Bridesmaid again!

Last Friday Ellie and I headed over to Cypress to have lunch with my two buddies Adriane and Megan.  We worked together when I first moved to Houston at Elliott Electric Supply and I am SO blessed to still be so close to them.  We may not see each other very often, but we always pick up right where we left off.  Adriane is getting married next March and asked Megan and I to be bridesmaids!  I feel so honored to be a part of this wedding and it will be so much fun to get to spend more time with these ladies.  Love you guys!

 

Sidenote: We used to be called the "Triplets" because we are all the same size and look similar to each other.  We also used to always have the same color hair.  I just noticed that we are now all in between hair colors!  Adriane is blonde, I am brunette, and Megan is both.  Love it!!

My Best Friend's Wedding

I can't believe this weekend has finally come and gone! My best friend Leigh Anne and her handsome groom James Carver were married in Woodville, Texas yesterday in a beautiful ceremony in the country. Seriously though.. when I say beautiful.. I'm talking Pinterest worthy. EVERYTHING was planned down to the last detail and it turned out amazing. I am going to go ahead and say it... BEST wedding I've ever been to. C & I had SO much fun and everyone there was raving about what a blast it was. The weather was perfect and when it got chilly last night there was an awesome fire pit area for us to gather around. Here are some pictures from this beautiful event. Feel free to be jealous!

Mckay/Walker Wedding in Hot Springs!

Last weekend we drove up to Hot Springs, Arkansas for Melissa McKay and Zach Walker's wedding. When Melissa told me she was getting married in Hot Springs, I was super excited because I had never been there before. As soon as we got into town we were stunned by the awesome beauty of this place. It's nestled in the mountains and is absolutely gorgeous. In fact.. it's so gorgeous I really can't think of any other way to describe it because words don't do this place justice. We loved hanging out around the state park area, walking around downtown, and the weather was great. It had been snowing and very cold there so we were a little worried at first but the whole weekend it was in the 60s, sunny, and perfect... speaking of perfect - let me tell you about Melissa's wedding!

The wedding venue was a little chapel and reception hall about a mile or so from our hotel (awesome!) and the wedding was wonderfully small and intimate. The ceremony was absolutely gorgeous and filled with the Word. Melissa's sister and her dad sang during the ceremony and her grandfather (Daddy B) gave a beautiful blessing over the family towards the end of the ceremony. After they said their "I dos" we headed about 10 feet to the reception hall. Dinner was heavy hors d'oeuvres and everyone danced the night away. It was a great wedding and we are so happy for Melissa and Zach!

On Sunday Casey and I woke up early and went to the Arlington for breakfast. We didn't stay here (we stayed at the Park Hotel which was AWESOME and the people were so, so, so nice!) but it was absolutely stunning. Casey and I love historic hotels and this one was huge and very ornate. If you are ever in HS you have to stop by and see it!

After breakfast we headed over to the Quapaw Bathhouse to get a hot stone massage and take a dip in the "healing mineral waters of Hot Springs". Casey had booked an appointment without me knowing so the whole thing was a surprise! We usually don't do a lot for Valentine's, so this was a very cool V-day gift. :) The massage was wonderful as was the "bath". The water left my skin feeling super soft and we left Hot Springs feeling super relaxed.

Here are some pictures from HS!

The public bath at the Quapaw

Beautiful Melissa and Zach

Case and I walking around town

The Quapaw

Me (finally!) getting to throw a snowball at Casey

Wedding photos are up!

If you feel like stalking my wedding photos, they are up on Lauren's website! The log in is sarahnicolewood@gmail.com and the password is: Page

Isn't She Lovely?

WOW was this weekend a doozie! Casey and I drove something like 700 miles in 36 hours - here's how:

Saturday morning: I wake up at 5:30 - shower and we get on the road to Longview around 7am. We arrive in Longview around 10:30ish and my mom and I immediately go up to the bridal place to get my dress that FINALLY came in. It was absolutely perfect, more perfect than I remember and I am SO thankful. :) Leigh Anne came with me for support and it was so nice to have my best friend there with me for that.

