The "Perfect" Wedding Flower?

MOH, you MIGHT not want to read this post….

It’s not about you…but in the effort for you to keep your sanity…and your possible frustration level with me down…it just might be a good idea to skip reading my blog today…

So, Mr. CC is playing softball. It’s a city league, and his first game was the other night. Being the supportive fiancé that I am, and since I work with everyone that’s on the team, little CC and I packed up a “picnic” from Chick-Fil-A and headed on over to the softball fields. While the game wasn’t the stunning success that the team had hoped for…it was fun for us none-the-less.

I know, I know. Some of you are wondering what exactly this has to do with a wedding blog, right? Here goes. MOH, hold on to your hat…

While driving over to the softball fields, I accidently took a wrong turn. Not an abnormal thing for me, and it got me to where I needed to be eventually, so it wasn’t a big deal. Imagine my surprise when I’m driving down this unfamiliar road, trying to figure out if it’s going to put me in the same place that I meant to be going in the first place when I see something that just takes my breath away.

A field of wild sunflowers.

Standing there, growing alongside the busy road that I was on, and just looking gorgeous! And this thought pops into my brain – “wouldn’t those flowers be gorgeous with a black and cream wedding?”

Yeah, that’s when you know that you’ve got a little too much wedding on the brain!

And here’s where it gets tricky. I have to confess…I can’t get the image out of my head…take a look at something similar…

source

Isn’t that just gorgeous?!?!? Yeah, I’m floored. All these visions of sunflowers are dancing around in my head…sunflowers scattered on the aisle…sunflowers lazily gathered in a vase with some raffia tying them up…just a great “rusticy” outdoor, hardy flower. So simple. So gorgeous. Perfect for a wedding.

I suppose this is forefront on my mind since I’ve had so many thoughts about flowers running through my head…it just almost makes me rethink those pesky eggplant tablecloths.

Relax Mr. CC and MOH…I did say ALMOST. J

I hope that you all have a great weekend. I’ll be busily making up some flower pomanders out of some silk flowers that I picked up yesterday at Hobby Lobby. This was one of the many suggestions that I got from this post, and I’m going to give it a go this weekend. I’ll be sure to post some pics for you next week!

Rehearsal Dinner Dilemma

On a different note all together, let’s talk about the rehearsal dinner and my woes with this time-honored tradition. It’s not that I don’t want to do a rehearsal dinner…it just seems like the cosmos forces are working against my planning this portion of our wedding.
You see, my venue is great. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Texas Old Town – check them out here. But they have a funny policy on the rehearsal portion of your wedding. The good news is that they will include your use of the hall for a rehearsal for FREE. The bad news? It’s their policy that you cannot book your hall for the night before your wedding date to hold the rehearsal until three weeks before the wedding. Yes, you read that right. Three weeks.

I understand why TOT does this. It’s become a semi-popular trend to get married on a day other than a Saturday. Most venues charge less money, so the bride and groom on a budget can take advantage of this and get a smokin’ deal on a place by choosing a day other than Saturday. This also generates some extra $$ for the venue, so everyone wins. Except for the bride that paid extra $$ to have her wedding on Saturday and now can’t guarantee that she’ll be able to rehearse at the venue the night before…

Which means that I won’t know if I can even HAVE a rehearsal the night before until less than a month before it would be happening. And that really puts a crimp on my obsessive nature…yes, Mr. CC I freely admit that I obsess. About all things related to this wedding!

I’ve been talking with some family and friends about this dilemma that I’m facing and so far we’ve come up with a few suggestions that I’ll share with you. Because maybe you’re a bride that is facing the same situation. Or maybe you’re just smarter than me and have an idea that I haven’t thought of…

One suggestion made was not to stress about it until I know for sure one way or the other. Obviously, this person doesn’t know ME at all! So we’ll just pretend that suggestion wasn’t even made.

Second on the list - a day-of rehearsal. Since our wedding is going to be at a later time during the day (not yet determined, but before sunset) it might be possible to do an early morning rehearsal and follow it with a rehearsal brunch instead of a dinner. I have to admit that I like the oddness of this idea. It’s against the grain, and the norm, so of course I like it! But it poses some problems. For one thing, what do I do about Mr. CC and I seeing each other on our big day? Tradition says that we shouldn’t see each other at all that day…so if I’m following that tradition then how do I do a rehearsal the day of the wedding followed by a rehearsal brunch? I suppose that I COULD do a rehearsal with me, and then another rehearsal with Mr. CC and we would just eat separately from our guests.

But I don’t really like that idea. For one thing, that’s a lot of time on the bridal party. They, along with parents and the minister, would all have to do the rehearsal twice. Not a bad thing to get in extra practice, but still. Plus, doing it that morning also takes away from time that might be needed dong other things. What other things, you might ask? Hair, nails, make-up, decorating the reception hall and the ceremony site, just to name a few. Because if we can’t get into the venue for a rehearsal the day before, we won’t be able to do any of those things the day before either.

The only other suggestion that’s been made has been to hold a rehearsal dinner the night before and rehearse briefly wherever that will be done. Even though it wouldn’t be the exact SAME field, a field is really a field. And couldn’t you practice on one lawn just as easily as you could the other lawn. The only difference would be the steps of the gazebo. But that should only affect Mr. CC, the minister and myself. I’m sure that the three of us can manage to “make believe” that one thing. So rehearse on a lawn somewhere, then go and eat dinner. That might work. It would at least be a little easier to handle logistically speaking.

Do you have another scenario that I might have missed? A way to make this work just in case my venue does end up getting booked for the night before my wedding?

Option #1 for My Hooks...

I posted some inspiration pictures for my shepherd’s hooks the other day. I love them all, but have to be honest and say that I’m drawn to the ones where there is a "kissing ball" or pomander of flowers.
Of course, once again, my problem with that idea is cost. Having someone make the flower balls out of fresh flowers is WAY expensive. And every time that I mention the slightest inclination to make some more tissue paper flowers, Mr. CC starts to growl at me. And Mama CC laughs…

But I see SO many posts where brides do the tissue paper pomanders in smaller sizes for their aisle décor and it looks SO good. Check out these. Could you tell that they were tissue paper?
So despite the laughter and occasional snarls coming from Mr. CC’s recliner, I practiced and made a tissue paper pomander in a smaller size just to see what I thought about it. I figured that the Styrofoam balls that were required were only $5 at my local Michael’s store, and I have an abundance of tissue paper left over, so I might as well try it out.

