Goodness, the last two weeks in my hometown flew by! It was so nice to be back in the country, to see some of my friends from high school and talk about wedding plans and visit with my family. It was a nice break from work and it was actually kind-of relaxing to be back in my house in the country with no internet. But I was also oh-so busy! I barely had a spare moment.

I was home during the county fair, so it was nice to walk around, eat fair food, and watch the demo derby. I also helped my mom out with a craft fair booth for her bow business in one of the local towns around my hometown.



I met a wedding cake baker with yummy cakes to sample and passed out many of mine and Drew’s business cards while I was there as well! If you would like to order one of my mom’s bows or other products, send me an e-mail or you can visit her website, here. (We are still working on her online store, so you might have to e-mail her to order.)

I did lots of wedding planning and shopping while I was home and also went back to visit the winery where we are having the wedding to get better ideas for decoration and layout. (more wedding shopping from my trip in this post)

We celebrated my brother’s birthday while I was home, ate lots of food, got many more engagement congratulations at church on Sunday (since everyone had seen our announcement in the paper), visited with family, ate at all the local restaurants that we miss when in New Orleans, shopped, did wedding stuff, and relaxed and watched several movies. Drew and I both got haircuts, I went to the dentist, the doctor and the chiropractor (I pulled a muscle in my lower back), went to a strength training exercise class that my friend Tonya teaches (that was before and totally unrelated to my back injury), and also went to a wedding while I was home.

It was definitely a busy trip. It is so nice to be home and to be in the hills and the country again, but it is also nice to be back in New Orleans and in our apartment and have our suitcases all unpacked as well. There are definitely traces of our trip home in our apartment though:

Our fruit bowl is full of tomatoes from my parent’s garden.

The table is piled high with cucumbers from their garden as well.

The counter is covered with jars of freshly canned tomatoes and salsa from my older sister and her garden.

Our couch is much softer with the addition of our newly re-covered couch pillows by my mom, the lovely seamstress.

We got our lovely table here with no problems fitting into the car at all!

I love it! It is perfect for our foyer to function as a large desk for Drew and also as a dining table to seat at least 6 or so if we have company over. The only thing that I don’t like about it is:

It got scratched either being put into the car or while being lifted out of the car. However, with a little wood oil it should be fine. That is one of the reasons that I wanted a rustic/farmhouse table–so that if it did get scratched up over time, it would just look well worn and not completely ruined.

I’m excited to be back in our house and to get back to work on home DIY projects before school starts in a few weeks! Stay tuned for some house updates sometime soon! 🙂

I hope you all have had fabulous weekends! Mine has been busy!

I flew into Nashville last week to visit my older sister and my nieces. My nieces and I have been playing with lots of dolls (Barbies, Polly Pockets, Lalaloopsies and various other stuffed animals — to be exact) and having tea parties.

We went to the huge Nashville flea market and I bought a pretty, handmade, wooden, farmhouse type table for our foyer to use as Drew’s desk/larger dining room table if we have guests over. I love it! I can’t wait to see it in our house! (I’m a little worried about how we are going to fit it in Drew’s car to get it home though. The legs come off with bolts and I’m just hoping the top won’t be too big to fit in the back.)

This weekend my mom and my younger sisters came down as well. We did lots and lots of shopping! For clothes and shoes and house goods and back-to-school things. My mom even looked at new cars. The main goal of our weekend though was wedding shopping!

I tried on a wedding dress here in Nashville during spring break that I really loved. I’ve tried on others since then, but none that I liked as much as this one. I really wanted my mom and sisters to see it, so we made sure to stop by and try it on again. Which, speaking of places to try on dresses in the Nashville area, if you are around these parts and are looking for wedding dresses, you should totally stop by The White Room. All the people that work there are so nice and they have beautiful dresses. Anyway, I tried it on again and didn’t want to get out of it! It is the perfect color — a soft, antique, light champagne/off-white/almond/vanilla color with the most delicate lace and the prettiest subtle sparkle and shimmer. The best part is— that it is MINE! We ordered it!!!

