Engagement/Wedding

Navy Pier – Tuesday Part 1

Tuesday morning we got up, still full from dinner the night before, so we decided to walk some of it off! We headed for Navy Pier. Navy Pier is full of lots of fun. During the summer at night they have firework’s shows. The last one, Sept 4th, our wedding day so we weren’t able to witness one of those. See another reason to go back 🙂 Not that I really need a reason other than I want to 🙂

 

I feel like a gal out of a movie, like I should be singing and dancing (and no not “pole” dancing…)

I love Mac & cheese THIS much!

My honey and me!

Ok this is how windy it was… look at my poor hair!

I was aiming to get the skyline in the background… I don’t think I succeeded!

The beautiful skyline!

My baby with the skyline

and me with the skyline 🙂

Pretty flowers 🙂

I asked someone to take our picture with the skyline.
I had to hold my hair b/c the wind was wicked wild!

The Anchor off the U.S.S. Chicago

 

 

 

I was attempting to shoot it like he was touching the top. I misjudged just a bit 🙁

And of course, me with the sunglasses….

 

We ate lunch at Capi’s Italian Restaurant. PC RAVED about the tomato basil soup. It was pretty good and I’m not a fan of tomato soup.

His Chicken Parmesan

My Cavatappi and Mushrooms in Gorgonzola Sauce

Then we went to their botanical gardens.

Next came the BIG Ferris Wheel. I’m not a fan of Ferris Wheels but I couldn’t pass up riding it either. It never stops, it moves slowly and you “run” to jump on it. It is 150 ft tall. It’s a replica of the 1893 World’s Fair Ferris Wheel.

See I’m doin good… 🙂

And it’s a breeze for this one!

Once you got to the top it felt like you weren’t moving b/c the wind was whipping the car around so bad….

Here are some views from the Ferris Wheel:

 

 

 

Once we got off the Ferris Wheel we went in and had this ring made and did a build a bear. The build a bear we named Honeymoon and she sits on our bed with the ring bearer pillow when we get the bed made 🙂

I have a lot of photos from this day as well so I’ll break it up into a 2 posts so you don’t go on photo Over Dose 🙂

Peace, Love, & Tuesdays (on a Thursday re-cap)

Chicago – Monday – Part II

On a quick side note, my friend Jacin over at She Said Yes is on her honeymoon and I’m a guest blogger there today. Go check out her blog and of course while you’re there read what I wrote :). It’s about the Love List. It looks/sounds like she planned a beautiful wedding (Sept 25) and I can’t wait to see photos!

Ok here’s the rest of the Monday Photos from our honeymoon. So I found some photos I took on my phone also so again as usual, this blog is Jam Packed full of photos! What can I say, I love them!!!

This was just a skyline shot. It’d have been great if that light pole hadn’t jumped in my way 🙂

Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears

Lakefront Drive… can you guess where it runs by 😉 (hint: Lake Michigan)

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Chicago – Monday – Part I

Oh wow!!! I got a lot of photos from Monday so I’m splitting it up into 2 posts! Otherwise you’d see 55 photos and trust me, I got more than that 🙂 I’m sharing 23 with you right now and 22 in the other unless I look at them more and decide, nah don’t like it after all 🙂 Stay tuned to find out 🙂

On Monday we got up and ran across the street and ate breakfast at a Dunkin’ Donuts and then headed for the double decker tour buses. Most all my info is from the tour guide… he could have been pulling my leg and I wouldn’t know the difference so if I tell you something and it’s wrong, it was his fault! Don’t kill the messenger!

These are the “Corn Cob” buildings. I’ve seen them on some of my other excursions to the city however didn’t know about them… They are located on the Chicago River and are a city within a city.

Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist

Honeymoon Day 1

Ah! We were finally on our honeymoon! So you remember the day after the wedding (this same day) I posted a blog up saying it was official and on a side note I set off airport security. Well we took my hair out later that night and counted the bobby pins. There were 28 bobby pins in my hair so between the bobby pins and the flower I set off airport security and got patted down at 5:30am by a very nice lady. LOL. Then while she was patting me down she was up around my head and asked if I had a hairpiece in my hair. I was like, Nope, that’s my hair with bobby pins.