Here’s what I came up with.
What do you think?
Mr. CC doesn’t like them. He thinks that they look too fake, and since people will be closer to these pomanders than the ones that we’re going to hang (which he thinks look AWESOME!) it’s just not right. It’s too cheapy looking, is what I think that he wants to say, but won’t say for fear of hurting my feelings over something that I made myself. SO sweet…

Truthfully, I’m not sold on them. I think for one thing that the ribbon is too wide. This is the ribbon that I bought to hang the larger pomanders up high with…and it’s too much for these smaller pomanders. And I’m not certain that they don’t look too fake up close too. But what I did notice was that for the size ball that I used to make these here, I only used about 15-20 "flowers" on each ball. Maybe they wouldn't be SO expensive to do out of roses?? Or real carnations??

So what do you think that I should do? I’ve got a few more ideas in store for what I could do with these shepherd’s hooks…I’ll keep you posted on my progress!

Did something that you had stuck in your head as being PERFECT turn out not quite as perfect in real life?

For Mama CC...

Update for Week #1

Well, it’s been a week since I got back on the work-out wagon. (That sounds SO funny to type/read – does it give you a chuckle like it does me? Maybe I’m just a dork!)

Anyway. Here’s where we left off:

Beginning stats:
Weight - 154
Tummy - 34/37 (true waist/"tummy")
Thighs – 24

Last Week’s Goals: (I’ve put my actual progress in BOLD)
Two P90X workouts with Mr. CC – choosing from chest/back, arms/shoulders and kempo (following each workout with the ab ripper x workout too)
Arms/shoulders and abs – Tuesday (partial on abs)
Run 2 times this week on other days – 5 minute warm-up then running sprints lasting 30-60 second a piece for 20 minutes followed by 5 minute cool down
Ran – Sunday and Thursday
Walked – Monday
Cut back on Soda (one every other day, if possible)
Sunday, Friday and Saturday had one soda each day
Cut back on Sweets (possibly do a reward at the end of the day if I was “good” during the day)
I won’t say that I didn’t eat sweets, but there were no sweets eaten between meals at my desk all day…and I usually just had something sweet at the end of the day for “being good”

So…I think that I did GREAT! I met almost all of my goals, and eased into my workouts again. Now, that’s not saying that there wasn’t any pain…you might have noticed that the time between my runs was almost a full week. Yes, there were several days of walking (barely) around muttering under my breath with each and every step that I took. But that’s probably normal, right? And the lack of sweets that I ate was amazing to me – I’ve got a HUGE sweet tooth, so I thought that this would be my biggest challenge. Luckily, I anticipated this and stocked my desk with healthier alternatives that would satisfy the sweet urge without eating candy.

By day 4, my legs felt normal again, and I was ready to attempt another run the next day…and I was not as sore that second time after my run as I was the first! The bad news is that since it took me so long to “recover” from the first run, I feel a little behind schedule on my progress with increasing my times on my runs, so I probably just won’t alter that goal any for this week.

Anyway, all of that is just fluff without posting my current stats, so here they are:

Current stats:
Weight - 151
Tummy - (true waist/"tummy") 34/37
Thighs – 24

This Week’s Goals:
Two P90X workouts with Mr. CC – choosing from chest/back, arms/shoulders and kempo (following each workout with the ab ripper x workout too)
Run 2 times this week on other days – 5 minute warm-up then running sprints lasting 30-60 second a piece for 20 minutes followed by 5 minute cool down
Cut back on Soda (one every other day, if possible)
Cut back on Sweets (possibly do a reward at the end of the day if I was “good” during the day)

You might have noticed, but I’m not changing my goals at all for this next week. When Mr. CC and I started our workouts the last time, I noticed that it took my body about two full weeks to get adjusted to the changes that I was starting to make. So, with that in mind, I’m going to keep things status quo for one more week. By the next week, my body will be ready and able to adjust/increase some of those goals so that I see more progress.

I’m thrilled with my progress this last week overall. I made good eating choices, stuck to doing something physical almost every day, and still managed to have time “off” to enjoy myself and my family. If I’m completely honest, then I would have to admit that I’m a little disappointed that none of my measurements changed, even though there was weight loss…guess it came off of my boobs! I hope that I continue to keep up the momentum, and it’s been a lot of fun to hear from you all with your encouraging words and your own work-out plans!

Keep it coming! Good luck this next week!

An Unexpected Surprise!

Here’s something else that I managed to find for a song the other day while out shopping with MOH…I told you it was a productive trip, right?!?


These, in case you don’t know, are shepherd’s hooks. I’m planning on using them to “line” the aisle at the ceremony site. I’ve seen these used at outdoor weddings from some blogs that I follow. Check out my inspirations…

Source (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Aren’t they cool? And since they’re so simple, I can really do a lot of things with them. You want to know why I’m SO excited about these? Ok, twist my arm and I’ll tell you!

Our ceremony site is outdoors. So there’s not a lot of planning going into the décor…since it’s a nicely wooden glen with a beautiful gazebo for the actual ceremony. I’m not having an aisle-runner…in my mind I picture the aisle formed by the two sets of chairs set out…with strewn rose petals edging the actual aisle. Little CC will spread some additional petals on her walk, but mostly they’ll just be on the sides, something like this.

Source (1)

Although I’m thrilled with that look, I can’t help but listen to the voice in my head urging me to do a “little” something more. So, I’ve been coveting shepherd’s hooks for the past few months. But when I did some online searches to price them out, I was shocked at the prices that people pay for them. I was expecting a couple of dollars a piece, and was floored to see that they can run up to $12 a piece! That’s NOT in Miss Cotton Candy’s budget…well, it could be…but it just seemed like a lot. And not knowing what I would want to hang from them…you can see how this could add up quickly, right?

Enter Maid “Britney” – she’s the one that just got married last fall. Yes, you’re reading that right. ALL of my Maids are actually Matrons…they’re all married! But it’s my wedding, and if I want to have married women for Bridesmaids, then that’s what I’ll have. So anyway, “Britney” (not her real name, just an idol!) and I were talking one day about my tissue paper flower pomanders, and I mentioned wanting to find shepherd’s hooks to line the aisle with, and I further expressed my frustrations with not being able to find them cheaply enough. “Britney” suggested that I look at JoAnn’s. I’m a HUGE JoAnn’s fan, and hadn’t even thought to check them out for something like this. She said she thought that she had seen hooks in there, but maybe just as a seasonal item during early spring/summer, and that they were reasonably priced, if her memory was right.