Since we ordered it, they did allow us to take pictures of me in the gown, but no one had brought our cameras because we didn’t expect to be ordering it then. I did get a few on my phone, but they don’t really do the dress justice, so I’m weary of posting them. Here is a little sneak peek:

I’m getting more and more excited about the wedding the more things that we get marked off of our wedding to-do list. It is making the whole thing a little less stressful and a little more real. Ordering the dress wasn’t the only thing that we accomplished on the list this weekend either! We also bought the fabric for the bridesmaids dresses!

This picture definitely doesn’t do the bridesmaids’ fabric justice either. It is a creamy/gray linen fabric with a lovely texture. I’m so excited to see the dresses once they are done and paired with bright colored flower bouquets! I can’t wait for the wedding!!!

It is getting closer! We’ve got the date set, the venue booked, the photographer booked, we’ve talked to the caterer, we’ve ordered the dress, bought the fabric for the bridesmaids dresses—we are definitely getting closer! I’m excited to be getting down to the fun little creative details now that we have most of the big stuff out of the way!

If you’d like a better idea of what my overall vision/inspiration is for the wedding, check out my wedding board on Pinterest!

We made good use of our condo’s kitchen all week long eating-in, but we did go out one night. We stayed in Perdido Key, Florida but we drove over to Gulf Shores, Alabama to visit Lucy Buffett’s restaurant. (that is Jimmy Buffett’s sister for all you Jimmy Buffett fans out there)

It is quite the establishment. It is on a marina and hosts lots of activities. They have little gift shops, sand patches for kids to play on, several bands, tiki drink huts, the main restaurant and several other patio areas to eat at, and they have this huge jungle-gym-rope-climbing thing.

The jungle-gym-rope-climbing thing was covered with little kids, so I just assumed it was for little kids without paying much attention to what it actually was. Evie decided that she wanted to go (we had a long wait for a table) and since she was a couple inches too short, she had to be accompanied, so Blair decided to go with her. Jill and I decided, what-the-heck, we might as well join them too.

Little did I realize that it was a little scarier than I initially thought.

You were hanging from a rope thing, so it wasn’t like you were going to fall to the ground if you fell off the ropes, but I also didn’t want to fall off of them and just be hanging there from my harness waiting to be rescued.

Some of the obstacles were just a little rope you had to walk across while it was swinging back and forth.

They also really hurt your feet. I think it would have been better with tennis shoes instead of being barefoot.

I’m not really sure how all those little kids were jumping across everything so fast. They were fearless, I tell you.

Evie realized pretty quickly just what she had gotten herself into. I think she was a little freaked out.

I think she did enjoy it a little too. She made it across several of the courses and then went back down to hang out with Mimi, Pops, Kelsey and G.

She did go up pretty high though before she came down. She was really brave!

Blair came back up after dropping Evie off to finish the rest of the course.

All the while, G sat with Kelsey and watched from below. I’m not sure what she was eating here.

She is so cute! I bought the dress she is wearing for Evie when she was little.

Then of course we got called to our table while we were all up in the air.

I would say, in my opinion, that the night was definitely fun–spent with family in a fun atmosphere–but I wasn’t overly impressed with the food. I had grilled fish, and it tasted super rubbery and bland. Blair’s fish tacos were good though and so was mom’s Cheeseburger in Paradise. 🙂

Plus we ended up with the only group picture of us from the whole week. Look at that bunch. 🙂

Georgiana didn’t like the sand on vacation and wasn’t so sure about the crabbies, either. So what did she like? Well, from the likes of her crabby mood all week–not much. However, she did really seem to love the swimming pool. Seriously, this is the happiest that I saw that kid all week: (doesn’t she look so adorable in her little sunglasses?)

This picture cracks me up. She is intentionally going over to give Kelsey a big, wet hug. I love her little wet footprint trail across the patio.

I tried to get her to pause from her swimming for just a second for a quick photo op with aunt Cake. She obviously wasn’t having any of that.

Evie, of course, enjoyed herself as well:

Oh what happens when Mimi and the Aunts are in charge? On vacation specifically. We get hermit crabs of course!

My older brother, Blake, and I had hermit crabs when we were younger, so we knew a little bit about these little guys before we bought them.

However, with two little kids in tow, everything gets so much more entertaining.

Georgiana couldn’t really decide what she thought of them.

