BPs and BFs

This past weekend I went home to spend a couple of days with my Mom and Dad before heading Mom and I headed out to Lubbock for my bridal portraits. Why Lubbock you ask? THIS is why Lubbock. The most amazing photographer EVER (Lauren Clark) lives there! I have been stalking Lauren since our friends Greta and Benny got married a few years ago. Lauren did their wedding and engagement photos and I was so wowed that I started following her blog and prayed that I would get to have her as my wedding photographer when Casey and I got married. After we got engaged, she was the first call I made to see what availability she had for 2010 and as fate would have it, she was only available on Nanny's birthday- August 21st, the day that I had always wanted to get married on. Perfection! When I went to schedule my bridal portraits, I was unavailable on the weekends that she was going to be in Houston and Austin, so I decided it would be perfect to visit one of my best friends Melissa McKay in Lubbock AND get my portraits done in the same weekend. Side Note: I love "kill two birds with one stone" situations. I had been meaning to visit Melissa and this worked out perfectly!

So on Sunday morning Mom and I loaded up her Volkswagen Beetle Convertible and headed to the Great Red West (haha). It took us about 8 hours, but honestly the drive was not bad at all. We had a great time hanging out as both of us love road trips. Sunday night we hung out with Melissa and her handsome cotton farmer boyfriend Zach and his parents and ate amazing sushi at this little place in Lubbock. I had never heard of sweet potato sushi, but it was AMAZING.

On Monday we got up and headed to the mall to go shopping and then had lunch at this adorable place called Stella's. After that it was go time. I felt like a crazy person running here to get my hair done, then across town to get my makeup done, then across town again to pick up my bouquet and then finally back to Zach's house to put my dress on and head out the door for photos. I'm really glad I got to do that though because I felt like it prepared me a little better for the day of the wedding. We met Lauren at Starbucks and then headed to a ton of different places to take photos. I LOVE how creative she is and how she really knows how to direct people in order to get the best looking photos. We got to see all of the photos on Wednesday and I am truly amazed at how beautiful they are. She is definitely one of the most talented artists that I have ever met. I wish I could post one of the photos on here, but unfortunately Casey reads "our" blog sometimes and I really don't want to ruin his surprise.

After heading back from Lubbock on Tuesday I picked up my cousin Jen (also my matron of honor) and my adorable God daughter Abby. I think I drove a total of 13 hours that day but honestly, I had such great company the whole time that I really didn't notice how much time I was in the car.

On Wednesday we headed to the pool early and hung out for an hour or so. Abby loves the water and it was so much fun getting to play with her. Here are some photos from the day:

Me and my cousin Jen

Me swinging Abby :)

The rest of this week we have just been hanging out and now I'm waiting for my mom and best friend Leigh Anne to get here for my bridal shower weekend YAY!

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 :)

Dress Drama :(

So I usually don't use this acronym, but O.M.G. I officially became Bridezilla this past weekend, but I think that is completely, 100% appropriate given what happened on Saturday afternoon. Here's the short version of the story:

-Owner of boutique calls me to tell me that my dress is in early - YAY!
-I drive to Longview to try on/get my dress. Along with me are my mom, dad, cousin (Matron of honor), and bridal attendant Sally East.
- I go into the dressing room... dress looks a little different than I remember - I ignore this and put dress on.
-Dress.... is not my dress. It took 5 months to get here and it is not my dress!! I cannot help but immediately start crying because I knew no matter what, my dress would probably not be here in time for me to get alterations done and be ready for my bridal portraits in June.
-Owner lady tells me to "Calm down" repeatedly and that "She'll do what she can" to get things resolved.


Flash forward to Monday - I end up having to do something I don't like doing. Owner lady calls me and says that she can get the dress but it won't be here until the first week of August. This obviously won't work at all because my wedding is the 3rd weekend of August and that would leave me one week to get my alterations done AND my bridal portraits taken before I had to go back to school for work week. I end up having to yell at her (she wouldn't listen to the advice I was giving her) and ultimately when she kept saying "That's all I can do" I had to threaten her with a lawsuit (technically it was breach of contract). This is not fun - I hate conflict. I also hate people not doing their jobs and thinking they can get away with screwing someone over. I emailed the lady several options (if she could find a different size - I would take it and she could get it altered for me, etc) which she apparently FINALLY listened to and miraculously found my wedding dress in a size 4 (I ordered a size 6 originally) and it will be here next week. Yes, she did the "impossible" by just actually listening to her customer and doing her a little extra work
(aka: her job) and got the problem fixed.

I am very glad that things are fixed and my dress will be here next week, but needless to say I am VERY unhappy with the service (or lack thereof) that I received from this particular boutique.

With that being said, I am somehow WAY less stressed about the whole wedding process which I guess is a good thing considering I was having constant nightmares (literally every night) about stuff going wrong with the wedding. Maybe I got all that stuff over with now, or maybe I didn't, either way I am getting married to an amazing man on August 21st and that is the only thing that matters.

Nothing to blog about...

I have really been having the urge to blog lately, but when I think about it I feel like I don't really have anything interesting to share with everyone. A lot of my friends and fellow bloggers are doing amazing things right now (Alyson has started an awesome fashion/sewing blog, SB is blogging about her new cooking endeavors, other friends are blogging about pregnancy or kids) and I feel like the things that I am doing really aren't that interesting. Having said that- I will now blog about all of the uninteresting but "important-to-me" things I am doing right now - ha!