Well, I’ve been in JoAnn’s more times that I can count, and I’d never seen them. But I wasn’t looking for them specifically, so I thought that I would try again. Down in San Antonio, where MOH and I were shopping, they’ve opened a “new” JoAnn’s that could almost be called Super JoAnn’s because it’s SO large. We decided to stop by there and didn’t actually go into JoAnn’s looking for shepherd’s hooks, in fact I went in looking for some fabric and happened upon their seasonal aisle…lo and behold…what do you think that I found?

Yep, shepherd’s hooks, just like “Britney” told me. And for the stellar price of only $3.99 a piece. I was sold! MOH was happy for me, and then confused when I said that I wasn’t going to buy any…I explained that I had a coupon on my desk at work that would get me an even better price and that I’d go to the local store in Austin and pick them up at some point next week. I wish that I’d had a camera for the look that crossed MOH’s face. Seriously, she looked confused, so I asked her what the deal was. But the joke was on me…she turned and pointed to a sign hanging over the display of shepherd’s hooks…

Oh yeah. Have I mentioned yet that I’m not the most observant of individuals? If it was a snake it would have BIT me! Either way – SCORE one for Miss CC’s team of thrifty shoppers! Half-price made them a whopping $1.99 a piece and I bought 10 of them right away.

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with them. Which inspiration picture do you like best? I can try to make some smaller tissue paper pomanders that would tie in nicely with the larger ones that will be hanging in the gazebo…or I could try to do some simple cut flowers in hanging jars…or I've found several DIY projects using artificial flowers...

Or do you have a completely different idea for me? Let me know!

Non-Floral Flowers???

The other day when I was out shopping with my MOH, we tried to brainstorm some “off the wall” ideas regarding the new centerpiece holders that I had. I was really trying to avoid fresh flowers completely for two main reasons:
1. They tend to be expensive
2. They don’t last – it’s a waste of large amounts of money to be thrown away the next day - I can’t hold onto the centerpieces, so the flowers would be thrown away immediately
With this motivation, I was really searching hard for some inspiration.

As luck would have it, MOH stepped right in and helped me out. We had stopped by a local nursery in San Antonio the pick up some seeds for MOH’s sister. While there, MOH came up with the suggestion to put a potted plant into the centerpiece instead of fresh flowers.

What was that? A potted plant? This was something that I hadn’t thought of…

Hmmm….what kind of potted plant? Well, something with a little bit of height to it, but also something that would be sort of “wispy” to provide some droopy branches for a romantic feel. This sounds REALLY far-fetched to me, so don’t feel lost!

We looked through their selection while at the nursery and came up with a favorite first choice. The maidenhair fern. It’s small, delicate and very green. The leaves are even almost heart-shaped, which the romantic in me goes ga-ga over! And since it’s a fern, I shouldn’t (strongly stress the SHOULDN’T) be able to kill the plant. My green thumb tends to lean more towards the black side of green. What’s that? You didn’t know green had a black side? In my world it does!

Anyway, we tossed the idea back and forth. I didn’t like the idea of just a potted plant alone in the centerpiece, so MOH said to mix the potted plant with a few stems of fresh flowers to add color and flowers, but without everything being completely floral. Hmmm…an interesting concept.

While at the nursery we played around with some flowers mixed into the fern, but couldn’t hit it just right. In the end, I decided that I really did like the fern (even if it didn’t work for what we were thinking), so I bought it to take home and try it out. If it looked horrible, then no harm no foul, I get a cute plant out of the deal.

Throughout this whole process, keep in mind that MOH hasn’t actually seen the centerpieces. She was totally working on my description of them. I don’t know whether to congratulate her for her visionary skills, or to pat my own back for my excellent descriptions…

Either way, this is what we ended up with.

I’m not thrilled with it like this. I decide that the problem is that the plant sits too low in the centerpiece. Since I bought the smallest one they have, I know in my head that a larger fern might do better.

I tried to work with it, to see if I could copy MOH’s visionary skills, but alas, I can’t get over how awkward it looks.
Ignore the paper ball squashed into the bottom of the vase, I was trying to lift the plant. The problem? The plant couldn't sit flat on the paper ball, and it kept falling off to one side...

I even tried to add a flower into it to see what I think…it’s just not quite right.

Maybe that flower's too big?

I think that I have to stop by another nursery and get the 6” plant and see if I like it better. It should be taller, fuller, and not sit so low in the holder.

Now to find a local nursery…man, the places you go when you’re planning a wedding!

Have you had any off-the-wall ideas for your centerpieces? Does anyone else agree with me that maybe fresh flowers aren’t the way for you to go either?

My Dress Try-On Results

See? I didn’t leave you hanging all THAT long about my dress!

Just a day. Nothing to sweat over. Ok, so here’s the deal with my dress…it FITS!

After all of the drama that went into the ordering the right size of dress written about here, I have to admit that I was really worried. And then I did a trial showing of the dress when I was in Dallas a few months ago at a different Alfred Angelo store and the helpful lady there re-measured me and reassured me that all would be well, written about here. So…there was a LOT of anticipation over the fitting of the dress!

Added on top of all of that the fact that I have fallen off of the work-out wagon and haven’t done anything in about a month…LOTS of anticipation over the dress.

So, the really good news is that the dress fits nicely. It looks great from the front, and is VERY flattering to my current figure. So, even if all I concentrated on was firming and toning my arms so that they look their best in the gown, I would be happy.

The bad news? I STILL have back cleavage. Which I’m NOT happy about. But it’s kinda what I get for falling off of the work-out wagon. And the good news is that it’s not as bad as it was in the floor model dress which was a size too small for me. When I had on the floor model dress, not only was the “fat” around my shoulder blades and back smushed inwardly together, but it was sort of hanging over the lip of the dress. Not so in the size that fits me. It’s still smushed together, but not hanging over. So I either made some progress (which I’d like to think) or the size bigger made a difference (probably more likely!).

Either way, it’s great motivation to get me back ON the work-out wagon. And I’m going to proceed and approach things a little bit like I did before, and I little bit differently too. For one thing, I’m going to be doing different workouts. I like the P90X that Mr. CC really likes, but I think that for what I’m trying to accomplish right now, I need more cardio. So while I will be doing some of the P90X workouts with Mr. CC still, I’m going to do some different workouts too.