Here we are on our flight to Minneapolis. We had a layover there and then headed to our final destination. There were 4 (yes you read that correctly) of us on our airplane plus the flight attendant, pilot and co-pilot. We were lucky they didn’t cancel it on us but the flight attendant said that they had a full plane to pick up in Minneapolis and head to Lincoln, NE. Whew!

Oddly enough, we don’t look like we were running on 4 hrs of sleep… well I don’t anyway, I think PC looks tired here!! He’d had less sleep than me in the days leading up to this.

 

Out the window of the plane somewhere between NW Arkansas and Minneapolis.

 

I was really tired and trying to keep myself awake. We played Bejeweled 2 A LOT! PC snoozed some.

 

Ah! Coke my friend! How I’ve missed you!!!
I gave up drinking Coke or pop of any sorts 2 weeks before the wedding. It was difficult!!!

 

Yes I’m one of those people. I LOVE skyline shots. And at this point all electronic devices should be put up and stowed for landing… I didn’t listen. PC watched guard and I took a photo, REALLY FAST. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to Minneapolis or Minnesota for that matter… the Twin Cities Airport 🙂

 

I put this photo on facebook with the caption:
You’ve heard of waiting on a woman… well we’re waiting on a plane!

This was somewhere between Minneapolis & our final destination
This plane was full!

And here was our final destination (which a few new but I didn’t tell everyone…)
Chicago, The Windy City!!!
We had a lot of people questioning us as to why we didn’t go somewhere tropical.

We had our choice of staying at one of the older known hotels in the city or a brand new one. We looked at all our options and finally decided to go with The Wit. I’ve been to Chicago 3 previous times with my mom/aunt but PC had never been. With the time we were allotted for our honeymoon this seemed like the perfect destination! The Wit is the building in front of us with the lightening bolt going down it. Oddly enough at night, it doesn’t light up! I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a place to stay. The best part, for $2.50 you can jump on the “L” right inside Chicago O’Hare Airport and ride it all the way to 2 blocks from the hotel!!!

We were attempting to get a shot of the hotel in the background. Look over PC’s shoulder, you’ll see the lightening bolt!

When we got there it was right around noon. We were hungry and tired. We went to check in and they told us our room had been vacated by the previous night people but it hadn’t been cleaned for us yet. They asked if we planned on venturing out in the city. We laughed and said, no we want to sleep. But we decided to go and get lunch to kill time. We wound up eating in the hotel lobby’s restaurant. It was awesome! She took my cell number and said she’d put a rush on our room and once it was available they’d call us. Sure enough, just as we were finishing up lunch the phone rang! Thank God! Did I mention we were exhausted :).

I didn’t take my big Canon Rebel with us, I took PC’s Nikon Point & Shoot so unfortunately I made this shot a little dark but here was our room for the next few days.

Dunno what the deal is, I just feel the need to flash you all again today 😉

We took pictures of the bathroom because this is so how we want our bathroom someday if we ever get to remodel ours!!!

We had a lovely view of the Chicago River out of our 16th floor room!

Once our bags had been brought up to the room, we crashed. We set 4 alarms so we’d be sure to wake up and not miss our nights activity.

My head looks so misshaped in this photo!

We had tickets to see Shrek the Musical!
Front Row tickets to be exact (they were the same price as higher up seats… so heck you’re only on your honeymoon once right!!)

PC had never been to a broadway musical so it was perfect.
And the show was phenomenal!

Once we got back we opted to go to the lobby restaurant again for dinner. I love Mac & cheese but I’m picky on how it tastes as well… Theirs was excellent!!!

When we got back to our room this was waiting for us from the hotel.

Peace, Love & relaxing honeymoons!

Send Off

I truthfully think I’m going to wait for actual wedding photos until I see Mindy’s, so I guess I’ll start with us leaving. I know, that’s mean of me but I’m so torn, so that means I really want to wait. I can’t wait to see them and I keep thinking/expecting any day now to see photos! I promise when I see them I’ll share!!!!!

Until then, we must roll on! These pictures don’t give away how we were dressed either 🙂

So now we are leaving the Reception. After the reception we went to our house and unloaded presents out of PC’s truck and unwrapped them. Then we headed for Fayetteville.