After picking up my dress we headed to Bodacious to meet up with Casey and my dad for some BBQ. One thing I do miss about Longview is eating at the restaurants that I grew up eating - Bodacious, Papacita's, Lupe's, Pietro's... there's nothing like home sometimes.

After eating it was back to Dad's for quick nap and then on to Princeton, TX for Liz & Buckley's wedding! Casey and I made great time on the road and it was nice going a different way to the Dallas area (we took 80 instead of I20).

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous! Liz's colors were Red with accents of turquoise (a ZTA homage?) which is one of my favorite color combinations. Liz looked absolutely stunning and so did my beautiful Zeta friends who were all there that I miss SO much. Here are some pics from her amazing wedding!

This is us squeezing every Zeta at the wedding into this tiny photo booth (16 of us)- idea courtesy of Sarah Nicole Wood

4 ZTA weddings in one year? OKAY!

Blushing Bride!

Beautiful Liz and her Dad walking down the aisle to "At Last" by Etta James :)

Alice & Jennifer

Wow has this been a busy weekend! Friday Casey and I decided to take ourselves on a date (when you join bank accounts you really can't take each other on dates because we're both paying for it) to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie and have a bite to eat at a new pizza place in town. Unfortunately we had no idea how popular this new place is and didn't allow ourselves time for a 45 minute wait so we ended up eating at Which Wich? instead. All I can say about Which Wich? is that there are WAY too many options for someone as indecisive as I am, but they do make an awesome chocolate malt.

We finally made our way over to the movie theater and even though we were both skeptical about the new Alice movie, it surprised us both. You see, in our humble opinion, you can only make so many movies where Johnny Depp plays the same "tortured" character and Tim Burton throws his "crazy" spin on the directing. Tim Burton should just admit that he is in love with Johnny Depp and get over it. <--- joke. Anyway - we were very impressed by the actress (Mia something) who played Alice so it was a nice movie all in all.

On Saturday we both woke up early because Casey had to work that morning and I had a ton of stuff to do. I ended up dropping him off at work at 8am so that I could pick him up at noon and we could head straight to Longview for Jennifer Mawer's wedding. After dropping him off I got my nails done and went to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a gift for the lovely couple. When I finally got home I was surprised to see that it was almost 11 - how does 3 hours go by THAT quickly?? I am realizing that the older I get the faster time goes by. I always heard my parents say that, but I guess Saturday morning I really realized how true it is. When you're 5 years old, 5 minutes seems like an eternity, when your 25 it feels like 5 seconds. Anyway, I rushed over to get Casey and off to Longview we went.

Jennifer & Carl's wedding was by far the MOST fun wedding we have been to together. Jennifer looked ridiculously gorgeous and Carl could not have looked happier. The wedding & reception was a perfect mix of elegance and party atmosphere and we were so glad we got to hang out with all of our friends that we don't get to see often enough. So here's one wedding down, 3 to go this year! As soon as I get some pictures (I forgot my camera, ughhhhh!!) I will post them!

Today we got up and went to have breakfast with my Dad and then did a little shopping around Longview and headed home. We stopped through Nacogdoches and drove around campus for a while and talked about how much we missed the place and how much it had changed. I was surprised to see that they are tearing down Garner apartments! It kind of brought a tear to my eye because (and you know this if you went to SFA) Garner is such a big part of SFA history and tradition with the purple light at the top and everything. Anyway, I guess I was just feeling nostalgic and it made me a little sad to see such a big SFA symbol being torn down.

All in all it was a fabulous weekend and Casey and I are looking forward to all of the other weddings this year, especially our own! Hope everyone has a great week, here's a shout out to all of my fellow teachers who are on Spring Break! Whoo hoo!!!

We're Engaged!!

Casey and I are engaged! Casey finally popped the question Saturday at his Aunt and Uncle's house. Here are the details and some pictures! I posted a video on Facebook as well. We are so excited!