Plus, I’m going to increase my accountability level to you guys. Remember, you are my cheerleaders and I need encouragement from you. You need to cheer with me when I make progress and kick-start me when I’m not doing so good…so instead of just sharing my progress with you all, I’m taking it up a notch. Not only will I share my actual numbers with you (weight and measurements), but I’m also going to set weekly goals for my workouts and see if being held accountable on a weekly basis for meeting those goals helps me stick to it. You hear all the time about how good it is to write down your goals with pen and paper, making them real to you. So, maybe typing them out and putting them out on cyberspace for all the “world” to see (or the 5 people that read this blog) will help make me more accountable.

So, might as well start today, right? Each Tuesday I’ll post my progress along with my goals for the week. Then, the following week, I’ll be honest and let you know how I did on my goals from the week before, along with posting new numbers and new goals for the current week.

Think that you’re up to helping me? I don’t really need to lose much weight, as MOH pointed out to me losing too much weight now would be alterations for the dress…which might cause more problems that I want to tackle! I really just want a little weight loss, but more toning and shaping. So here’s what I’ve got right now:

Long-term Goals:
Lose 10 pounds before the wedding
Tone and sculpt my back, arms and that spot between arm and chest that sometimes looks pudgy
Feel healthier, making better eating choices and exercising regularly. Not a DIET, but a change in habits.
Current stats: (there are only three places that I’m really concerned a lot about measuring)
Weight - 154
Tummy - 34/37 (true waist/"tummy")
Thighs - 24
This Week’s Goals:
Two P90X workouts with Mr. CC – choosing from chest/back, arms/shoulders and kempo (following each workout with the ab ripper x workout too)
Run 2 times this week on other days – 5 minute warm-up then running sprints lasting 30-60 second a piece for 20 minutes followed by 5 minute cool down
Cut back on Soda (one every other day, if possible)
Cut back on Sweets (possibly do a reward at the end of the day if I was “good” during the day)

So that’s it. That’s Miss CC’s plan to start out her work-out wagon. I think that I’m not shooting too high, aiming right in the middle. I’d really like to run more than twice a week, but we’ll start off easy and see how it goes since this is the first week back in more than a month. I ran yesterday and I have to admit that my legs are hating me today…and they’ll be even worse tomorrow!

I’ll check in next Tuesday and let you know how I did and what progress I made….keep your fingers crossed for me, and be sure and send me a note of encouragement!

REALLY Impatiently Waiting...

So I wrote the other day that my dress was soon to be here…in Austin…possibly in my house! And I was just on pins and needles for the rest of the week. In all honesty, I wrote that post last Friday, and had actually talked to the store several days earlier.

What I didn’t write about was that my mom was coming into town this past weekend. Little CC is playing soccer (only 2 games left!) and she and my step-dad wanted to come and see her in action, so they made the trek down to Austin to visit with us on Saturday. I didn’t tell anyone about my dress being on it’s way from the warehouse heading to the store, because I was hoping to be able to surprise my mom. I was a “bad daughter” and bought the dress without my mom being present back on President’s Day while Alfred Angelo was running the mother of all sales.

And you know, a little voice in the back of my mind told me that they would have another sale, no big deal…I could wait…but you know what? They HAVEN’T had another sale as good as that one. So, although I was in “big trouble” with both Mama CC and my Maids, it was a GOOD sale!

So, since she missed out on the picking OUT of the dress, I was hoping that the store would call me on Friday and tell me that I could pick up the dress on Saturday while Mama CC was here. That way she would be there for the picking UP of the dress…and we could try it on in the store and play with veils and things…

I waited somewhat patiently ALL DAY LONG on Friday. Every time my cell phone rang, I jumped on it to answer it. No calls from Alfred Angelo.

I was seriously bummed. I mean, this would have been SO cool if it had worked out. But I made my peace with things on Friday night, and Mr. CC helped to cheer me up by pointing out that we could still go to the store and try on the floor model so that she could at least see it…it wouldn’t be as good as the real thing, but if that’s the closest that I can get…I’ll take it.

Are you ready for the bad news? Well, maybe it’s not bad news…maybe it’s just ironic. My parents got here Saturday morning about an hour before the soccer game, and just as we left for the game, the bottom dropped out of the sky. It poured for three hours. And the soccer game was called off. Yep. They drove 4 hours to see the rain.

The good news? Well, there’s two bits of good news. First up, we more than made up for a missed soccer game with a trip to the Salt Lick. Now, for those of you not familiar with this Austin landmark restaurant, it’s phenomenal. Literally the best bar-b-que anywhere around. It’s this little hole in the wall ranch-style restaurant in the middle of nowhere about 20 miles outside of Austin. Finger-licking good. I seriously think that they have the best pickles anywhere around…and their peach cobbler? To die for. Yummy. Yes, I got the ice cream. It was REALLY good.

The other bit of good news? While I was in the shower Saturday morning before they got there, I missed a call on my cell phone. Who could it be? Yep, you guessed it. My gown arrived on Saturday morning and was ready to be picked up. YIPPEEEE!

So it all worked out. Yes, it was a long drive for them to make for lunch. But, Mama CC was SO happy to get to see me in MY dress, and we took little CC along with us, since she hadn’t seen it either. Little CC gave me tiara after tiara to try on, and she loved the veils that we tried on…she wanted to go home and put her dress on and “play princess” too!

It really meant a lot to me to have Mama CC there with me when I picked up my dress. It wasn’t the same as her being there when I picked it out, but I was tickled pink that it all worked out.

Now, I know the question that you’re all DYING to know the answer to…did the dress fit?

You’ll have to wait to find out! That’s another post…

My Goodness...

I’ve got SO much to share! Things have been a little hectic (to say the VERY least) the last few weeks and I’m sure that some of you may have noticed the “lightness” on my blog.

But I’m BACK in the groove now! Ready to go. I was able to spend a VERY nice afternoon with MOH yesterday and realized that there are SO many things that I haven’t written about yet that I’ve been doing in the background for our wedding. I have to admit, I’ve been in a non-wedding planning mood lately and I’ve got to kick it into high gear here. Why you ask?

Because it’s 159 days until our wedding!!! That magical 5 month mark is getting closer and closer with each day…and I have to admit that it’s making me a little nervous…I’m not sure why – it’s just a number, but still.

So, one thing that I’ve had for about two months now and just realized that I hadn’t written about it when I was visiting with MOH yesterday was my new centerpiece idea. I had originally thought to do something that brought in my love for scrapbooking and go completely away from flowers in the centerpieces. I was going to concentrate on photos of us and the kiddos…thinking that each centerpiece would be unique and help to generate some mingling amongst the guests, especially since it seems unlikely that our families will meet before the big day.

