Merry Christmas!!

We hope that you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year. We made a trip to 34th Street in Hampden on Christmas Eve Eve, so I thought I'd share some of the pictures of the pretty lights and decorations. If you haven't been to see the lights and decorations in person, I highly recommend it. It is quite an experience!!

Happy Turkey Day!!

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone enjoys some delicious food and good company today!

Honeymoon Recap - Getting There

I've been trying to find the time to blog about the honeymoon, but I've just been struggling to find the motivation. I am going to post about each leg of the trip, starting with the awful frustrating trip there. We were picked up by the car service on Monday morning and headed to the airport. Our flight (with first class seats) was originally supposed to fly from BWI to Phoenix and Phoenix to Kauai. Turns out our flight from BWI was 3 hours late which would have caused us to miss our connecting flight in Phoenix. After standing at the counter for over an hour, the oh-not-so-helpful US Airways rep booked us on a flight out of DC-Reagan and told us that we needed to take a cab to DC to catch an 8:35am flight. Mind you, it was already 7:15am, and she assured us that if we hurried down to the cabs, we'd be fine. We knew better, but still, we ran downstairs and jumped into a cab with a crazy/maniac driver who liked to slam on his brakes every 5 seconds. Surprisingly, we made it to DC in about an hour, just in time to hear our names being paged. Yep... We missed our flight. Again, we stood at the US Airways counter for another hour while another rep (this one a little friendlier and helpful) finally booked us on a flight on American Airlines. Lucky us, we were now flying from DC to Dallas, Dallas to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Kauai...NOT in first class. What a start to the honeymoon, right? At one point while we were standing at the counter, I turned to Ryan and said, "Do you think this is a sign that we shouldn't have gotten married?" The only good "sign" of the day was a US Airways plane with the logo for the Philadelphia Eagles painted on it - See the picture below. Our flights ended up being fine, all on time and with no issues and we finally made it to Kauai after traveling for about 20 hours. More to come with a recap of our time in Kauai.

Home Improvements by the Handyman

This past weekend, Ryan and his new father-in-law spent the day on Saturday working on finishing the part of the basement that will be Ryan's workshop. I'm getting the feeling that now that we're married, Ryan can't wait to get away from me and will be spending all his time in the workshop. Hopefully, some nice projects will come out of his desertion hobby. I have included some pictures below of the workshop to show the progress that was made. There's still some work to do be done, but it's looking good so far.

In addition to the progress in the workshop, Ryan made some really nice shelves for the basement. I have included the pictures of these as well, along with a picture of the huge pile of sawdust on the basement floor from all of his hard work. The first picture is of the frame for the shelves. Second one is of all the sawdust, and the third is the finished product with all of our stuff on the shelves. Good job, Ryan!

It's Official

I'm a little late posting this, but last Thursday, I started the process of officially becoming Mrs. L. I started at the social security office, got there about 10 minutes before they opened, and there were already 4 people waiting in line to get in! After spending about 45 minutes there, I got the receipt for my new identity name. I headed on over to the MVA, where thankfully, there were only 2 people in line ahead of me. I paid $30, took an eye test, and failed miserably at signing my new name for the first time, and they handed me a brand-spanking new drivers' license. I made one more stop at the bank, thinking that I'd knock out all of the in-person name changes in one day, but apparently, Ryan had to be there to sign the new signature card for our joint account. Why? I'm not exactly sure since his signature is not changing! Oh well.. I'll drag him there eventually. I spent a good part of the rest of the day on the phone with credit card companies, other banks, and updating reward accounts... Surprisingly, the credit card companies were the easiest to deal with - they didn't even ask for proof that I had gotten married! Kind of scary. All in all, not an awful day, just a little bittersweet. I did almost lose it in the morning when Ryan told me to "have fun" and I said something like, "Fun doing what? Losing my identity?" I know. I know. I didn't have to give up Chick, but I am a firm believer that it is way too confusing for kids when their parents have different last names. And, who knows, someday we might actually have some of those... Kids, I mean. Chick is still part of my name though. It has taken the place of Nicole - definitely a tough decision, but I just couldn't bear to part with it. Ryan did take me out to dinner to celebrate and try to cheer me up... I think I'll keep him... and his last name.