Thursday night we were up later than normal getting things done. Awake at 6am on Friday morning. I went to bed after midnight on Friday night (Thanks for Talking to me Stef!!) and PC admitted to going to bed closer to 2am. My mom woke me up at 6:20 just before my alarm went off Saturday morning and I went strong all day long. Once we got to Fayetteville we ate dinner at PF Changs and by the time we got to the hotel and checked in it was 10:30. Then we had to un-wind which took forever. We finally made it to sleep around midnight and were up at 4:20 Sunday morning to catch our 6:30am flight for our honeymoon. (more on that later!!)

PC and I decided NOT to have either of our vehicles at the wedding so they didn’t get “dirty” or “Messed up” or whatever you’d like to call it…

More Wedding Day Eve…

PC had his dad over on Tuesday night and when he came over, he brought us all the photos from yesterday’s post as well as photos he took on Wedding Day Eve and the Wedding day. I felt like you guys should see more photos… haha 🙂 Not like I don’t cram my blogs with enough photos anyway! Sheesh, what am I thinking!

So yes, I’m back tracking a little, but you know a year from now it’ll be great that I included these! You’ll thank me then ;).

PC and I both finally wound up at the Phelp’s House to set things up for Rehearsal Dinner that night. I was in a real in depth convo here 🙂

Apparently whatever I was talking about was IMPORTANT… LOL

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Rehearsal Dinner

After we left the rehearsal at the church, it was time for rehearsal Dinner. PC’s family made an excellent meal!!! PC does the best job of smoking meat!

Don’t read this next part if you are hungry… your mouth will water!

We had:
Smoked Pork Tenderloin
Smoked Baked Beans
Smoked Cabage
Macaroni & Cheese
Potato Salad
Taco Salad
Dinner Rolls

And talk about desserts…. There were tons of them. I’m not even sure what all there was… I don’t think I ate any of them. Woops! I hardly ate much, I was beeboppin around talkin’ to EVERYONE.

Literally right behind the Phelps House is the Catholic Private school so Tbug and Dill Pickle found the play ground equipment and went to having a fun ole time.

The food wasn’t quite ready when we first got there so the “boys” manned the smoker putting the finishing touches on the food.

Both Grandmother’s congregated in the house and reminisced about old times.
Both my dad and PC’s dad grew up about a mile from each other so our grandmothers knew each other.

Mom & her friend Cynthia did an excellent job of decorating the Phelps House for the next day. I owe them so much for all the help and work they put in for making our day excellent!

I really think Evelyn liked the ceiling in the Library!

Kalem got his photo taken. haha!

I was telling April & Jeremy about some of the history of the house since they didn’t get to go on the walk through when we toured it before signing our contract to use the house.

Evelyn, April, and me getting ready to head upstairs.

Evelyn loved the natural light in this room.

We were discussing what room we were over on the main floor. We were above the Library.

This was on the 3rd floor in the ballroom.

They loved the ceiling so I had to tell them what the lady told us about the ceiling. haha.

We eventually made our way back downstairs and most of the wedding party went out to sit on the front porch. Tbug & Dill Pickle were keeping them “entertained”

I finally made my way outside and they started picking on me. I didn’t put up with it though, it was on! LOL

“Neener, Neener, Neener, You can’t catch me!”

“Ha, I caught one of you!”
“No let her go!”

Finally, it was dinner time!
We waited like one pig waits on another!!

I hadn’t seen the boys in a while so I went on the hunt. I found Tim and PC on the front porch. They didn’t know where Greg wound up so I was on a mission. I found him on the back porch.

Memaw’s birthday was on Sunday (the day after the wedding) and we didn’t want her to be left out so on top of all the desserts that were present, we also had a super special birthday cake for her. I had the kids lead me in singing “Happy Birthday”

But silly me, when I was walking in to the dining room from the kitchen I wound up blowing all the candles out :(. PC re-lit them and I had Memaw come to me.

By the end of the night, my feet hurt so bad. I offered Kalem to trade me shoes. How do I look 😉

Ok so I’m at a delima. The main photographer has had difficulties getting the photos back to me and I don’t have them yet. I have some from the secondary photographer. I know you guys want to see photos… but I don’t want you to get sick of the wedding photos either… so I’m debating on showing you what the secondary photographer had and then when I get the main photographer’s showing them to you as well…. but I just don’t know….. I definitely don’t want to take away from her photos and I don’t want you guys sick of them. I mean I’ve already given you a photo overload… so now is your turn… what are your opinions? She said I “might” have them this week… but that’s not a for certain…..
Peace, Love & Decisions