But in stepped one of my Maids. She got married just last fall (this was the wedding where little CC and Mr. CC’s son just couldn’t understand my Mr. CC and I couldn’t just step up there and get married then too!) and had some fabulous centerpiece holders. She had meant to sell them after her wedding, but a few months ago when I was up in Dallas for work and hanging out with her one night, mentioned that she hadn’t actually gotten rid of them yet. A quick tally on the total that she had remaining proved to be plenty for my tables.

This introduced a whole new element for me….something to consider. The downfall in my eyes was that it meant using fresh flowers…or dried ones…or fake ones…just something that I hadn’t planned on doing. But they’re just SO pretty! I couldn’t resist taking one of them home for Mr. CC to look over and see what he thought.

Here's a pic of the box that shows what it might look like with full flowers...

He thought that they were cool, and of course, since my Maid is willing to let me use them, it’s that much better. AWESOME!
Here's another picture of the vase out of the box...

So what do you think? There are a couple of ideas brewing my head of how to use these possibly without using full-out flowers…but you’ll have to stay tuned to hear what MOH came up with yesterday on how to do that…

Did you have an original idea that you just LOVED that eventually got changed because something else came along? How did that effect your planning?

Patiently Waiting...Not So Patiently

Mr. CC, I'm sorry, but you can't read this post. Nothing personal, but this one involves my wedding gown...and you KNOW that's off-limits!

Bye, sweetie!

So, rewind a few months back to when I put down the deposit and ordered my bridal gown. It was President’s day, which puts it mid-February and the sales lady politely informed me that when the dress arrived in 8-10 weeks that I would receive a phone call telling me that it was in the store and I could come by and pay my balance and take my dress home.

8-10 weeks was actually a little faster than I was expecting to hear that it would take…

Or so I thought at the time…

The first few weeks went by SOOOOO SLLLOOOOOW…it seemed like each and every day I was checking to see how many more days until the dress was supposed to be here. (Yes, I marked the expected week on my calendar that I carry around with me!) So every day I would check it expecting time to have magically passed while I slept, I guess. Never happened. It was taking forever to get to my magic “arrival” date. I use quotes because they couldn’t say if it would be 8 weeks or 10 weeks with any certainty. So I marked down 10 weeks out and waited…

Did I mention how slowly the time passed? If I didn’t, consider it mentioned.

And then I waited some more.

But then the funniest thing happened. I got busy. Doing wedding projects. Working on other things – I DO have a job after all! Taking a quick little vacation to NOLA. I guess that you could say that life happened. I got so wrapped up in other things, that I didn’t even think to change my marker in my date book for a few weeks. So imagine my shock and excitement when I was updating my date book with some new appointments and realized when moving my marker that the week that my dress was supposed to be in passed two weeks ago?

How FABULOUS is THAT?!?!? (I have to be honest here, and admit to doing a little happy dance right here in my cubicle at the thought of my dress being “almost” here!)

Then it hit me. Wait a minute. That was two weeks ago. I didn’t receive a phone call. Did I? Did I get a phone call and not recognize the number so I didn’t answer it (which I’m famous for doing)? Since the dress coordinator (Amy) that I had used when I ordered the dress has since quit working at that salon, did something get messed up with the order? Worse yet, did the bridal salon leave me a message about coming to pick up my dress and I didn’t listen to the message (which I’m ALSO famous for doing!) so maybe they’re almost ready to send it back as an un-received dress? Yes, ok, I can admit that the last thought was “slightly” overboard, but hey, I’m just relating the thoughts that went through my head…

I immediately flipped over to the phone number in my planner and started dialing. I explained the situation to the associate that answered the phone and she put me on hold. Then she came back on and asked if she could put me on hold again. Then a different associate came on and asked me some very worrisome questions regarding my order. (And of course, this is the ONE day that I don’t have my wedding planner binder at work with me!) Then the last lady came on the line.

By this time I was a nervous wreck!

She apologized for the time that it took to find my order, but that it had been found. “Miraculously” the dress had “just arrived” at the warehouse THAT day, and she was able to request an ASAP shipment to the store. If you’re not picking it up that well, I really have serious doubts about it arriving on the very day that I realize that it was past due…but whatever.

I assured the associate that I wasn’t in any huge hurry for the dress yet, but had just realized that the time it was supposed to be here had passed. She double reassured me that when the dress does come in that the store does repeated calls to make sure that I don’t want the dress before they would ever send it back as being returned. Whew. That solves my little phone fears. So I hung up the phone feeling VERY relieved that all was well again with my little wedding world.

And then it hit me. My dress will be here any day now…and yes, I did another little happy dance around my cubicle at this realization. Here's a reminder of my dress selection, in case you need it to do a little happy dance FOR me!

YIPPEE!!!

Did anyone else go through all of this anxiety over receiving your wedding dress in? And be honest…you did a happy dance when it finally got here too, didn’t you? I know you did!

TGIF!!!

Can I get an AMEN on that?

Anyone?

Whew. What a week. I don’t know about all of you out there in the vastness that forms the world wide web (or the five people who actually READ this blog!) but this has been one rough week for Miss Cotton Candy.

The good news? Well…I got my hotel block of rooms set up! And I started the week off right with finishing the tissue paper flower pomanders that I’ve been working on since…well, February. So that does deserve a good pat on the back.

The bad news? I don’t really know that I did much else. Work was a bear this week. I don’t know what happened, but a project hit me out of the blue last week and as much as I tried my darnedest to contain it to JUST last week…didn’t really work out that way.

I work for a large company. And this company has several divisions. And within each division there are more divisions. Right now, the Home Office is trying to get all of us on ONE computer system for ease of reporting. They’ve been working on this project for a year and a half now, and I’ve been heavily involved since about this time last year. It’s not going so well. We’re STILL having design meetings, since what was designed and delivered and is now currently operating (notice I didn’t say that it was operating well?) doesn’t meet the needs of the “business.” But the problem with meeting the needs of the business is that each little division has its own needs/requirements. And we’re not backing down or agreeing to compromise on anything.

Frankly, it’s starting to annoy me. I can only imagine how the designers/developers/programmers feel. Not to mention the Help Desk support team. This is nuts.

Someone just needs to make a decision and tell everyone else to follow that decision. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. Apparently when you get to the point where you work for XYZ big corporation, each division has a leader (CEO) and that CEO has to take advice from the smaller division leaders (not really sure what those people are called). I don’t know if Chief Head-Honcho just can’t make up his mind, or won’t. I really don’t know what the problem is.

