my amazing bridal shower.

I have some pretty amazing family members. When Thomas and I got engaged a part of me was really sad that I lived so far away from my family that I wasn’t going to be able to share in their joy and celebrate right there with them while we planned the wedding. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

My bridal shower from my Aunties and my Maid of Honor was truly an act of love. They pour so much detail and time into making a day all about Thomas and I that have a hard time even expressing how grateful I am that their in my life. 

Not only did I feel so loved by my wonderful hostess but by so many of my friends and family who showed up and even made the trip to Denver so that we could all celebrate together.

Looking back on my shower I’m still just so overwhelmed by how much love I felt from each and every person there. I’m so lucky to be apart of this family. 

    

I wouldn't trade them for the world. 

our wedding invitations.

Now that all our invitations are out and in the hands of our guest I can finally share all the details! Well not all of them because I'm sure I would bore you with my new found love for fonts! Who would have figured that one out?
This was fun. There might have been some rough patches in the mix but overall I loved making our wedding invitations. The map of course is easily my favorite.

I had a few moments where Thomas looked at me like I was a bit crazy.. for example the printer. We sure bonded during this experience and all in all she did well and didn't fail me, (although I killed the yellow ink prettttttty fast) but we had some margin issues. It caused me to not only babysit and fed the printer one by one, but then I went back and trimmed both the invitations and the maps once they were printed (this would be the moments when Thomas looked at me like I was crazy, until I showed him the side by side comparison, there's truth in those pesky details).

Surprisingly I found it oddly therapeutic.  

And I mean, come on.. they look so much better with out that 1/4 of a inch on the top. 

 

It took a good couple of weeks for me to cut all the paper and print everything off-- I did it all in hour spurts after work and on the weekends. It was during this time that I realized I had no idea how I was going to compile them all. Lucky for me I have a mama and some friends to bounce some ideas off of and I landed on the grey envelops and the pretty flower paper that I love so much. My friend Lara came up with the sticker idea which was perfect and gave it that pop of yellow I wanted. They turned into pretty little packages for all our guests to open and I love that. 

Last weekend I dragged all my paper goods up to Ohio and we sat at the table and wrapped our pretty invitations. I really didn't think it was going to take all that long, but it ended up taking us a good chunk of time! And we were all soooo happy that I didn't go with my mama's idea of tissue paper.. oof. 

Here they all are stamped and ready to go! 

It felt weird just leaving them all. I had spend so many evenings and hours working on them that I was (and still am) oddly attached to them.. ha. It was a lot of fun and thanks to Pinterest I did add some fun addresses to the mix.. including: The President and The First Lady, along with Cinderella and Prince Charming. :) Here's hoping we get something fun!! 

a girls weekend.

Sometimes a girl's weekend is all you need. A perfect worry-free, care-free weekend with some lovely ladies. My bachelorette weekend over the fourth was so perfect. It was a weekend filled...

with firework festivities!

  

Drinks on rooftops

An awesome bookstores.

A quick trip to the beach.

And what weekend wouldn't be complete with a little bit of creativity. :)

Just thinking back on that weekend makes me smile and miss these two like crazy. I had such an amazing time and from the moment I arrived I didn't want it to be over. I loved living with these two in college and I love that when I see their faces again it's like nothing has changed.

These two girls of mine are gems and I love them with all my heart. 

fourth of july

Happy Fourth of July!! 

I'm so excited to be spending this fantastic holiday in LA with two of my favorite people! Andrea and Lauren wanted to throw me a girls weekend as a sort of bachelorette party and this weekend worked out perfectly. I've flown over the Fourth of July weekend once before, and I remember it being amazing. I had a later flight and I could see fireworks being set off from the plane! It was so cool. I'm hoping for that again this weekend. 

what's canoe with you?!

We went canoeing on Saturday!! It was so hot, but so much fun. Thomas though I was crazy for bringing my phone, and once we got out their in the deeeeeeep river water (seriously I don't know where the bottom was-- it freaked me out), I kinda agreed with him and figured that my ziplock bag was laughable and seriously wasn't going to cut it if we tipped the canoe. THANKFULLY that didn't happen.
I told myself that I wanted my phone incase we got lost in the wilderness of middle Tennessee and we might need it for an emergency, but the real reason I wanted it was for pictures of course!

We risked it and brought Tuon along with us too! Tuon's not the most adventurous dog.. she's super cautious. So I was a bit skeptical how she was going to do on the canoe. Thankfully she did great. She was not amused when I tried to cool her off and poured river water all over her, but after about 10mins in she changed her tune was more that happy to be drenched by a cups full of river water. The only minor nervous moment she had was with a pile of leaves casually floating along the river. She stared those bad boys down! And when Thomas and I rowed over to them I grabbed the big stick of leaves out of the river and she about climbed up Thomas in fear. We laughed so hard. She overcame her fear after that. No one likes to be laughed at. :)

All in all it was a pretty good Saturday.