January Wedding

It was a beautiful, amazing, Pinterest-inspired wedding. 

It just happened tonight, so I can't post much, but here's a preview. 

A lot of hard work by a lot of fabulous people made everything exactly as I'd pictured.

I love my wonderful husband, both our loving families,

 and all of our friends.

Can you tell I'm practically floating?

And tomorrow? Honeymoon in the mountains!

Seagrove Beach: A Vacation Story

 

We arrived last week at our condo in Seagrove Beach to see this sign outside the door, which set an excellent tone for the week: "May your time be filled with relaxing sunsets, cool drinks, and sand between your toes."

Our first meal was at Pizza By the Sea in Watercolor, a slight misnomer given that it is actually several miles from the ocean. The restaurant is located in a nondescript Publix shopping center strip. That makes it all the more delightful when you walk in and discover the cool environment they've created, replete with customer-decorated pizza pans on the walls and old-fashioned glass bottle sodas lining the counter.

We made it to the beach at Seagrove the next day, where my fiance's son decided being buried in the sand was what he needed to do. My cousin's son was pleased to oblige, and quickly covered him up. This lasted approximately 5.2 seconds (long enough for the picture to be made) before he broke free.

On our third day, my dad, fiance, and cousin went deep sea fishing on the Blue Runner II  out of Destin's Fisherman's Wharf. They caught a shark. No seriously -- that almost 9' shark above was that close to their hands.

That evening, we went to Joe's Crab Shack in Destin, where the waiters performed several dances, including Cupid's Shuffle. Yes, it's a chain restaurant, but oh-so-fun, especially with kids along. They have one in Nashville, but nothing beats fresh seafood at a Joe's location near the ocean. My favorite was the one on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, but it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Later in the week we had brunch at Another Broken Egg Cafe in Grayton Beach. They serve breakfast and brunch, with several specialty dishes. For example, the blackberry grits (above left), which were amazing. On the right is my platter, called The Castine -- country potatoes then a toasted croissant topped with asparagus, ham, mushrooms, two poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. It was to die for.

Later that night, the young adults in our family went out for a few hours to listen to some live music. We left the grandparents and GiGi (my grandmother, but the smaller kids' great-grandmother) in charge of the kiddos. Our first stop was the Red Bar in Grayton Beach where we listened to (loud) jazz, followed by a stop at Shorty's Surfside and Topside (for quieter conversation), and finally a little bit of dancing at Pandora's.

We made a trip to the Okaloosa Island Pier the next day. My fiance went twice to fish, and the rest of us joined him on the second trip. These birds were all over the pier, just waiting for people to toss them a spare fish. The pier goes a quarter mile into the ocean, and we spotted schools of fish, porpoises, and a barracuda.

The last day before we left, we did an impromptu photo session on the beach. Here my fiance is playing photographer, as my mom takes a picture of him.

We took family shots, like this one of my dad, me, and my mom.

A couple of lovey-dovey shots (that's required, right?) of me and my fiance (and his son in the top photo).

And some father/ son pictures, as well.

We also did the requisite writing-our-names-in-sand photos, of which I think the bottom one is adorable.

As we drove homeward across the Clyde B. Wells Bridge which spans the Choctawhatchee Bay, this was our view -- one last photo op for our vacation.

I am now rested and relaxed and looking forward to my next big trip this summer -- Tanzania, Africa in July. I'll be visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and this little guy. I can hardly wait! Can you blame me?

Photo Extravaganza: Baby Showers & Fundraising to Fight Cancer

I've talked a couple of times about being busy, something that's new to no one, I realize. My May and June (so far) were extraordinarily busy. I wanted to share some photos of what has been going on in my life lately.

To begin, the first baby shower I co-hosted this spring. (That's right... I said "first". Both of my aunt's daughters-in-law are pregnant and due in July!) On the first Sunday in May, we had a beautiful baby shower to celebrate baby Chloe Marie.

 

From the right: my co-host Julia, mommy-to-be Lisa, and me. I made the stuffed owl, and Julia made the beautiful painting. We used invitations from the Etsy shop UrbanFormality's Hayley Baby Shower Invite. If you've never had someone create personalized invitations and printed your own, I highly suggest doing so! Etsy is full of things that match the Hayley pattern from Pottery Barn.

 

Cupcakes with personalized toppers Julia made and owls I created from 3EyedBear.com's printable and foldable patterns.

Diaper cake with scrapbook paper owl, birds, and butterfly I made based on Pottery Barn's Hayley bedding.