But do these people just not get that I don’t care anymore at this point? I’m so tired of it all. I mean really. Does it take a committee to discuss the decision from every possible angle (and a few angles that you might NEVER have thought of) hemming and hawing over each minute detail of the decision to be made. Then that committee takes the decision to the business and hears what the business has to say (we gripe and complain a lot, us peons!). So the business hears all sides, but isn’t told the decision. The committee takes the discussions of the business and forms its opinion and give it to the Chief Head-Honcho. And then in the end, the Chief Head-Honcho does whatever he thinks is best.

Which may or may not go along with the recommendations of the committee.

Repeat said process for EACH and EVERY single decision to be made…

You see how exhausting this is? I’m beat.

Maybe they don’t know that I’m planning a wedding. Well, they all know that I’m getting married, but maybe they don’t realize that I want to enjoy my weekends, so wedding planning has to happen during the week. And they’re REALLY cutting into my internet surfing for more inspiration time. How uncool.

Maybe I should form a committee to discuss this and let the Chief Head-Honcho know that this is upsetting me greatly…because I’m SURE that he cares! Not really. So here’s to a happy Friday to all of us (the 5 people reading this blog and myself). I hope that you have a good weekend. I will. Soccer game, parents are visiting, eating some delicious Salt Lick BBQ (and peach cobbler), time with friends and fiancé. What more could a girl ask for?

Have a GREAT weekend…before you know it, Sunday night is here and the conference calls begin again…

Hotel...CHECK!

Don’t you just love it when things are easier than you expect them to be?

Since this was NOT the case with my linens…deep, calming breath…I was worried that booking the block of rooms for our wedding at the closest hotel would also be slightly traumatic for me.

(I swear to you that the linens should NOT have been that hard to find! It’s NOT just me making this whole process more difficult than it has to be!)

After taking a look around at what hotels were available in the area closest to our venue, Mr. CC and I decided that the brand new LaQuinta that just opened in Kyle would be our first choice for hotel rooms. (Note: this isn’t the hotel where WE will be staying, but a good choice for our guests.) It’s brand new, with these really cute “old timey” looking oil lamps lining the drive. Kind of out of style for the normal LaQuinta.

It’s also the closest hotel to the venue, just about 3 miles away, so I won’t have to worry about people having a good time at our reception and then having to make a long drive out of the hill country to get to their hotel. And believe me, this WAS one of the factors in selecting our venue, as there were multiple venues that we looked at that were a little further out into the hill county with gorgeous rooms and settings for the wedding, but the thought of our guests drinking for several hours and having a general good time and then having to drive twenty miles to get to the nearest hotel, sometimes down windy, hill country roads just didn’t sit well with either Mr. CC or myself.

So with that decision being made, I sort of drug my feet about making the call to get the block of rooms actually, well, blocked. At first it was because I had a million other things going on, and in the grand scheme of things, this was one of the things that could wait for a bit. But reality snuck up on me last week when I made a visit home. Mama CC let me know that some guests were already tentatively looking to make their hotel reservations, and were asking some questions about our hotel choices.

Lucky for me, I had looked into it and knew that I could not complete the process online (or else it would have been done LONG before now!) and just had to call the reservations number for a group rate. Having never done this before, I wasn’t really sure how to handle it all. How many rooms do you block? What’s a good discounted rate? And then they want to know what will the arrival/departure dates be?

I didn’t really know all of those answers, but luckily, Jennifer (the nice LaQuinta associate who helped me over the phone) was there to save the day. Apparently there are some norms that weddings tend to follow and she helped me through the process. The only thing that Mr. CC and I didn't like so much about LaQuinta's procedures with blocks of rooms is that the blocks are released 21 days prior to the event for any unreserved rooms left in my "block." I know that they have to do that to ensure that they have as many rooms filled as they possibly can, it's good business sense, but that seems a little far out from the wedding for some of our guests. Hopefully, everyone that needs a room will heed the instructions that will be included with our invitations, and book their rooms early.

So, I’m happy to report that there is ANOTHER thing on my check list DONE! There is now a block of rooms at the LaQuinta in Kyle, Texas reserved for my guests under the group name of “Reis/Gross Wedding” at the special rate of $89/night. They even gave me a different 1-800 # for me to give out on my invitations, 1-866-527-1498. LaQuinta was VERY accomodating and easy to work with!

Easy breezy...man, things are FLYING off of my checklist at the moment. I need to keep up this momentum...

The Checklist Looms...

I wrote about how special my Mother’s Day was. And it was special. But I wasn’t actually able to lay around all day and do nothing. It was nice for about half of the day, but that got old for someone as active as I can be…

So what else could be better than finishing a BIG wedding project?

What project is that you ask?

My tissue paper pomanders.

Yep, Mama CC, you read that right. All 6 pomanders are DONE! They are covered and hanging in the garage, which was kinda hard to do. The larger pomanders turned out quite a bit bigger than I had pictured in my mind. That’s completely fine that it worked out that way, as I was kind of worried about how small the pomanders might be when hanging from the large gazebo. So while I was happy that they turned out a little bigger than I had thought they would be, finding space in the house to hang them was a problem that I hadn’t really thought of ahead of time. I knew that making them early, I would have to store them somewhere, but didn’t really think about how hard it might be to store them.

I mean, they can’t just hang anywhere. They have to hang completely off of a wall, or from touching anything else, since laying against anything will squash the flowers. I think that they can be fluffed out once I’m ready for that, but we’ll see. And since the hanging situation made it impossible to hang inside the house, the only choice that I had was to put them in the garage.

Yes, Mr. CC, another thing has to go into the garage…this is our own private joke as the garage is already half full of stuff from when little CC and I moved in…I’m going to clean it out, I swear. But it might have to wait until after the wedding. It’ll be cooler then anyway…

So, hanging them in the garage meant protecting them not only from getting squashed, but also from getting dusty and dirty. Enter the big trash bags. Each tissue paper pomander is lovingly covered with a trash bag. We took the trash bag and opened it all up and poked a small hole in the bottom of the bag. We threaded the hanging ribbons through that hole and pulled the pomander up into the trash bag. A cheap trick, many thanks to Mr. CC’s quick thinking to our dust problem. So there they are, hanging in the garage, just patiently awaiting to be taken out, fluffed up and hung at our ceremony site in October. So…YEA ME! A day spent doing only what I wanted to do, watching the TV shows that I wanted to watch (go Bridezillas!) and finishing a project that has been looming over my head.

It feels good to have that one done! I am VERY glad that I listened to the advice that other brides that did that project had to give and started early on those pomanders. They are worth the work, and look gorgeous! All that needs to be done is to attach the black ribbons for hanging, so tissue paper pomanders…check!

