I'm really hoping that these are the ones!

You are cordially invited!

We got the invite proof yesterday! I love our invitation vendor...she does completely custom invites and her stuff in fabulous! Here's the final draft we decided on:

It's layered paper. So it's grass green card stock, layered with navy cardstock, layered with white cardstock. The yellow band at the top is actually yellow satin ribbon, wrapped around the top layer of cardstock. All the printing will be done in navy.

Obviously I had to take out all the personal information, but you can get the main idea. I love that we're adding a little bit of ribbon, to make it a little bit fun and textured.

My favorite part is that it's actually a pocketfold invite...the green cardstock actually has a pocket on the back of it, where all of our insert cards will go. I really liked the idea of a pocketfold, but I didn't want anything that opened up or was too much. When she showed me that she actually had a flat pocketfold option, I was SO excited! So I get the convienence of a pocketfold, to keep all the cards in one place, plus it's very clean and traditional looking for the actual invite.

We'll have the inner envelope, and then the main envelope, which will be lined in navy! Yay for lined envelopes!

We're scheduled to send these out June 25th...umm craziness!!

4 Months!

Today is 4 months exactly until the wedding! Kind of starting to freak out a little bit more each day. I've pretty much done nothing wedding related for last few months, I feel like such a slacker! I just have no motivation...but I'm determined to get in planning mode!!

We finalized the invites last week...as soon as I have a proof, I will do an invite post. I'm totally obsessed with the invitations...they are going to be very fun and bright, but still classic and simple. 

We also have decided to do a "grand exit" from the reception. We weren't originally going to, but our flight to Aruba leaves super early the next morning, so we will need to change out of our wedding outfits and leave to spend the night at a hotel at the airport at the end of the reception. I'm actually really excited about doing an exit like that, it just seems very old-fashioned, but in a good way! So of course, I'm totally on the hunt for a cute white dress to change into for the exit. I've pretty much settled on this one from J.Crew:

Especially since it's on sale right now! I think it's super cute, plus it will be awesome to take on the honeymoon with us...comfy and fun! I'd want to pair with a fun pair of sparkly flats for the exit, like these:

Again, those would be perfect for lounging at the beach in Aruba!

I just can't believe in 4 months, I will be marrying the love of my life!!! AHHHHH I am so excited!