Boys will be boys

Before I post about the girls getting ready I figured I'd post the few pics the boys took getting ready. I'm sure their morning was quite relaxing with the egg casserole I left them for breakfast along with cinnamon buns. According to Luke he didn't sleep very well and was up kind of early. They ate and chilled around the house. Then they went over to the hotel around 2:30 to get dressed for the wedding. Look at that tough guy ready to get married. Luke said he waited til about 1:30 before showering and shaving so he'd have a smooth face and smell good. In the background you see Greg on the phone. He's talking to Dani who is telling him to stall Luke from getting to Jack's Place so he doesn't see me (we're running about 15 minutes behind what we originally planned, but it doesn't affect any part of the wedding).The boys pose for a few pics outside the hotel. Here Luke is with "his boys" and his brother, grandpa and dad.
I like to think Luke is thinking, "do you smell me now?" I'm glad he was having some fun and was so relaxed.

Wedding Morning...

The day of the wedding I sort of woke up on my own around 7:30 and rolled over to find Dani on the floor with her phone out. She then cursed since my mom beat her to putting up a "happy wedding day" post on Facebook. My mom purposely sat at her computer and waited til midnight so she could be the first post. We went downstairs to have breakfast and then got dressed to drop off welcome baskets to the hotel, more decorations/food at Jack's Place. While eating breakfast my dad comes down and receives specific instructions from my sister on how to cut the fruit for the tarts and how to help with placing the cut fruit. We return from dropping things off and head back out to get our hair done. While getting our hair done we have a few margaritas, order a pizza for lunch and play name that Disney song trivia. Here is a picture of my hair while it is "setting," and then after:
While we took turns having our hair set and then styled Sydney painted our nails. Here she is getting her hair sprayed in place.We were a bit late arriving due to some construction/traffic so we were a bit later than we planned on leaving the hair place. I still think that I would have been able to make the 5k race that I wanted to with Dani and still get my hair done nice before the wedding. Dani is great, she brought her running shoes with her just incase we went and raced. Oh well, the running shoes still got used (more on that later).Group shot:

Before the Wedding...

A lot went on the night before the wedding. Dani and Greg arrived in town. When Dani called to see if she should go to my mom's to meet up with me or Manfriends house she was disappointed to hear I was still cooking up food and hadn't left for my mom's yet. This perked Greg up in the car and he started picking tunes on the ipod and getting excited. Until the phone call he'd been sleeping. Dani and Greg arrive at our house around 4:00, where Greg promptly decides that he will stay since we have a pool table, M & M's and beer. According to Dani he opened that beer so fast so he'd have no choice but to stay and finish it. The boys had a fun evening filled with eating the bbq pork tenderloin I'd cooked up and playing games in the basement. I left my camera with the boys... hence the lack of photo taking. Meanwhile, at my mom's Dani and I leave Jen in the kitchen making tarts and go to dinner at TC Hooligans East Side Grill. My mom calls from a bar with her friends and wants to know where we are so we can meet at her house and drop off things to the golf course. We leave and spend almost an hour at the house waiting for her. She was stuck in traffic, even her extreme knowledge of back roads couldn't help her if there wasn't a road to take.
After dropping off some of the goods at the golf course we need more sixlet things for the glass slippers. I still haven't found a necklace to wear and apparently I needed one. It's now almost 9pm so Miss D and I head over to Kohls to find... NOTHING. We even looked at little kid necklaces knowing I could put it on my own chain. As a last ditch effort we headed across the parking lot to Target where we found a necklace/earring set that wasn't there a few days ago that matches my engagement ring details perfectly. It is now 9:40 the night before the wedding and I finally have jewelry for the wedding.
Back at the house the boys are playing pool, throwing back a few beers and just relaxing.
Back at my mom's my sister is baking and my mom is working on the button-ears (pinwheels with mickey buttons) for the boys. She won't let me help cause I might burn myself on the hot glue gun. I avoid the kitchen cause we don't need burnt tarts or a cranky Jen with me in her kitchen space. Dani and I go to bed at about 10:30 and sleep through the night. We don't even hear my dad come home from work. My mom and sister go to bed sometime around 1am (or later and they just don't want to tell me).