That’s a big relief off of me to have that project finished.

So what’s up next? I need to call my hotel of choice and try to go ahead and get that block of rooms done…there are people that want to go ahead and make their reservations, and are waiting on me. Wish me luck!

Happy Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and it was a great one for me! First of all, I want to wish ALL mother’s out there a VERY happy (albeit belated) Mother’s Day. Being a Mom is one of the hardest jobs out there, and it’s the most rewarding job on the planet.

My day was perfect. I got to sleep in, and then I got sweetly woken up (not with a kiss, but close) to be told that breakfast was ready. I usually do the cooking around our house, unless it’s on the grill of course, and for my special day I didn’t have to do the cooking or the cleaning. As the “chef” I also am usually the last one that gets to eat, so it was a double rare treat to get my plate handed to me when I got downstairs and I was the one that ate first. But before I could eat, I was blessed with gifts galore. I had cards from both kids and flowers from my FH, along with a small teddy bear with a mini-balloon and some candy. Mr. CC did good!

After breakfast, since I didn’t have to do the dishes either, I was given the REMOTE. Yes, girls, you read that right. I had total control over the remote for the ENTIRE day. It was nice, let me tell you – the power that one little device holds is just amazing. We settled down to watch a movie, Mr. CC did some laundry and I was not allowed to do anything that remotely resembled work. So it was a restful day spent for me.

I did remember to call my own mothers about halfway through the afternoon, don’t worry. I missed both of them the first time that I called, but talked to each later in the day.

The perfect day was topped off with Mr. CC grilling up some chicken for dinner…yummy! Although Mr. CC’s son had to go home in the middle of the day, little CC was there with us all evening. She was super cute about “helping me” all during the day so that I had a good Mother’s Day. Isn’t it cute when kids are old enough to understand that this is your day and they make the choice to do all that they can to make it a good day? This is the first Mother’s Day that little CC had understood this, so it was very special indeed.

How was your day special?

Do My Eyes Deceive Me???

Sorry for my absence yesterday…rough day. We all have them, right?

Anyway, so when I left you last, there were some linen samples winging their way to me. I checked the post office, like a true stalker, about three times a day for the last two days. My hard work paid off yesterday, and when I went for the SECOND time that day, there was a key for a larger package box…

And here’s what I found waiting for me…

Wait a minute…do my eyes deceive me?

Is that EGGPLANT that I see? I don't know - my flash messed up the picture and it's all blurry since I was trying to zoom in so much, but the actual color is almost black. It's not nearly that purpleface to face.

Well, technically it’s Plum. At least that’s what the color swatch says…but it’s eggplant linens, ladies and gentlemen! I’m LOVING it.

I haven’t had a chance with my crazy work schedule to call and talk to the lady that runs this linen company, but MOH just really loved her the other day when they met. She has a lot of cool ideas that I can do with eggplant, and since she knows a lot about colors and such she can totally help steer me around these crazy ideas that I have.

One funny thing that happened. In daylight (I’m sure that the picture quality isn’t good enough maybe for you to tell) the Plum color is the perfect shade of Eggplant that I’ve been (or MOH has been) searching high and low for. But MOH has a concern. She’s wondering if choosing that darkest shade of Plum in a room made completely out of wood and with evening lighting that that shade of purple will be too dark and we might want to go with the swatch right above, called Deep Purple.

I just about looked crossways at my phone when MOH muttered those sacrilegious words…that’s about as bad as me saying that I would change my tablecloth colors…

So what do you think? Can you even tell from the pictures? Should I go with a little more of a “purpley” color since the lighting will be low and it will be dark? HELP!

Yes, the Elusive Eggplant Tablecloths AGAIN...

My MOH might have saved the day once again!

I don’t know how she continues to do this, but she constantly pulls these white rabbits out of a hat and saves the day – and I love her for it! She’s been the main one dealing with the issue of the elusive eggplant tablecloths, which I’ve posted repeatedly about in the past. Which is nice for me, because I don’t have the stress of dealing with it all. That leaves my time free for deciding what to do if we run into the situation where I have to decide to change my colors….

Calm down, MOH…take a deep breath and TAKE A BREAK!

She got to the proverbial end of the barrel when it came to eggplant linens for my wedding, and what did she do? Did she give up? Nope. She found another barrel.

Yep, she found a lady in San Antonio that rents linens out of her house, and was lucky enough to call this lady at a time when she was planning on doing an event there in Boerne (where MOH lives!). The two of them met up on Saturday, put their little heads together and came up with several solutions for me.

Here’s what I know so far:

The MOH likes her and the fabric swatches that the linen lady had with her.
The linen lady was nice enough to let MOH “borrow” the swatches with just a promise to mail them back to her so that I could see them myself.
The price? Only $18/linen, which is in my budget.

So no, I haven’t seen them up close and personal yet, but MOH thinks that one of the three fabric choices that they sent me will work. And I’m HIGHLY excited about that since the linen vendor that I checked out on Friday that SWORE that they had eggplant linens, did NOT in fact carry eggplant linens…and they were $26/linen, which is NOT technically in my budget.

MOH dutifully dropped the sample in the mail to me today…so I’m waiting on pins and needles for it to get here. I hope, I hope and hope some more that these selections will work with what Mr. CC and I have in mind…because if they don’t, I just don’t think that I have the energy to keep looking…

Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ve got my fingers crossed, my legs crossed, as many toes as I can cross, and my eyes are sometimes crossed…but that may not have anything to do with table linens, unfortunately. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the sample.

Oh man, oh man. I’ve been a busy little bee!

This weekend was spent out of town again, but with my mom and little sister. My little sister is a teacher up in the Dallas area of Texas, and several months ago she mentioned to my mom that she was interested in going to First Monday Trade Days at Canton with my mom and me one month. My mom quickly relayed the invitation to me, and I accepted immediately. The hardest part was not deciding to go, but which month we would all go.

At one point or another, this past weekend didn’t work for all of us. I know that my mom (and sister, I’m sure) was wanting me to be able to bring along little CC on our girl’s day of shopping, but it just wasn’t in the cards. The month of April didn’t work at all for us, and June is almost too hot to go do an all-day long outside shopping excursion…so it was really looking like May was the best choice. And when I looked at my schedule a little closer, I noticed that no matter if we chose May or June, I wouldn’t have little CC on the weekend that First Monday is held on either month.

