The prototype

I told you they're artsy! Pretty cool looking. I like it

My girl's a programmer

The artsy girls are working on the programs and favors. Down to those little details. I'm quite out of my element here, but try to offer an opinion when asked. :-)

Time for the details

(Trying to post from my BlackBerry - we'll see how this works)

We're getting close! We have our River Place tasting tonight which should be a lot of fun - supposedly we get piles of good food to try.

We also need to finish up favors, programs, flowers details, ceremony schedule, etc, but it's just down to the minor details.

I'm getting very excited each time I hear about more family and friends who can come, so I'm really beginning to look forward to the whole weekend of fun with everyone. Oh yeah, and then we get a week on the beach in Punta Cana!!

My turn

I will just add to Ryan's previous post with some pics of the house and stuff.


This was our Christmas present to each other. I love it, and it has a cool Butterfly leaf that is stored in the table, but you can extend it out to a square to provide extra space.


Just a kitchen shot.


Living room, pre-clock. Ryan's parents got us a really big clock that we now have hung over the tan couch. It looks really cool.


Ryan and Dad digging a hole. As Ryan mentioned, we decided it might be best to pay to have the other trees done.


Our beautiful Cherry Laurel.


I know it just looks like sticks right now, but in the spring this will be our pretty Crepe Myrtle. Not sure what color dad ended up getting us. Hoping that this guy will give us a little bit more privacy from our neighbors kitchen window.



The tree on the right was previously in the planter bed right up against the house. Dad brought one of his guy's over and he transplanted it into the yard where it should be happier! :)


Our Christmas Tree


Didn't our lights turn out cute? As Ryan mentioned, we had to go to about 5 different places before we found everything we needed. Guess one week after Thanksgiving is already late to be xmas light shopping, which we now know.


Ryan and I at my Cedar Park Reunion Christmas party

Catching up....

Wow, we haven't posted in forever! Let's see if I can get an overview of what we've missed....

Thanksgiving was great, although we always are so busy around that time with my family, Aud's mom, Aud's dad, and grandparents each having gatherings; but it's always a lot of fun to hang out with everyone. We actually hosted the meal with my family at our house since my parents were still in the middle of the renovations, so it was great to really break in the new kitchen, fridge, etc.

Christmas was fun, of course, and full of much more family time. We had a fun time going to every store in the area trying to find Christmas lights, but it looked great by the time we finally got everything up. This time we hosted Audrey's family's Christmas at our house, so it was another opportunity for everyone to come over together.

We did a bit of landscaping - Audrey's dad got us a new Cherry Laurel and Crepe Myrtle for the backyard, and also transplanted some trees from our front flower bed out in the yard, rather than right next to the house. He & I (and Audrey, as much as she could) dug the hole in the back yard for the Cherry Laurel, and after that, decided it best to pay someone to help finish the job :-)

As for wedding stuff, we are moving right along. We are in progress with envelope stuffing & addressing for the invites, Audrey's ring just came in (picking it up tomorrow), we have our tasting scheduled, and extended family are starting to make travel plans. Left to finish are picking tuxes (this weekend), favors, order sparklers, and tell the florist we need flowers for the cake. We're pretty much just down to those types of details, which is great. I'm sure things will start to get stressful as we get closer and closer.

The house is still great, we're really loving it. We got a new grill as a housewarming gift from my parents, so we've been grilling out about every other night. I also had a few projects to fix things up that had been bothering me like fixing some doors that swung shut by themselves (wouldn't stay open), and I also rehung our closet door to swing from the other side of the door frame because the builder obviously did that wrong (the light switch was behind the door when it was open).
We've been finally putting things up on the walls also, which is helping the house feel more put together. All in all, we're sure we made the right decision to go with this house, which is a great feeling.

That's about it.... I'll make Aud post about anything I missed :-)

We have a honeymoon!

Things are starting to really come together with the wedding this week. We finally asked Lucy (Ryan's cousin) to be our flower girl. Her and Ethan are going to be so cute together. We have an appt with Matty Cakes on Wednesday and hopefully we'll end up booking our cake with them. And last night, we finally booked our honeymoon. I can't quite remember how I originally stumbled upon Excellence Punta Cana, but as we've been looking at places, this is the one I have always come back to. Tripadvisor ranked it as a top honeymoon location and there are a bunch of good reviews. It was kinda scary typing in the credit card info last night (we've had a very expensive past few weeks), but Ryan pointed out all the vacations that we've gone on for free (Hawaii - twice, skiing - thanks to Ryan's wonderful parents, Chicago - most of which was paid for by Dell), so it made me feel a little bit better about spending a chunk out of our own pocket for our honeymoon. I'm excited!

Just about settled in

We've been really busy getting everything moved into our new place! It has been a lot of fun unpacking everything and finally being in a house. Apartment living had gotten old to both of us and we were really ready for this.

I took off the end of the week after closing and took about 5 van loads of stuff over, with Audrey's help in the evenings to start unpacking. Then Sunday we got the Riata moving truck to get the rest of the big furniture moved.

We've also had a few projects - we already repainted one whole room, chopped down an ugly cedar "tree" in the front yard, and did some yard work around the tree beds.

Here was our painting job, which we're pretty proud of, for a first attempt at home-improvement :-)

Before - their kid's room with neon green & bright blue alternating walls:



After - we're not quite sure how to describe the color. Kinda a blue-gray-green. Behr calls it "Pinedale Shores":





Also, yesterday, while outside, a bunch of the neighbors stopped by to say hi, and they seem like a fun crowd, so that was great. They all have kids, so every day there are hide and seek games and fun stuff like that happening in the cul-de-sac (today it looks like it's soccer).

Anyway, that's about it for now. We gotta figure out what to do for dinner. We're lost without our Riata grills.... we really need to find one since grilling is just about our only means of cooking for ourselves!