Phillies Win the World Series!!!

Since the baseball playoffs started, I have watched as Ryan was mostly overcome by nerves and pessimism (b/c the Phillies have consistently let him down), but tonight turned out to be a good night. The Phillies didn't let him down! Most of you know that I'm an Orioles fan, but since they are awful and have been that way for the past few years, I have slowly become a Phillies fan. I am not nearly as true a fan as Ryan or the rest of his family, but I have been known to cheer them on. So, it was great to watch them finally beat the Tampa Bay Rays tonight, and win their first World Series since 1980 (the year I was born, by the way)! And, even better to see Ryan so excited that his team finally won!! Go Phillies!!

Goodbye, Long Hair

Now that the wedding is over, I no longer feel the need to have long hair... Long hair that takes FOREVER to dry in the mornings and just hangs there when I take the time to ONLY dry it and makes me cold in the winter when I don't take the time to dry it completely... Long hair that gets all knotty because it gets tangled on my winter coats and sweaters. So, I went to my beloved hair salon, Zoom Hair Studio, after work today and had them cut it so that it falls at my shoulders. I'm feeling like a new woman! Not a drastic change, but definitely noticeable, right? Not if you ask Ryan... I walked into the house around 7pm (a little later than I normally get home) to find Ryan playing the new Guitar Hero. As I'm flipping through the mail in the kitchen, he says to me "Did you go somewhere after work?" And, I just look at him with a "Are you kidding me?!" look. So, he asks me again if I went somewhere, and I say, "I don't know. You tell me." Still nothing. So, I touch my new hair and say, "Umm, yes I went somewhere after work!" Finally.. he gets it. Are all guys like this??!!

A Weekend Away.... Without the Husband

OCL 9.20.08 113
Originally uploaded by lenoirwedding

While Ryan is fully immersed in Philadelphia/Pennsylvania sports this weekend, I will be spending my weekend in beautiful Greenville, SC with this cutie! Can't think of a better way to spend my weekend (especially since Ryan would be ignoring me anyway...).

Arts & Crafts at the LeNoir House

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Originally uploaded by UDChickie

So, I thought I'd try to become a little crafty/domesticated since I am now a wifey. Just kidding - I actually just wanted something to do since we have all this free time without wedding planning taking over our lives. It may sound like I'm sad about this, but believe me, I'm really not. Don't get me wrong, the wedding was amazing and more fun than I ever thought it would/could be, but I am thrilled to have my life back! I found this little project here and thought I'd give it a try. Surprisingly, it was not that hard and kind of fun. I have also posted a picture below of the wreath hanging on our front door.

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Originally uploaded by UDChickie

We're Back!

We made it back from Hawaii on Wednesday and are slowly working our way back into the real world. The honeymoon was amazing, and I am working on a post about that, but for now, I had some other random stuff to write about. On the honeymoon, Ryan and I had a lot of time to talk about how the wedding went and think about all that happened. I want everyone to know how amazing my bridesmaids were - they took such wonderful care of me on the wedding day, and I truly cannot thank them enough. I also wanted to thank Jordan (Becky's boyfriend) for basically being at our beck and call the entire day. He woke up early and walked to Panera to get us breakfast, went to Potbelly to pick up lunch for us, and was there for us for anything at all we needed. At one point, we were hanging out in the bridal suite and he sat down on the couch to watch TV, and I said something like, "Jordan, if you want to change the channel, you can." As soon as he heard his name, he jumped up to do whatever I was asking of him. Poor guy. Seriously though, I know we wouldn't have made it through the day without him, and I really hope he knows how much we appreciated having him there! Also, a big thank you to the groomsmen for keeping Ryan calm during the day and for also making sure he showed up! (Not that there was any doubt about that...)

