Memorial Day weekend!

Three day weekends are the best. Offers plenty of time to spend with family and friends. And this one was fabulous!

Friday, Doug and I took it easy- and spent the evening with some of his co-workers- playing cornhole and video games. Saturday morning, I headed down to the HC to spend time with my mom for the day and then made our way to Wooster for a campout/cookout with a group we used to go to church camp with. The whole group had fallen out of touch for about 5-6 years, and last year we decided to plan a get together. It was the best decision ever and in the last year, we have hung out a few times.

Love these girls!! The three of us have been friends for almost 10 years
(though I have known the girl in the middle longer)

I headed back to Cleveland on Sunday morning after a long evening of drinking and chatting. And basically spent the next two days thinking my niece was the cutest baby in the world. She loves being outside...and it's even cuter now that she can be out in all of her adorable summer outfits. 

Helping with the yardwork

Hanging out at the beach with grandma

Shoving ice cream into her face

Yep, pretty damn cute.

This is only a 2 day work week...and we're leaving Thursday morning to head to New Jersey/New York for a mini vacation and a wedding! Should be a fun weekend :)

Oh and only 4 months left until our big day!

Bride Brain

I just made a huge mistake. Which I am fully blaming on the fact that I have bride brain and can't think clearly.

For future reference....yard does not equal foot. So 100 yards...does not equal 100 feet. More like 300 feet. And when you need 180 feet of something, do not order 200 yards. Of three different colors of ribbon. Which equals 600 yards. Otherwise known as 1800 feet. NOT the same.

So I now need to figure out what I'm going to do with the extra 1300 feet of bright yellow, purple and gold ribbon. And I need to figure out how to explain to my fiance why I have more ribbon than anyone in their entire life will need.

Oops. Stupid bride brain.

Weekend fun

This weekend was pretty awesome. Just the right amount of busyness and relaxation, not to mention 80 degree weather and sunshine :)

On Friday, we had full intentions of going to the Indians game. Instead, we opted for cheaper beer and the game on TV, spending most of the game at The Clevelander and moving to the Thirsty Parrot patio to watch the post-game fireworks. Thankfully, the RTA makes going downtown for events like this so easy! Especially because we have a stop less than a mile from our apartment.

I spent all day Saturday at my brothers spending time with him, my sister-in-law, niece and our host brother from the Czech Republic and his wife. The day was mostly spent walking and talking and lazing, and ended with a few bottles of wine and insanely large steaks from the West Side Market...mmm.

Sunday, my fiance and his brother, as well as some work friends ran the Cleveland 10K (which was part of the Cleveland full and half-marathon). A large breakfast at Jack's Deli for the runners, an afternoon showing of the Avengers, and my favorite part of the day: registering.

This is a screen shot of the top of our Macy's registry page. First...holy crap 131 days! Getting so close- and I am SO EXCITED! But honestly- registering was awesome. We had to give the saleswoman all our information (which only took about 5 minutes), and then we were handed the gun and left on our own (which I totally loved). I might have gotten a little out of control with random kitchen gadgets- but come on! I have been dreaming about having my own kitchen with all the cool gadgets forever!

Except for the pasta maker attachment for the Kitchen Aid (which I already own...I just need all the fun attachments). NO ONE makes enough pasta to justify a $200 attachment, not even this carb loving Italian girl. I'll just keep borrowing my parents :)

Happy Friday!

Today is a good day.

My wedding dress (and alterations), which was on a ridiculous David's Bridal credit card (it was silver and sparkly), which I only opened because it was interest free for 6 months, IS PAID OFF! With a whole 6 days to spare until I got slammed with all the interest and fees from the last 6 months. So that's a good feeling.

Last night, we had our final meeting with the deacon who will be marrying us. He is also my dad's best friend and I have known him my entire life, so it's been great to see him pretty regularly over the past few months! We finalized all the reading selections for the wedding, and discussed some other details- and we're good to go!

We finalized the wording for our invitations, and I'm sending it over to our designer (otherwise known as my sister-in-laws sister...I really wish there was an easier way to say that...considering she has 3 sisters and they are all helping out with our wedding because they are awesome). So we will hopefully have our invites in a few weeks...ready to be sent by mid-July.

I ordered these adorable little business card kinda things called mini-moo cards (which any bride blogger/Weddingbee reader will know). Totally awesome. They have our engagement pics on one side and wedding website address on the other. We're including these with the invites, so people can go to the website- which has more information about wedding registry, hotels, and things to do in Holmes County. 

Plus it's Friday. Which always is a good day.