The Proposal Story:

So every year Casey’s Aunt Jackie and Uncle Greg have a Pumpkin Carving party at their house. Halloween is my favorite time of year and Casey’s Godparents were in town from New York to visit so we all went over to his Aunt and Uncle’s house that night. I had told Casey a few weeks before that I didn’t want to carve the design on the pumpkin but that I would help out by opening the pumpkin and getting all the guts out (my favorite part), so I decided I would go ahead and get that over with so I could hang out with his cousins and other family the rest of the night. I started opening the pumpkin and when I finally got the top off it was all white and fluffy inside and I was really upset because I thought that it was moldy and we had bought a bad pumpkin. I thought it was really weird because it was so thick and it really looked like cotton and as I was showing it to Casey and his family, Casey reached down into the pumpkin and pulled some of the “mold” out. I jumped back and was frankly, very grossed out that he touched the “mold”, until I realized that it was fake spider webs and that he had somehow emptied the pumpkin and filled it with spider webs. Once I realized this I was kind of annoyed because Casey always plays jokes like this on me and I was thinking that this joke was really kind of mean because I really do LOVE getting the guts out of the pumpkin. So I started taking the cottony spider webs out and threw some of them at him and then when I reached back inside the pumpkin I felt something big at the bottom. I pulled it out and it was a ring box. I was kind of confused still because I could totally see Casey putting candy in a ring box as a joke- I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised in my entire life. I opened the box and was literally stunned when I saw the ring- it was huge! I immediately started crying and finally someone in Casey’s family said, “Well? What do you say??” and I said “He hasn’t asked me anything!”. That got a bunch of laughs and then Casey finally said the 4 words I thought I’d never hear come out of his mouth – “Will you marry me?” I of course said YES! We are hoping for an October 2010 wedding and are going to look at venues in Austin on November 7^th. Here is the video that Casey was taking while I was opening the pumpkin, his dad has another longer video that I will post when he sends it to me. Thank you to everyone for the congrats- we are so excited to be getting married!

Weight Loss Week 3, Happy Birthday to me, and more!

Birthday Flowers from Grayson and his mom- thanks guys!

Holy geez I can't believe it's only been a week since I last blogged- so much has happened! Last Wednesday was my birthday and although I didn't really have a very good day that day (except my kids all made me cards and one of them sent me flowers to work - so cute!), last weekend was amazing! On Friday I got off 2 hours early and headed up to Longview to hang with the fam and of course to see my beautiful cousin Jen and my adorable God daughter Abby. On Friday night Daddy and I went shopping for a while and then out to eat for my birthday at Red Lobster (we always go there because Casey doesn't eat seafood so that's the only time I get it!) and had a nice time hanging out and talking about everything that is going on in our lives right now. Being on the Atkin's diet has really changed my outlook on food and being healthy and I kind of feel like I've drank the Atkin's "kool-aid". I love talking to people about it and this weekend Daddy and my mom decided to do it and try to get healthy. It's such an easy diet because you can eat as much as you want as long as it's the right thing. My parents and my biggest problem with food is that we are always hungry or we just eat out of habit or boredom. With this diet we can still do that AND lose weight- it's perfect! Getting over not having carbs or sugar has been pretty tough for us, but it's so worth it. After eating and talking Daddy and I went to Wal Mart to get him stocked up on Atkin's approved food. On Saturday Daddy and I got up early and I made eggs and bacon for breakfast. We then went on a quest to find a suit for me to wear to my interview this week (oh yeah I forgot to mention that! I have an interview at Cy-Fair ISD on Wednesday, July 29th! YAY!!). So we went to Dillards, but before we went in I decided to peruse the sidewalk shoe sale. Boy am I glad I did! I found an ADORABLE pair of Coach wedge sneakers type shoes AND a pair of Cole Haan flats that are perfect for teaching BOTH FOR $9.99!! They were both originally $160-$175 each so that's over $300 in shoes for $20.00! That kind of thing NEVER happens to me! Aren't they cute??