So I drove home this past weekend and spent the day with the girls. My step-dad was out of town, and Mr. CC opted not to come along…so it really was an all girl’s weekend. We had a BLAST!

We met my little sister in Canton and hand-delivered her some breakfast – compliments to Daylight Donuts in Athens (they’re honestly the BEST donuts anywhere!) and started shopping. We had to have walked five miles, and we were POOPED at the end of the day. But I had so much fun being with my mom and sister, catching up on their lives and shopping, that I didn’t notice until it was all over with how tired I was. That’s when you know that you’ve had a good day!

My mom and I topped the day off right with dinner at Rounder’s Pizza and I had my favorite pepperoni rolls, which are also the BEST that I’ve found anywhere, and watched two chick flicks. Bride Wars and Mama Mia. Both movies were cute, and we decided that both of our men would be thankful that we watched them with each other instead of with our men…

I got up early on Sunday and drove home. Mr. CC and I celebrated our anniversary since I had been out of town and he had been working too late on the actual date. He took me out to lunch and then had our bedroom filled with pink balloons and a bouquet of red roses waiting for me when we got home and I went upstairs. He had also done all of the laundry and cleaned up our house, all the while thawing out some dinner to cook for me. I was pampered girls, let me tell you!

After our yummy dinner was over, I sat down and got to work. I have ONE MORE flower pomander to make and I’ve been putting it off for a while now. I’ve still been making the flowers, but the box has been almost full of flowers for three weeks now, just mocking me because I haven’t started to attach them yet. That all changed last night. I got out my trusty hot glue gun and started attaching. Since I started a little late, I only got about halfway done with it. I was just about to stop when I noticed that I was actually out of white flowers, so that meant that I had to stop (since I’m mixing the white and cream flowers on the ball!) and go to bed. I was happy with my progress though, and I went off to bed feeling like it had been a VERY productive day.

With Mr. CC’s help, the house was clean, the laundry was done, AND I got halfway done with my LAST flower pomander….that’s a LOT of progress!

Here’s to hoping that I can keep the ball rolling…

Our Trip to NOLA...

Let’s see if I can sum up our trip in just one post…I’m kinda wordy, so that might not be possible! J

The first night, we just settled into the condo and got situated. We went out to eat and then headed over to Bourbon street for our favorite daiquiri stop. It wasn’t anywhere near where we remembered it being, but oh well. We were SO excited to have these again…and they weren’t that great. It was kinda sad. But we still strolled along Bourbon street that night just looking around and seeing what we saw. It was fun, low-key and casual, just the two of us. We called it an early night and headed back “home.”

The next morning, we got up and cooked bacon/cheese omlettes for breakfast. They were SO good! We loved having the kitchen there for our convenience. After breakfast, we lathered on the sunscreen and set out for the Quarter. Our friends were making their way into town and checking into their hotel, so once they got there, we met up with them and started planning the day. It was Friday, our day for the actual Jazz Fest. We stopped off at a bar and started the day off “right” and then strolled up the streets towards the event. At Bourbon street we got lucky and found a cab that was willing to take us all to the Jazz Fest for just $4/person. He dropped us off and the musical event was already under way. We saw so many good acts, and I don’t remember any of their names. The only “big” name that we saw was Joe Cocker…the others were all smaller bands. But they were SO good. And the food was TO DIE FOR…yummy stuffed sandwiches, ice cream/sno cones, and ice cold beer. A good day all in all.

We got lucky and our friend’s parents had gotten there ahead of us and staked out a good spot under the Blues tent, so we had shade when we wanted it. We would wander out to other stages or the craft booths and shop, and then come back to sit down and listen at our own tent. It was a great day.

When we got ready to go, Mr. CC and I headed back to our condo to wash up and get ready for the evening. We were meeting our group at a local favorite restaurant, the Gumbo Shop, for dinner and then we planned on going to Bourbon street as a group. One thing led to another, dinner turned into a two hour event (SO YUMMY) and we all stuffed ourselves to the point of not being able to go out afterwards. We made it to two or three places on or just off of Bourbon street, but in the end decided to call it an early night at midnight. Combination of being in the sun all day long, and a good meal late at night did us in and made us all sleepy...but no so sleepy that Mr. CC wasn't able to be all romantic and buy me these on the Quarter...
The next day, Mr. CC and I slept a little late and then made our way down to the café for beignets. We really lucked out this year, and stood in the to go line for just about 5 minutes before a waiter came over and took our order and hooked us up. As soon as we got our beignets, we found our friends on Jackson Square and sat down for breakfast. We strolled around the quarter for a bit that day, just hanging out and then our group split up for the day. The guys went off to do what guys do – hit some more bars, and the girls went on one of the walking tours of New Orleans. We picked the Cemetery tour, and could not have been more pleased with it. It was fabulous, our tour guide was GREAT and made it very enjoyable. I plan on doing one of these tours each year from now on, until I’ve done them all. There are several companies that do tours like this in NOLA, and I would HIGHLY recommend this one – you can find out more information here. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

After the tour, we all met back up and headed over to dinner. Mr. CC and I ducked out of dinner and went off by ourselves to grab some pizza and a beer and relax for a bit. We love these people, but sometimes it’s nice just being on your own. After we ate, we went back to the condo and cleaned up and met up with everyone at a local bar afterwards. This time we stayed off of Bourbon street for a while, preferring some less crowded spots off of Royal. Mr. CC’s sister came down to meet us that night, and we met her and her boyfriend and left the big group of people. After hanging out with them as much as we could, we finally called it a night and hit the bed about 3am. LONG DAY…

That was our last night in NOLA, and the next morning we slept in a little bit and then cooked some breakfast and checked out of the condo. Nine hours of driving later, and we were back at home.

There was a lot that we did in between all of those activities. Mainly we hung out with loved ones, made new friends, and took in the sights. Our friends from CA had brought along another couple with them, and the six of us hit it off great! We love the new additions to our little group, and hanging out with extended family is always good. There were WAY too many drinks, a lot of much needed laughs and a little too many jokes about ya-yas and such for us girls! But we love our guys and put up with all sorts of conversations when we’re all together. All in all, it was a great trip…we can’t WAIT for next year!

The only down side to all of this is that I forgot to take my camera with me…no, no. It was in the car and the condo, but I forgot to take it on our day that we spent just lazing around the city and taking tours and such. My friend is supposed to send me copies of their pictures, so as soon as I get them, I’ll send them out…there were some cute one, I promise.

We plan on making this a yearly trip for all of us, and hopefully next year we can find a place that can house all three couples if we start looking early enough!