She liked watching them.

She was also quite curious about them.

Then she would decide she wanted to hold them like everyone else was doing.

But then she would kind-of freak out if you put it in her hand.

But once you put them back on the ground, she would act as if she wanted to pick them up.

Then she would get all wild on us and try to smash them with a jar lid. Or occasionally try to stomp them with her feet.

She laughed and seemed to be getting a kick out of it.

She would sit again and watch them more, but if they got too close she would shy away pretty quickly.

And make exasperated facial expressions.

She also pulled her legs up and away from where they were walking on the ground.

Jill tried to entice her into holding the “cabbies” (as G called them) but G just gave Jill crazy looks.

Although I don’t blame her. If Jill was looking at me with this same look, I might give her a crazy look back too. 😉

Evie, of course, was super excited about her new pets. Since chickens and a fish are the only other pets she’s ever had.

Evie even tried to get G to hold the little crabbies as well.

G returned the favor by promptly returning the crab to her sister.

Then she pouted as if this was all too much trauma for her to handle.

And she went on to find something else to play with.

But don’t let her fool you into thinking that she didn’t have a good time. She even showed us her toothy smile.

Since I didn’t make an appearance above, here is a shot that shows pretty much what I looked like the whole time. A little behind-the-scenes peek.

In case you wanted to know what a hermit crab looks like as it is coming out from hiding in its shell, this is for you: (if you scroll down real fast it kind-of looks like one of those moving flip-book things)

I think that’s probably more than enough of our hermit crab adventures.

I’ve been parasailing multiple times. I went once in Panama City Beach, Florida with my dad when I was like 10 or so. I went again in Gulf Shores, Alabama when I was 12 with my little sister Jillian (who was 7 at the time) and again with in Perdido Key, Florida with Jacky, our foreign exchange student from Germany we hosted my junior year of high school. That time I was 16 or 17.

Every time I’ve been, I’ve found it to be relatively relaxing. You are secured well, so you don’t really feel like you are going to fall and you are up high enough that it is relatively quiet all around and you can just see out over the ocean and the shoreline and it is all really pretty. One time I went right before sunset and that was really neat to see from so far up.

That isn’t to say I’ve never had issues surrounding my parasailing adventures. The time that I went with Jill, my mom, dad, and Kelsey also went out on the boat with us to watch. We all had to wade out into the water (My mom and dad had worn their clothes and got soaking wet) to get on this little raft-boat thing. It was similar to those inflatable like banana boats that they give rides on at the beach. We rode that out farther into the water to meet the real boat that we were going parasailing on. However, in order to get on the real boat, we had to each stand on the wet, slippery, flexible, pool-raft type sides of the little boat and climb into the bigger boat. The whole time waves were crashing between the two driving them farther apart from each other. It really is a horrible way for the parasailing people to operate. It is much more difficult than it sounds. Long story short, my whole family got into the bigger boat and when it came time for me to get in, a huge wave came crashing between the two boats and I fell off and into the big blue ocean. Luckily I could swim and had a lifejacket on anyway. I swam up and then had to try the whole thing again and luckily made it into the big boat the second time. Then I decided to let the same idiot workers fly me hundreds of feet in the air behind their boat. Lovely.

Anyway, I figured that after parasailing those 3 times, my parasailing days were probably over. I had done it and had no real interest of doing it again.

This year on our vacation Kelsey decided that she wanted to go because she had never been before. Jill of course offered to go with her. Dad made the arrangements for them to go and then talked me into riding on the boat with them so that I could take pictures. We all went down to the parasailing place (a booth on the beach) and once we got there, dad realized that it would be the same price to send us all three parasailing as it would be to just send Kelsey and Jill and then pay extra for me to go ride on the boat. Plus they offered to take pictures with a nice camera for you. So what did I do? I went parasailing again.

This time was oh-so-similar to the method used in my previous parasailing story, although this time we did in fact ride out on banana boats. We had to do the same boat-jumping technique and luckily no one fell into the water this time. We got out there and went out for a sail and it was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done in my life. Never go parasailing with 3 people. We were incredibly smashed together with Jill in the front and Kelsey and I in the back. Jill seemed to have plenty of room, but Kelsey and I couldn’t even sit up straight. We had to lean slightly backwards the whole time and my back and ribcage still ache from the whole experience. Plus the wind kept swinging Jill back and forth in front of me, rubbing her scratchy harness thing all down my leg every time. My legs were all red and scratched up when I got off.