1. I found a wedding dress! Actually I found three and it was a super hard decision to make, but I finally made my decision and this past Thursday, my mother ordered my "dream dress" for me. Email or facebook if you want to see pics because I obviously can't put them on here for fear that Case might see.
2. I found bridesmaids dresses! They are from Jcrew and are freaking adorable. I have never shopped at Jcrew, but I found these in the magazine Southern Weddings and fell in love. Here is the picture from the magazine that inspired me to choose them.
They will be grey (like in the picture) and Casey and his groomsmen will be wearing grey suits with black ties also inspired from a photo in Southern Weddings:
I know the grey sounds very dreary and not very summer like, but our accent colors and flowers are so bright and cheery I thought having a basic, elegant color for bridesmaids would be perfect and also something that the girls will WANT to wear again!

3. We secured our photographer! I have been stalking Lauren Clark for about 4 years now and I am obsessed with her style of photography. If you are in need of a wedding/engagement photographer - I definitely recommend her. I know several people who have used her and absolutely love her.

4. My friend from high school, college, ZTA, and also a fellow CFISD teacher Jennifer moved in with us this month and Casey and I are loving having a room mate! Jennifer's fiance got transferred to San Antonio in December, so Jennifer had a tough decision to make- quit her 3rd grade teaching job mid December, or stay with us through January to finish up the 9 weeks. She obviously chose the latter and we are so excited to get to spend some time with her before she officially moves to SA. Yesterday she and I had a girls day where we went to Boot Camp at the Y at 7am, then came home and made breakfast, then got our nails done, then went to David's Bridal, then went to get a spray tan, then went shopping and FINALLY got home around 6. That's almost 12 hours of running errands, but we had a lot of fun hanging out. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking and took ZERO pictures while we were out. Probably a good thing since we had no makeup on and looked like spray tanned thugs in our loose clothes (couldnt mess up the spray tan!). Casey and I will be sad to see her go at the end of the month, but it was definitely fun having a room mate one last time.

5. My wonderfully talented next door neighbor, Krissy Alexander took our first round of engagement photos. You can catch a sneak peek on her website and on my facebook wall! We are so excited to see the whole collection. I will post some as soon as we get them!

6. I am back on Atkins and have already lost 3 lbs. As hard as it is to adhere to eating so few carbs or sugar, I have enjoyed feeling the way this diet makes me feel. I am also working out several times a week now and am SO sore from boot camp today. Seriously, more sore than I have ever been in my entire life. Today Jennifer and I are going to the Y to work out and then a yoga class at 4. I am so glad we are off tomorrow!!

7. I have stuck to most of my New Year's Resolutions, but one that I am really trying to stick to is cooking more and cooking more advanced meals. Lately I have made the following: pizza frittata (amazing), slow cooker mexican chili soup (also amazing), seasoned chicken thighs in the slow cooker (not that amazing, but still good), garlic chicken with sauteed spinach (my new signature dish- no recipe!), and tonight Jennifer and I are going to try to make SB's pesto chicken, asparagus, and sweet potato fries - yum! We can't wait!

Today is lazy Sunday and laundry day. Hopefully I will remember to take more pictures this week! That is my goal - someone please keep me honest!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Whoa baby is it ever cold in Houston Texas! I would have to say this is the coldest I have been since I was in Minot, North Dakota last March. Today it felt like it was 12 degrees here in balmy Houston and I was not a fan. Not only does my poor husband-to-be work outside all day, but I too had to brave the cold for bus duty- no bueno! Well the week is over and boy has it been a busy one! Here are some updates:

Monday: My dad moved in for the week- he just go a new job and is doing some traning down in Houston. It was really nice to have him around for an extended period of time!

Tuesday: Drove to Dallas with Jessica to try on my "dream dress" and what do ya know - it was AMAZING on!! I am 99.9% sure it is THE dress, but am still going dress shopping this weekend to make sure that there isn't anything out there that is more cost effective. Jess and I had a great time hanging out during the drive and we went to Pluckers (a wing restaurant) for lunch and it was SO good. Wish we had one of those in Houston! As we were sitting down to eat I was talking to my waiter about my friends Sarah DeLong and Andi Pope that work in Pluckers' corporate office in Austin and low and behold - Andi was standing right behind him! She's now the GM of that branch and loves it! She looked great and it was great catching up. The bad thing- she gave us a free fried twinkie sundae for dessert and my diet went out the window for that day. It was totally worth it though - fried twinkies are amazing!!

Tuesday evening my friend Jennifer Mawer moved in with us for the month! Jennifer and I went to high school together, college together, and were in the same sorority. Now we work at the same school district- we just can't get rid of each other! :) Jennifer will be living with Casey and I for the month of January because her fiance Carl got transferred to San Antonio for a job in December and she had to finish up part of her contract at Cy-Fair. I am thankful for the time we are getting to spend together! NOTE: I made Roasted Rosemary Chicken for dinner with roasted red bell peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli as a side. It was super yummy!

Wednesday: Back to school, Back to school! My first day back after being off for two and a half weeks went great and the kids were incredibly good all day long! I don't know what happened but I think someone stole my rowdy, mischievous class and replaced them with little angels!

Thursday: This is when the cold came and Casey and I (mainly Casey) had to do all kinds of the things around the house to get it ready for the freeze. Covering our brand new trees, wrapping the pipes - who knew having a house was so much work! For dinner: Baked Cheesy Pork Chops- amazing and super easy!

Friday: Here we are. It's super cold and Casey and I are about to snuggle up on the couch to wait for Leigh Anne to get here. Tomorrow she and I (along with Casey's mom and some friends) are going for my final dress shopping trip! Yay! Sunday we will be going to the George R. Brown for the BRIDAL EXTRAVAGANZA!!! Can't wait!!!