On a different note, I wanted to remind everyone to post their digital pictures to the flickr website. Ahem, Cardones & Kummers - are you out there?! Still waiting patiently for those pictures to be posted! :) There have been quite a few pictures posted, so feel free to check it out even if you don't have any to add. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post their pictures - it has been so much fun to look at them! I have also started slowly posting our pictures from the honeymoon... Bear with me - I took quite a few pictures (shocking, I know).

If you would like to download any of the pictures from Flickr, it's not exactly straightforward, so here's how to do it. Click on the photo that you want to download. Above it, the 5th icon from the left says "All Sizes". Click on the icon and it will give you the option to download any size. Click on the size that you want and then click on the link to download the picture.

The website for the flickr pictures is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenoirwedding/
If you need the username and password, please feel free to email me at udchickie@gmail.com.
I will be getting the professional pictures on Monday, so I'll email the information for those next week.

We're Married!!

We had the most amazing weekend! Everything yesterday was absolutely perfect, and we feel so unbelievably blessed to have such wonderful family and friends! Thank you all for being a part of our wedding day!! More posts to come when we get back from Hawaii!

Like a Kid on Christmas Eve...

With five days to go, everyone is asking if I'm excited... Tomorrow is my last day of work for three and a half weeks. The weather forecast for this weekend looks AMAZING (Alexis sent me the weather update this morning and said "Don't think you can get any better :)". We'll be celebrating with 111 of our closest friends and family. I will be marrying my best friend and joining a wonderful family. Oh, and this time next week, we'll be on a plane to Hawaii. I seriously feel like a kid on Christmas Eve! Can't wait for this weekend!!

Operation Chick-LeNoir Baltimore Style

With 2 weeks before the wedding, we decided that it was time for another bachelorette party, this time Baltimore-style! Last Saturday was a pretty miserable day weather-wise, but by dinner time, Hanna had passed and the girls and I headed out for dinner and drinks at Power Plant! We had a great time! I have included some pictures below...

A Few Random Things

16 days until the wedding, but who is counting!? The last few weeks have been quite busy! I had my final dress fitting last night, and I absolutely LOVE my dress! All of the guys have been fitted for their tuxes and all of the girls have their bridesmaid dresses. We might actually pull this wedding off!

One of the things that the bridesmaids did for me at my shower was ask all the guests to write down their dreams and wishes for Ryan and me on a pink card. We ended up receiving 19 cards, so starting on the 19th day before the wedding, we will (or already have) been reading one card a day. The dreams and wishes that we've read so far have been so nice, and we really appreciate everyone taking the time to do this!!

On a different note, a question was asked about the photographers at the wedding, and I wanted to share the same information with our guests (or the ones who read the blog). The question was whether it would be ok to ask the photographers to take pictures at the reception. What I mean by this is special request pictures that you might want of you and your family, of you and your new friends that you meet at the reception, of the people sitting at your table, really just about anything. The answer to this is Yes, of course - please ask the photographers to take any pictures that you would like. There are 2 reasons for this: 1) I absolutely LOVE pictures and the more pictures the photographers take, the more this benefits us; and 2) We are paying the photographers enough money to basically own stock in their company so we want them to earn their fees by taking as many pictures as possible. The pictures that the photographers take will be posted on their website after the wedding and will be available for you all to see and order directly from them if you want. Once we have ordered our album, Ryan and I will get the digital rights to all of the pictures taken, so if you are not in a hurry to get any pictures that you might want printed, we would be more than happy to email you pictures that you like.