After the initial excitement of finding awesome shoes IN MY SIZE for cheap we went on to find a suit. After trying on several not-so-great looking suits we finally settled on a grey Gianni Bini pant suit. It looks really great on and I'm super excited about my interview! Keep me in your prayers please!

Saturday afternoon Mom and I went shopping for my birthday gift - a new pair of running shoes. After getting my new iPhone I really wanted a pair of the Nike Plus shoes that have the thing in the bottom that tracks your workouts and runs. We found a really cute pair at Kohl's and I loooove them. My Pumas were getting a little worn out, plus Zach got a hold of them and chewed up the back quite a bit. I haven't gotten the chip to put in them yet, but that's the next step. At least they are comfortable!

Saturday evening Mr. Paul and Mom took me out to eat for my birthday at this AMAZING steakhouse out in the middle of nowhere- Avinger, Tx. It's called Five D Steakhouse and if you ever get a chance to eat there I highly recommend it. The steak was great and the restaurant was so cute! Apparently people drive from all around to eat there and I can see why - it was awesome! Here's me and Mom at the steakhouse:



After eating Mom and I headed to Kyle and Serina's wedding at The Reserve in Longview where my cousin Jen was a bridesmaid and my God daughter Abby was a flower girl. It was a very nice wedding but BOY was it hot! They apparently didn't open the place up early to turn the AC on so it was sweltering inside and out before and during the wedding and during most of the reception. Jen and Abby looked adorable as usual (except for those cowboy boots you had to wear Jen!) and the reception was fun. I cheated a little on the diet by having a tiny piece of grooms cake but it was DEFINITELY worth it! It was some variation of Black Forest cake and it was delicious! After the reception Jen and I and a bunch of people I hadn't seen since I was 12 years old went to McCann Street Grill to hang out. I found out that vodka has no carbs so my new drink of choice is a vodka w/ water. Not the most delicious thing, but at least it's healthy. Here are some pics from the wedding:

Kyle and his bride Serina

The beautiful Jen
Me and Abby in her flower girl tutu

On Sunday I got up and made Daddy breakfast and Mom came over early to join us. After that Mom and I went to get Jen and my Aunt Karen their birthday gifts and headed out to Meme and Papaw's to celebrate. It's so nice to get to go out there because before I went to college Jen and I were there on a weekly basis. Here's a picture of me and Meme and Papaw at the wedding:



After the party I headed home and so far this week has been pretty great! Monday was Superhero day so I put on some tights and a red tshirt and taped an "i" to the front of the shirt and I was "Mrs. Incredible" or "Elastigirl" not sure which one because I've never seen the movie, but it was better than wearing my Wonder Woman costume and getting weird looks at the library and other places I had to run errands to on my lunch break. Here's a picture of me and Maggie who dressed up as Violet, Lexie and Andrew who were Batman and Batgirl, and a group picture of all of us at Main Even bowling:



Yesterday I spent the entire evening working on my teaching portfolio and I think it looks pretty great. A big thank you goes out to Jennifer Mawer and Katie Freed for helping me so much with this! Also thanks to Daddy and Mom, to my friends at TWYLA for supporting me through all of this and of course thanks to Casey for supporting me through everything this past year. Love you all!

Okay and now for the weight loss:

I am feeling fantastic and have been getting up and running almost every morning at 5:30 or earlier. Riley has been coming with me and is really enjoying it (not to mention losing a pound or two himself!). I have lost about 8 inches overall and 5 lbs. Here are my measurements and pics:

Bust: 33"
Stomach: 32 1/2"
Waist: 26 1/4"
Hips: 37 1/4"
Right Thigh: 21 1/2"
Right Calf: 12 3/4"
Left Thigh: 21"
Left Calf: 12 1/2"
Right Upper Arm: 10"
Left Upper Arm: 10"

Weight: 122 lbs


Needless to say I am showing lots of improvement in endurance, overall shape, and feeling a lot better. Yay for getting in shape and having an interview this week!