In addition to the uncomfortable position we were in, we were incredibly close to the shore. Like half the time we were floating over land instead of over the water. I had never done that before when parasailing, so it freaked me out a little.

Not only were we close to the shore, but we were also close to the ground. It was a windy day so instead of the length of rope taking us higher up in the air vertically, it really only took us farther out away from the boat horizontally.  Therefore we were close enough to the people swimming along the beach that we had time for a nice little chat with them from the air. We got close enough that I thought we might just knock a few people over. There was this one little boy who started running away from us because he though we might land on him. Then they dipped us in the water. We were in shallow enough water that we could have stood up.

They told us that it would only be a 7-9 minute ride so we were praying for them to pull us in soon. I don’t know how much longer I could have held myself in that ridiculously uncomfortable position. Although it seemed like we were in the air forever and that they didn’t have any intent to bring us in anytime soon. Again which made me worry. Why had we been in the air so long? Were they having problems and they couldn’t reel us in? I guarantee we were in the air for at least 20 minutes. Finally they did bring us in, thank goodness. We found out when we got back that Dad had talked them into giving us a longer ride since there wasn’t anyone else waiting to go.

It was definitely a unique experience, although I think I would have preferred a more relaxing one instead. I don’t think I have any desire to want to parasail again. I think 4 times in my life has been plenty.

I’m back in New Orleans now, but I still have lots to share with you from our family vacation last week. It was such a nice time and it was fun to get to spend time with my sisters and nieces.

Here are some of the views from our condo:

The majority of our time we spent at the beach. Swimming, Floating on rafts, laying out to tan, collecting shells, building sandcastles, you know, pretty much your typical beach activities.

Dad was the only one I managed to get a picture of in the water.

It is so much more fun on the beach when you have kids with you. It makes collecting shells and building sandcastles much more fun. Evie had a blast!

Doesn’t she look so grown up in these pictures?! I can’t believe that baby is 6! Aunt Cake is getting old!

I had to get Jill to show off her shells too. Although I think that Evie actually collected these and just gave them to Jill to hold for safekeeping.

Fishie kisses! Perfect for a day on the ocean!

Silly girls. 🙂

And of course, no vacation would be complete without a day at the beach ending in snow cones (or snowballs as they are called in New Orleans). We walked to the snowball shop from the beach, that is why Evie still has her floaties on. 🙂

Georgiana did go to the beach the first day and seemed to enjoy it, although she wasn’t too crazy about the sand. She didn’t feel good most of the week, so she was in the condo most of the time. Blair and Mimi tried to take her down to the beach again, but she got this far down the walkway, saw the sand that lay ahead and sat down and refused to go any farther. Haha 🙂

Hope you all had a lovely week as well!

 

 

It has been a few days, my friends. I’ve had so much to share with y’all, but not the time to do it. I’ve been (and still am) on vacation! It has been nice, but still overwhelmingly busy! I left New Orleans to head to Nashville to visit with my older sister and nieces for Memorial Day weekend, then headed up to my southern Illinois home for the week to visit with the rest of my family and work on wedding planning. Last weekend, my parents, little sisters and I all drove down to New Orleans, part of us in my mom’s van and part of us in my car, to take my car to New Orleans! I’ve been without it there for the past two years! It will be nice to actually be able to go places on my own now! After staying there for the night and doing some quick shopping with my sisters, we all got into my mom’s van and headed over to Florida! Blair and my nieces headed down from Nashville too, so we are all enjoying the sand, the surf and the sun this week. In fact, I’m sitting on the balcony of our condo listening to the waves crash and enjoying the beautiful view of the ocean as I type. 🙂

Although this post isn’t to talk about the ocean (I’ll fill you in on that later). Let’s go back to last week and the busy week of wedding planning that I had.