The Jewelry Party with Crystal

Last Saturday, the bridesmaids surprised me again! This time it was a bridal shower! About a week earlier, Crystal had emailed me to ask me to go with her to a "Charity Jewelry" party and then shopping and dinner on Saturday, August 16th. I was so excited about the party and shopping, but we had already scheduled a meeting with the Deacon to plan our ceremony that day. So, with much prodding from Ryan, I emailed the Deacon to ask him if we could reschedule our meeting. No problem. The meeting was rescheduled, and I was all set to go to the jewelry party and go shopping with Crystal. I honestly didn't think anything of this, just that it would be fun to hang out with her. That week, I had my first dress fitting, and Linda and Crystal were kind enough to join me - what fun!! Ryan and I also had our traditional "last supper" with Stacey (my niece) before she heads back to college. As the week went on, I began to get suspicious of this supposed jewelry party. Not only was this Stacey's last weekend at home before going back to school, but I also knew that Melissa (another bridesmaid) was coming to MD the same weekend to look at some reception venues for her own wedding. I woke up at 2:30am on Thursday night with a revelation that my bridal shower was going to be that Saturday. I could not have been more excited, but it was killing me that I couldn't talk to any of my friends about it! I did tell Ryan my suspicions on Friday night, but he just played dumb and acted like he knew nothing about it. On Saturday, I headed to Crystal's house and when I got there, everyone was patiently waiting for me (I was running late) to surprise me! So exciting!! Everything was beautifully decorated, the spread of food was awesome, and of course there were lots of yummy desserts and favors! In addition to all that, everyone completely spoiled me (and Ryan) with amazing gifts. I really don't think I have laughed or smiled that much in a long time (aside from the bachelorette party)! Thanks to Crystal for hosting such a great party and to the bridesmaids (including Crystal) for thinking of everything! I know I say this often, but I am truly blessed to have such wonderful family and friends to celebrate with! Only 28 days to go until the wedding... But who is counting!! See below for a slideshow of the highlights from the bridal shower.

The Countdown Begins

We are at the 30-day mark today - the big day is quickly approaching! And, that means a few things...

1) It's starting to feel kind of real now. Yes, I know we have invited people and I have a dress and we've booked a million other things, but for so long I've been saying "We have so much time, we'll get it done." Now, with 30 days left, I'm a little freaked out about how it will all get done. On paper, we don't have much left to do, but it still seems like a lot.
2) If you want to book a hotel room at Pier 5, Admiral Fell Inn, or Brookshire Suites, you have 10 days to do this. The last day that they will accept reservations for the block of rooms that we have reserved for our guests is August 30th.
3) You also have 10 days left to RSVP for the wedding. By now, you all should know how much I love getting mail, so please, please, please send me those RSVP cards! Some of you have told me that you're coming, and I am very excited about that, but with everything else going on, please don't expect me to remember this when it comes time to do the seating chart!

On a different note, my bridesmaids threw me an amazing bridal shower this weekend, and I want to thank them for such a great party and everyone else for coming to the party and for spoiling me (and Ryan) with so many wonderful gifts. There will be a new post shortly with pictures and the story of how they tried to surprise me!

Reminders...

Just wanted to remind everyone to RSVP for the breakfast on Sunday. Please email me if you need Ryan's mom's contact info.

The deadline to reserve a room at the Courtyard under our block of rooms for the discounted rate of $199/night is August 20th. If you would like to stay at the Courtyard, please get those reservations in!

The deadline to reserve a room at Pier 5 Hotel, Admiral Fell Inn, and Brookshire Suites is August 30th.

The Finished Product

Here it is... the finished bookcase.

And, here it is with some books in it... (the bookcase isn't leaning, I just can't take a level picture) We can finally unpack the office!!

A Little Wedding Info...

We mailed the invitations last week, and we've already started receiving RSVP's. I absolutely love getting mail so my favorite part of the day is coming home and checking the mail to see who has replied. In the invitations, there should be an invite to breakfast on Sunday. The time on the breakfast invite is 9:30am - 11:30am, but this is going to be more of an "open house", so if you wake up on Sunday and just don't feel like getting there right at 9:30am, it's ok. You are welcome to join us anytime you'd like as long as you're there before 11:30am. The wedding website (http://www.chick-lenoirwedding.com) has been updated for this, but I thought I'd put it on the blog as well.