An Athens Weekend recap

So seriously...I'm sorry I suck at blogging lately. I keep having ideas for posts to write, and then my days are full and crazy at work (though my events are over! for now at least...) and then I get home and realize I need to make dinner and clean up. And then it's 9:00 and I'm ready to lie in bed and watch Scrubs with my fiance. And that's nice. But it leaves pretty much no time for blogging. I really need to figure out this real world thing...though I have been out of college for 3 years, now that I live with the boy- I don't have evenings to myself to just do nothing (err...I mean blog). And for the first time, I live in a place where I want to be able to take pride in how it looks- hence cleaning and tidying. 

But no more excuses. I really will try to be a better blogger! We're sitting at a little over 100 days from the wedding...so there should be plenty to discuss.

More importantly though was this past weekend. This amazing, glorious past weekend in the best place on earth. Disneyland! Just kidding. Athens. But really, Athens is better. Cheep booze, great friends, gorgeous weather. It was fabulous. 

To kick the weekend off though, my best friend got engaged!! Her now fiance had planned the whole thing and that was really the reason for our trip though she was convinced otherwise. 

The moment he got down on one knee!!

He had ordered a custom made coozie that said Ashley, Will you Marry me?
But it didn't get there in time, so he improvised.
And please notice my fiance and her new fiance in the background...they love each other

Needless to say- we were all in celebration mode and in the perfect place to do it!

The girls celebrating with our champagne slushies

And the boys with whiskey

Saturday was another full day of celebration.Which featured a lot of this.

Serious day drinking on Courtside patio. perfection.

Overall- it was an amazing day in one of my favorite places in the world with a lot of my favorite people. Lots of drinks, lots of eating (mmmm O'Bettys, Souvlakis, Courtside, Casa, Miller's Chicken...no, I don't think I stopped eating all weekend). 

Which is probably why today I feel like I ran a marathon over the weekend. The combination of tons of walking, excessive drinking, and loads of crappy food has not made my body happy. So worth it.

Birthday's of the past

It's my birthday week. And normally I make a much bigger deal about this, but the fact that I had to work last night and tonight has kind of dampered my week long celebrations. But tomorrow....tomorrow should be glorious. The great thing about a birthday on Cinco de Mayo is that everyone is out partying (and I just pretend it's all for me). But the weather is supposed to be nice; the sun shining; lots of good friends. And I plan to enjoy it all!

Birthday week has me reminiscing though about my past birthdays (at least since my 21st).

21

My 21st was a blast. However, since I'm a year older than all my college friends due to taking a year off after highschool, none of them were old enough to go out with me. But it was mom's weekend and a number of my brothers friends were still in Athens and they all took me out! It was a blast.

22

22 was a good year- had a party, got my roommates mom to do a keg stand, and celebrated another roommates 21st (on the right in this photo). 

23

The 23rd was a little rough. The fiance (then boyfriend) had just left Athens to head to Columbus, where his father passed away the next day. It was hard for me to be out celebrating, and not being with him. My friends were amazing though, forced me into a tiara and made it a good night. 

24

This was the first birthday up in Cleveland. And it was one of those freak 85 degree days in Cleveland. And we enjoyed every minute of it, but hanging out downtown, drinking Corona's and 1 too many shots of tequila. This picture was relatively early in the evening...things rapidly went downhill.

25

We had a mini Mexican feast at my brothers for my 25th. It was a pretty calm night as we were leaving two days later for California, which was my big birthday present. I just loved spending time with my niece- she even had an adorable little party dress on for my birthday :)

And now 26. I'm excited for what 26 has to hold. And not just this Saturday (which again...will be awesome). But the whole year. A new job, a new apartment, getting married. Can't wait!

Crazy life

I have been a horrible blogger lately. I always swore to myself that when I finally started a blog, I wouldn't let weeks go by without a post! I thought how hard can it be? Just write some stuff and post it. HA. Yeah, not so much. 

Life has happened and it is out of control right now. All good things...but all things to just make me crazed.

I recently got a promotion (woo!) to do all the events and marketing. Which is awesome, and I'm completely thrilled about. However, the promotion came abruptly when our events person left...in the middle of our largest fundraiser of the year- a series of bowling events. So I basically had to dive in head first, completely clueless...with four events to complete. One down, three to go. Two of which are this week and one next. Needless to say, I'm slightly pulling my hair out. 

On top of still trying to settle into the new apartment. And plan a wedding...we still need to register, figure out invitations, favors, decorations, etc... And spend time with my family and friends.

AND it's my birthday week...of which I have not even been able to enjoy because of the craziness happening at work this week. Thankfully, with a Saturday birthday (and a forecast of 75 and sunny), I will be spending all day Saturday with friends hanging out in downtown Cle and enjoying the weather. And of course some cold beverages.