One of the most important things when it comes to wedding planning is figuring out where you are going to hold the shindig. When it comes to our wedding, we’d thought long and hard about this. My real dream was to have a backyard wedding. Although, my backyard could use a lot of work to get it into prime wedding shape. Plus, we weren’t sure where to park people, if the yard would be too muddy at that time of year, and where would we put people if it is pouring down rain? All of those being slightly large problems when it comes to creating a low-level of stress on your wedding day. It was going to be too much work and stress to try to go that direction with the wedding. We also considered just having the ceremony there and having the reception elsewhere, but I didn’t really want people to have to drive to separate places for both. I thought it would be easier and more relaxing to hold all the festivities in one location. Plus we would still encounter the same issues of rain/mud/parking/etc. at home just for the ceremony. And have to find somewhere we liked for the reception and decorate that too.

So…we moved on to a new plan. We tried to think of any places close to home that have pretty outdoors and then indoor areas for the reception to be held. That is when it hit us. (Cue in title) Southern Illinois is slightly becoming famous for its abundance of vineyards and wineries! They would have pretty, manicured grounds outside (that someone else would be responsible for keeping in shape) and also indoor buildings and also outdoor areas that are specifically for events and special occasions! How perfect!

That idea began a string of craziness to try to head to as many of the closest wineries as we could in the few short days that I was at home. My mom, my older brother, Blake, and I all set out on this quest. We made it to 7 or 8 or so of them, all roughly within an hour or so of my house. (We barely scratched the surface of the wineries in southern IL though, the more we went to, the more of them we realized there were. I think there must be at least 30 or so in Southern Illinois!)

Of the ones that we visited, several were too small for the wedding (as far as the indoor area goes) or had pretty vineyards, but not really much more than grapevines. One we saw and liked, but it was way too over-commercialized and expensive. I wanted something a little more simple, but still pretty and with a pretty view out over the outside. Only one of the ones we saw really fit this bill and it actually happened to be the first one that we went and looked at.

Bella Terra Winery. It means “beautiful land” in Italian.

Want a tour of the place? Good. Here we go:

Here is the view as you drive up. There are rows of grapevines on the right side and pretty views over the hills on the left side. Along with a pretty white fence.

White fence and hill views.

You drive up, pass the building on the grounds and park in front of this pond.

Here is the building on the grounds. Pretty on the outside with a nice columned wrap around patio/porch.

The porch/patio on the side has a view over the pond in the back.

There is also a nice sized two part deck on the side in front of the pond.

There is also a built-in bocce ball court. Although I have no clue how to play bocce ball.

The front patio/porch is pretty big.

Looking back at the front of the building, there are pretty doors that open into the inside.

The views out the front are really pretty.

There is a white pergola with plenty of space for seating and entrance of the wedding party down the aisle directly from inside the building.

With really pretty views behind the pergola.

A view of the hills to one side.

Views of the grapevines on the other.

Walking through the grapevines is pretty too.

The grapes all neatly in pretty little rows.

The outside was exactly what I wanted. Beautiful. Loved the white fence, the views, the hills, the pergola, everything. Although everything has a few downsides. In this case, it was the smallish inside of the building and its not-so-pretty decor.

It does only seat about 120 people inside. (and we currently have many more than that on our guest list) However, it does have additional seating outside on the porches and decks, so we should be fine, unless it pours down rain. They also didn’t have our original date that we picked available. So we had to move the date to June 2, 2012, the next weekend. But as Bob pointed out, 6×2=12, so an anniversary date of 6-2-12 should be easy to remember.

Anyway, we had to act fast if we wanted to reserve the place, so after thinking it over and weighing all the options, we went for it! We reserved it and set our date for June 2, 2012! Yay! We know where we are getting married! Now it is so much easier to know that the date is officially official and we can move on to caterers, photographers, decorations and whatnot! (All of which I did talk to and research last week as well–in addition to wedding dress shopping!)

Today was my last day of my art history class. I’m really going to miss it. I’ve really developed a love for ancient art history, especially the architecture. I’m fascinated by the amazing things that people were able to build without any kind of fancy modern technology or huge machinery to aid them. The intricacy and detail is astounding. I particularly like the patterns and little embellishments that they use. I could go on and on about art history and all that amazes me for days, so I’ll stop here.