The Bookcase

Here it is, the new bookcase... It still needs to be painted, but I thought I'd share the first picture of the thing that started the whole woodworking craze. I think it looks great!

Operation Chick-LeNoir Bachelorette Weekend 2008

3 Words... Operation Chick-LeNoir

I hate to admit it, but the bridesmaids got me AGAIN! With the help of Ryan, they surprised me last weekend (at the Target in Ellicott City, no less) and took me away to the Outer Banks for my bachelorette party. Apparently, the original plan was for them to meet at the Target and then come to our house to surprise me. I think I threw Becky into a panic when I told Val earlier that week that we were "supposedly" going to PA to visit Ryan's family for his mom's birthday. I really had no idea that anything was going on... I am just paranoid/suspicious after the whole "having lunch with Mom-Mom" bridal shower! The plans were changed just a bit, and Ryan got involved. On Friday, he sent me a message at work to see if I wanted to go to dinner in downtown Ellicott City that night, and of course, I said yes because I was thinking it'd be nice to try one of the restaurants downtown. We really haven't been going out much so I thought it'd be a nice change. In addition to asking me to go out to dinner, he also seemed to be making quite an effort around the house that week - he straightened up the living room and did most of the laundry (very unlike him). If there is one thing he dislikes doing, it is definitely laundry. He also took all the beach chairs out of the car to clean them from our trip to Bethany the weekend before. I didn't really think much of this, other than how much I appreciated that he was really making an effort to help out since I have been kind of stressed with all the wedding stuff lately. Turns out he was really doing all the extra work because he knew I'd probably be upset b/c most of my beach clothes were dirty - either way, I'm thankful that he did it! So, we're getting ready to leave for our "dinner" on Friday night, and Ryan tells me that he needs to stop at Target to get his mom a birthday card and also pick up a prescription. Ok, made sense to me - his mom's birthday is today. By the way, Happy Birthday, Linda!! Right before we're about to leave the house, he says he needs to run upstairs real quick and when he comes back down, he told me he was checking his prescription to make sure that he knew which prescription he should be getting at Target. I later find out that he was actually texting Becky to tell her that we were 15 minutes away! Sneaky!! We got to Target and I definitely had no idea that there was anything going on. So, we walk in the doors and all of a sudden, Becky, Val, Stacey, Ms. Eavey (Becky's mom) and Gran (Becky's grandmother) are there and yelling "Surprise" at me. I could not have been more confused. Looking back at the video and pictures, I definitely look mad. I don't really think I was mad, but I kept thinking, "this is my Target, what are they doing here?!" They really got me. After I got over the intial shock, they told me that we were going to the OBX until Monday, and we were heading back to my house and that I had 15-20 minutes to pack. Talk about stressful. Oh, and they were all wearing super cute pink shirts with navy writing that said "Operation Chick-Lenoir Bachelorette Weekend 2008".

We ended up leaving around 7pm, and we stopped at Subway for dinner before we hit the road for the OBX. Becky drove the first leg of the trip because we had a stop to make that no one would tell me about. The only thing I could figure out was that it was before OBX because the mileage that showed on the GPS didn't really make sense. Right around the time that we get to Newport News, we got off the highway and turned to go to the Newport News airport. Of course, Becky starts teasing me and asking if I had my ID with me (as if we were taking a flight somewhere). Again, I was confused although, I was pretty certain that we weren't flying to OBX from there. We pull up to the terminal to "drop our stuff off" and there was Melissa (who lives in Boston) waiting for us to pick her up! That was the second surprise of the trip!! We finally made it to OBX at 2:30am that night. As I was unpacking, I realized that I left my toiletry bag at home - guess that's what happens when you have 15 minutes to pack.