Cinder's Big Adventure

After a busy weekend of Jen flying in from Colorado for Harborfest and us taking her back to the airport we arrived home around 2 pm to find... no cat. Cinder Ella was nowhere to be found and had not touched her food. I started to panic. She had escaped while packing up the car for the weekend, that little sneak. Tears and more panic from me. She is my baby and there are wild critters in the area that EAT cats. She had been outside since Friday afternoon and here it is Sunday afternoon.
Luke and I wandered around the house checking for her or a sign that she'd been there. We walked down the street sort of behind us that is yet to be built to find a coyote home (eeek!).
We put up Missing Cat signs with her name and picture. Lime green duct tape and a cute critter should get some attention.
We drove out to Lollypop farm to see if she was found and turned in there. Before leaving we left our external garage door open enough that she could push it open. At Lollypop there were a few that looked like her but weren't Cinders. Luke was great through all of it and really thought we should have taken a cute 1 year old cat Mia home so when we found our baby she'd have a friend. Mia was lounging and perked up when we walked by, all the other cats didn't even notice us, maybe that's why he thought Mia was Cinders.
We came home and found a toad in the garage. Continuing the search for Cinder Ella my folks came over and started helping to ask neighbors if they'd seen her. One neighbor was like, "oh, that cat she walks on a leash?" Yup, that's the cat. "Cinder Ella, Cinder Ella, mrroow, mrowww, mroww..." She comes running when I make that noise. After circling the neighborhood for what seemed like the millionth time Luke went back to filling out forms online for a missing pet in the area and searching the newspaper lost and found section. I sat out back calling towards the wooded area hoping she'd come bounding out. I put up an ad on Craigslist.
Mom and Dad went home. There wasn't much they could do that we weren't already doing. They still had trash in the back of the pick-up truck. My phone range with a number I didn't recognize at 10. "Are you the one who put put up fliers for a missing cat?" I tried to contain my excitement. "My daughter has a suggestion that you put out some food or a toy so she knows it's her house." I thanked him for the suggestion and for calling. I slumped onto the couch with more tears. There was a plate of food on the back steps and the open garage door. My poor baby.
Around 11pm (only the 9 horrible hours that I knew she was missing for) I called out the front window for her then on a whim opened the interior garage door. A scared Cinder Ella crept around the corner and walked slowly into the house. She was scared, hungry and thirsty. Other than some seeds stuck to her fur and quite a bit of dirt she was ok. A slight purr. She scarfed some food and then puked from eating too much, too soon.
We are happy to report that she is back to her cuddly, purring self and we are happy that she is home safe and sound.

That Critter

Unloading the car with all the goodies from the wonderful tea party filled a large chunk of the kitchen. Cinders is quite the curious kitty cat. She had to stick her nose into everything. It took me most of the afternoon to unpack and put away the items, but all are very useful and have a spot where I can access them quickly. No top shelf in the basement. Apparently Cinder sniffed out something that needed a closer look. Thanks Skippy's for the cat nip spray. Really cat? Where exactly did you think you were going?

The Un-Bridal Shower

I wanted a fun bridal shower so I requested that my sister have a mad hatter theme party. It was awesome. She did so much work and shipped my mom boxes of decorations for the shower. She even *bought* the Alice in Wonderland DVD and took notes on it to make sure she got it right. Flying into town the day before the shower she spend the day making food and putting finishing touches on the decorations. Most of the decor was hot pink and lime green. Jen even made fascinators for the bridal party and a few of my relatives even showed up with those fancy hat things. Here is my Grandma Pearl showing off hers. Luke and I received many items for our house, but apparently I was the most excited about toilet paper... I mean look at that grin on my face. Jen, in addition to helping host and put together a wonderful tea party at my Aunt's house made me a wreath complete with hidden Mickey's for the door (apparently the glittery wreath from Christmas wasn't going to cut it in June).
The photos in this post are from Jen's mother in law. Jen also wrote about the tea party... here is a link to her blog to check out her perspective

Long Time...

Well, I know it's been a long time since my last post. A lot has happened since then. First of all let's just say that I was working as a long term sub and coaching track... super busy days plus my own running meant no time for such entertaining things as posting a blog update for my sister to read.

Somewhere in there (Memorial Day weekend) my best friend Miss Dani and her fiance Greg surprised me at the cottage. They had been planning it for a while with my parents and Luke. I had no clue and just thought Luke wanted to get out of the house after being there all day while I was at a track meet.
She decided that I needed a bachelorette party (with the boys of course) since she wouldn't be seeing me until the day before the wedding. Out in the yard was a princess castle pinata filled with chewy candy and plastic vodka bottles. I managed to break one from smacking the sucker so hard. (Later when I read the directions it was a pull the strings pinata and one opens the candy door)
We had a fun weekend catching up and just relaxing. Don't worry, none of the vodka bottles were damaged in the burning of the castle.