The last time period that we discussed in this class was Gothic Art and Architecture. Lately I have really been in love with the Gothic rose window patterns that adorn almost every Gothic cathedral. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is an example of the Notre Dame in Paris (with my 17 year old self in front of it):

See the really pretty round window in the middle? I’m in love with these. They are on all kinds of ancient buildings, but this is just one that I happen to already have pictures of. They are even prettier on the inside, because they are completely filled in with stained glass:

Sorry, I had a crappy camera at the time, so these pictures aren’t the best. Here is another one on the other side of the Notre Dame:

In one of my inspiration posts a while back, I wrote about an Etsy Shop that sold these rose window prints. I really, really want one, but there aren’t any in their shop. I e-mailed to ask if I could get one, but I still haven’t heard back from them. This is what I’m talking about:

The other day Drew and I were in Restoration Hardware and I saw this matelasse/quilt/coverlet in AMAZING Belgian Linen in the most perfect brownish grey color with a rose window pattern on it:

I fell in love. Immediately. I pondered and looked and touched and had the salesman get out the packages and almost went to the sales counter with them. They were even on sale. But they were still WAY expensive for my budget. 🙁

I can’t get them out of my head though. I know I can find other, less expensive bedding for the bedroom in the new house, but I really, really love the rose window pattern on this! (and the color and the texture and the grain lines of the linen…Ahhh!)

So there you have it. My obsession with rose window patterns.

 

I’m a list person. I make lists for everything. What to do today, what do do this week, things I want to do, places I want to go, I have lots of lists.

Today I was reading this blog post and it got me thinking about the list of all the places that I want to travel in life. Luckily, my family has always valued travel and we always went on summer family vacations and my dad has traveled all over the world. Travel is generally considered a luxury, but I also think it is a necessity. I think it is overwhelmingly important to see different parts of the world and see how people do things and how everything is so much different in the world from what you think you really know. This post describes it well. It is all about seeing the world in new ways and opening your mind to other things.

I’ve traveled many places in the U.S. and also one trip to Europe–France mainly but also a small part of Germany and a short excursion (like 4 hours to be exact) into Belgium. I wouldn’t at all call this extensive travel, but for a 19 year old, I wouldn’t call it bad either. I think that my trip to Europe was really crucial to helping me see things the way I do, to open my mind, to appreciate the things and opportunities that I have, to see how other people live, to break the barrier in my mind between the U.S. and “the rest of the world” out there, to help me survive on my own, and about a million other things. I couldn’t be more grateful. I really learned a lot that summer, and not only about the historic landmarks of Paris. I really hope that in my life I get to see a lot of other places and learn from them as well.

What places would you like to visit? (Comment and list the first ten places that come to your mind that you would like to see)

Here are some places I would like to go and things I would like to see (in no particular order):

-Visit the Alps in Switzerland (I would say ski, but we all know that I am beyond horrible at that! I fell off the ski lift the last time I went. I don’t really want to take my chances on a real mountainside)
-sing on a hilltop in Austria (i.e. The Sound of Music, haha)
-see art in Greece
-see art in Florence, Venice, and visit lots of other cities in Italy
-visit Kristine in Denmark
-visit Jacky in Germany
-tour southern France
-visit historic churches and mosques in Turkey & Russia
-see the pyramids in Egypt
-take Drew to a cafe in Paris and show him all the places that Anne-Nelly showed me 🙂

I’m sure there are a million more, but that is the first 10 that popped into my head! Sorry that they aren’t so creative, they are pretty typical destinations and almost all in Europe really, but you have to start somewhere!

In addition to travel lists, I also read several blog posts today about life lists. Here and here. I think that they are so cool and I would love to come up with 100 things that I want to do before I die. I just can’t seem to write many things down because I’m so afraid that I won’t get them done! But I guess it isn’t about the end goal, it is life in the process that counts.

Several months ago, I made a list of creative goals that I wanted to accomplish and I’m still working on that list. You can read it, here. I’m also still working on my 20 Before Twenty list! It is going pretty well actually! I’ve gotten most of my list done so far! I’ll give an update on it soon!

Remember to leave me a comment with your top ten travel dreams and places that you’ve visited and what you learned from being there! I’d love to hear about your travels! 🙂