The whole weekend was amazing! We basically spent both days and a little bit of Monday sitting on the beach (our hotel was steps away from the beach). On Saturday night, we headed out for a late dinner and then went to Kelly's in Nags Head for some dancing. We were all Dancing Queens for the night. We all were wearing our cute t-shirts and of course, I got to wear the veil. The veil definitely attracts some odd characters, but it was so much fun! On Sunday, we went out for a great seafood dinner and then came back to our hotel where we drank and played some drinking/bachelorette party type games. Kim and Robert, Becky's former co-workers, made us a theme cake for the weekend, so we had that for dessert. Very good and pretty true to life! I won't go into much detail here, but for those of you that have seen the pics or heard me talk about it, I'm sure you'll understand! Thanks, Kim & Robert - the cake was AMAZING! The weekend was so perfect - just the right amount of debauchery, but nothing too extreme. Thanks to Becky for listening to me! (When I first got engaged and we were talking about the bachelorette party, I threatened to either demote her as Maid of Honor or not invite her boyfriend to the wedding if she got a stripper for the bachelorette party.) Thanks Becky, Val, Stacey, and Melissa for making the trip down and for making the weekend so freaking amazing! Also, thanks to Ms. Eavey for making my favorite dips - Mexican and Dill. We devoured them!! Crystal and Alexis - we missed you both, but can't wait to celebrate with you at the wedding!! Here are a couple pictures from the weekend.

Melissa, Stacey, Becky & Val at Kelly's in Nags Head Me and My Girls
They are too cute - I love this picture!

We Had a Little Visitor Last Night...

I guess he really isn't so little, but he was in the woods behind our house last night right before the storm hit. I was able to walk out to the fence in the backyard to take this picture - He barely even flinched.

Another Project

I'm a little late posting this, but better late than never, right? Ryan completed the sofa table about a month ago, so as promised here are a few pictures of it. Not only did he make it, but he also stained it himself! He's getting good at this woodworking stuff! Next up, the bookcase (finally). The bookcase was the project that started the whole woodworking craze!

Congratulations, Alexis & Tim!

More big news from the bridesmaids... Ryan's sister Alexis got engaged to Tim while they were vacationing in Cape May over the 4th of July! Congratulations - we're so excited for you!!

Congratulations, Melissa & Pete!

Just a quick post to say congratulations to Melissa and Pete who got engaged while they were vacationing in St. John!! We're so happy for you both!

Congrats, Tracy & Andre!

Since I posted about Tracy's bridal shower, I figured I would share a quick post about the wedding! Tracy & Andre were married on Saturday, June 14, 2008, and everything was absolutely gorgeous. I haven't known Tracy that long, but I honestly have never seen her happier. She truly looked like a princess, and Andre, of course, was as handsome as ever. Somehow, I managed to take pictures of everyone except for just Tracy & Andre together, so I have included a picture of the happy couple with Crystal. Congratulations - may you always be as happy as you were on your wedding day!!

You Don't See Many of These in the City...

I was having one of my days where I just can't help but miss my mom. I was feeling sorry for myself because she isn't here to help me make decisions, and she won't be here to be a part of the wedding day. Don't get my wrong, I know I am so very lucky to have such great friends and family who have been so supportive and helpful... Sometimes I just want my mom. Well, Ryan must have known because he brought this home with him from work today. Something about rainbows always make me smile... Now, if only we could find that elusive pot of gold!

89 Days and Counting...

We are officially at the 3-month mark before the wedding. It's so hard to believe that it's 89 days away. With all the commotion of the last few months of buying/selling the houses, the wedding got pushed to the back burner. It's back to the front again as we are back in the swing of wedding planning (well, at least I am). I think Ryan really enjoyed not having to think about wedding planning these past few months so he's having a hard time getting back on the wedding track. Quite frankly, I think he's just plain over it. We're working on all the little details now, and I actually think this part is much more fun than the big picture stuff. A few weeks ago, I went with some of the bridesmaids to the florist to pick out our flowers. We are using Amour Flowers (http://www.amourflorist.com/) in Frederick, which is the florist my mom used to work for. Pierre, my mom's former boss, always told me that when I got married, he was going to do the flowers for my wedding. I was so excited to call him and tell him the good news after we had gotten engaged. And, of course, meeting with Pierre to go over the arrangements was great - he seemed to really get it, and I know he will do an amazing job! I cannot wait to see how everything turns out.