Water bottle labels Julia created to match the Hayley theme that say "awaiting the arrival of Chloe Marie." So cute!

 Chloe's gift table with the ribbon holder Julia painted and a card tree with painted clothespins and more of the scrapbook paper owls, birds, and butterflies for decoration. My mom made the tree by spray painting a tree limb and securing it in a clay flower pot, then we pinned the cards people brought to the branches.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This past weekend, we celebrated a baby boy with a shower for baby Levi Taylor. His nursery will be red and blue. We used those colors with jungle animals for the shower, primarily elephants. For invites we used the Etsy shop That Girl Designs. She was amazing, doing both personalized Elephant Baby Shower invitations and a custom order of cupcake toppers.

From the left: my co-host (yes, for this shower, too!) Julia, mommy-to-be Ashleigh, and me in front of another amazing painting that Julia did for baby Levi.

The tables were decorated with white lanterns Julia had, metal buckets of peanuts, and paper blocks Julia created with the cupcake topper design.

 The food table with another awesome painting Julia created. This one featured a lion and the Bible verse from Proverbs 22:6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

Cupcake toppers I printed using the customized order That Girl Designs did for us. I especially love the "Oh boy!" ones.

Little Levi also had water bottle labels created for him by Julia, also using the cupcake topper pattern from That Girl Designs.

And baby Levi (of course) got a diaper cake made by me with a Garanimals stuffed giraffe and monkey and elephant rattles attached.

As you can tell, we are very excited about the arrival of these little ones! We wanted to make sure they were welcomed properly into the world, and I hope these showers did so.

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Finally, the other event that drew my attention away from reading and blogging was participating in the American Cancer Society's fundraiser Relay For Life. Relay happens in communities all over the world during the spring and summer months. It is the largest fundraising event for ACS.

My town's Relay is particularly dear to my heart because my aunt (the one who is expecting two new grandbabies this summer) was one of the original founders of the event in Warren County. Cancer is a disease that affects every family and group of friends.

I served on WC's Relay committee for a few years, but this year I decided we needed a team at the school where I teach. An amazing team full of hardworking teachers (and a couple of students) helped raise $2,200 in our first year to participate. I am thrilled with this, and I'm already thinking ahead to next year! 

This past weekend was the weekend of Relay.

Our Relay booth, the Eastside Sweet Court. We used decorations left over from the 8th grade formal dance, which worked perfectly with our sweet goodies for sale.

Speaking of goodies, here is a closer photo of what we had for sale: strawberry shortcakes (homemade by my mom), an array of cookies baked by team members, and mini bundt cakes created by teacher Leigh Hillis. All were amazing!

My mom and I in front of our booth. She was an amazing help to me, especially given that she teaches at a different elementary school in our town and wasn't even officially on our team! 

And finally, the reason we Relay. During the night, a luminaria ceremony interrupts the fun to remind us why we're at Relay. On one set of bleachers, white paper bags spelled out H-O-P-E. When the lights go out for the reading of names of survivors and those who lost their battle with cancer, the bags are lit by candles. This year, HOPE changed to CURE when the lights went out. An amazing reminder for us all.

Tomorrow, I'll be back with book reviews and posts about reading. This week look for a review of Michael Koryta's newest novel The Ridge, a Book News post with a special section on the YA controversy that has been ongoing this past week, and a special summer reading post.

Campus Photography

In my Tuesday night class at Tennessee Tech, we are learning about technology... I have to say, the "classroom" technology has come a long way from when I took my first keyboarding class in elementary school. Back then, we had a typing program and the Oregon Trail! In the class I'm taking now, we have done everything from make music with Garageband to edit photos with iPhoto to chat with classmates via iChat's video chat, which looks so good it could be a live feed.

Tonight we did the iPhoto thing, taking our own snapshots from digital cameras checked out from the Education Department's Learning Resource Center. We had 30 minutes or so to walk around campus and snap pictures, then we had some additional time to edit the photos with various methods discussed in class. Finally, we made our photos into a slideshow complete with music. Each person was supposed to pick a theme, which wasn't as easy as it sounds... given that it was dark outside, we had a limited list to choose from.

Some of my classmates were pretty creative with their photo montages, looking outside the box and focusing on themes like "Roadtrip" and "Time and Space." My theme was much more simple... I focused more on trying to take pictures I liked, and editing them in a way I liked, as well. My "theme" is one word -- See if you can guess it :) Here is the photo slideshow I took (with music which I love, but which doesn't necessarily make much sense... Allison Krauss's "You Will Be My Ain True Love" from the Cold Mountain soundtrack):