We have also finally booked the transportation. We will be providing shuttles from the hotel to the church and back after the ceremony so that our guests will not have to deal with parking at the church and will only have to park once at the hotel. The shuttles will begin running at 4:30pm and will pick up from the Pier 5 Hotel. That's about it on the wedding front. Ryan is working on putting the finishing touches on his latest project, so hopefully I'll be sharing that with everyone soon!

A Grown-Up House

I really wanted to post about the new house when we wrote the contract, but thought it'd be best to wait until the house was officially ours so I wouldn't jinx it. I'm a little late on the post - we settled about 2 weeks ago now... but better late than never. Selling and buying a house at the same time turned out to be quite an experience. The inspection on the old house was fairly uneventful... until we got a call from our agent a week before settlement to tell us that we needed to install railing leading to the basement. So, Ryan installed railing going down the steps to the basement. Simple, right? Not at all. The day before settlement he gets another call from the agent to tell him that the railing was not sufficient, so he spoke with the loan officer and they agreed that parallel railing on the main level would be sufficient. Again, not so much... The next day, while we were at settlement for the new house, Ryan gets the same phone call about the railing being insufficient! In addition to all this, our settlement on the new house took about 2.5 hours as our 2nd mortgage wasn't officially approved until the bank got to review the revised settlement sheet. We finally finished up with the new house, and Ryan and my dad headed to Lowes to buy some supplies to install railing and balisters at the old house. What we thought would be an easy day off of work turned into a pretty stressful day, but it finally ended around 6:30pm with Ryan signing all the papers to settle on the sale of the old house. We are done with living in the city!!

Despite all of the struggles, we couldn't be happier living in the new house. It is so quiet out here in the "country", the first night we had trouble falling asleep, but we have gotten used to the peacefulness very quickly. The first day here, we saw a deer in the woods behind the house - you definitely don't see many deer in the city! It has also been so nice to come home and have a parking spot in the garage! I will admit that I needed Ryan to help me pull into the garage the first time as the door is a bit narrow for the Pilot... but it gets easier every day. We are slowly getting settled and are looking forward to hosting our first family event next weekend for Father's Day! Also, I wanted to say thank you to both my dad and Crystal. My dad came and waited for the movers during our marathon settlement and also helped with the railing on the old house and anything else he could help put together for us when we moved in. We are also very lucky that my dad likes to collect lawn equipment, so we have a lawn mower and weed wacker, among other things! Thanks, Dad. And thanks to Crystal who came the night before we settled on the new house in the dark and in the rain to plant such pretty flowers in the flower bed out front. What a nice surprise when we got here to move in! I also want to thank my dad and Crystal and everyone else for all the advice/opinions on the house buying process and for helping to keep us both calm with all the stress. You guys know who you are, and we couldn't have made it through the process without you! I have included a picture below of the house, although, I think most have already seen it.

"Lunch" with Mom-Mom for Mother's Day...

On Sunday, Ryan and I headed to NJ to join Mom-Mom for lunch for Mother's Day... Little did I know that "lunch with Mom-Mom" actually meant surprise bridal shower... We get to Mom-Mom's and I walk in and turn the corner to hear "Surprise!!" and see all of Ryan's aunts, my sister, stepmom and Becky (and of course, Ryan's mom, sister and Mom-Mom who I knew would be there). Ryan's mom and sister had planned a surprise bridal shower for me at Mom-Mom's house. I could not have been more shocked to see everyone there! My future mother-in-law and sister-in-law are VERY sneaky!! Who knew!!?? I was so excited and after I took a moment to catch my breath and have a glass of sangria, I was ready to party. We had some lunch -- turns out Ryan wasn't really lying to me about having lunch with Mom-Mom because I guess I really did get to have lunch with her after all. After we ate, I got to start opening the many wonderful gifts that everyone brought! What fun!! I got some really great things (too many to list on here), and I CANNOT wait to use them all! After the gifts were opened, we got to have cake and many other treats. The cake was amazing - my favorite -- yellow cake with strawberries and whipped cream (yum!!). There were also chocolate-covered strawberries and peppermint patties with my new monogram on them (that sure looked weird - I hadn't even thought about what my monogram would be yet!). In addition to all these yummy treats, Aunt Sue made these really cute cookies that were shaped and frosted like wedding dresses. They are so cute I can't bring myself to eat them! Ryan had one tonight and said it was really good. And... as if they hadn't done enough, there were awesome favors - cute little gift bags with M&M's in them with either "Wendy's Shower" or "5.18.08 Congrats" written on them. I can't bring myself to eat those either! This could also be the fact that I'm on sugar overload from all the cake I ate yesterday... The bridal shower was so much fun and I had absolutely no idea that it was coming! Everyone seemed to have a great time and I am so thankful to Linda and Alexis for taking the time to plan such a beautiful party. With each day that passes, I realize how lucky and blessed I am, and could not be more excited to be marrying into such a great family that has welcomed me with open arms!! Life is good.

I have included some pictures below of the festivities.

Me and Mom-Mom

The amazing cookies made by Aunt Sue... I promised not to post any pictures of her in this blog, so instead, I thought I'd share the cookies!

Lots of yummy treats = Bad Biggest Loser Week for Wendy (For those of you who haven't heard yet, the bridesmaids and I are doing a biggest loser competition. I am definitely not winning after all the sweets I ate this weekend, but those sweets were soooo worth it!!)

Me and Linda L. (Ryan's mom) - Looking hot in her little black dress!

Me and the bridesmaids

Me and the other beautiful Linda (Linda C. - my stepmom)

And... for everyone's entertainment, I have included the most embarrassing picture I think I have ever taken. They claimed that my bouquet needed to be worn as a bonnet - I think they were all lying to me just so they could take this picture. Oh, and in case anyone is worried that the bandaid on my forehead is because Ryan is abusing me... No need to worry - it's just covering up stitches from having a mole removed.

Wedding Season Has Begun

Last weekend, I headed down the ocean, hon, to spend the weekend celebrating Tracy's impending nuptials to Andre. A few months ago, Linda and Crystal started planning a surprise bridal shower (aka girl's weekend) for Tracy. They rented a beautiful house in Fenwick Island, and somehow we were all able to keep it a secret until Crystal told her! As far as we know, Tracy didn't suspect a thing! Crystal emailed her a cute poem the day before we were scheduled to leave to give her a heads-up that she was taking her to the beach for the weekend to celebrate. We had an amazing weekend. We didn't get to lay on the beach and soak up some sun (the weather wasn't that warm), but we went out to some nice dinners, had the bridal shower on Saturday and watched girlie movies all weekend. Oh, and we ate A LOT! For those of you who aren't familiar with Chick family gatherings, let me just tell you that we never go hungry. Everyone pitched in and brought yummy food - my personal favorites were the rice krispie treats made by Naomi - I seriously could eat a whole pan of them! The bridal shower was perfect - everything looked very pretty, the cake was amazing (see... we love food), and Tracy got some REALLY nice things! I have included some pictures of the debauchery below :).

Sully (Tracy's dog) sleeping on the way there.. too cute!

Look how hard everyone is concentrating for bridal shower bingo!

Getting ready to go out...

Sully sleeping on the way home. I couldn't resist!

Waiting for our table at dinner.