Our Wedding Day

As I was looking at and reading other friends' blogs, I realized I never documented our wedding day. Granted, I didn't start this blog until 2 months after our wedding day, so I guess I am excused. Since I have blogged about almost everything else, I decided to go back and "re-live" that day in our blog. Someday I'll probably be glad I did, considering my wedding book is only half finished (sorry Tiff!). So here goes:

April 6, 2007 - My last day at Fossil. This was an odd day for me - while I was excited to be getting married to Randy, I wasn't looking forward to starting all over at a new job. But God knew what was best for me and I got a job in Irving. The exciting part of this day was my bachelorette party/girl's nite out party was that evening. My best friend Tiffany had planned a great evening for me, all the bridesmaids, and my mom in downtown Dallas. We had so much fun, just hanging out - working on the favors for our reception, eating junk food, and staying up late.

April 14, 2007 - My 24th birthday. Guess what I spent my 24th birthday doing? Moving. I moved out of my apartment in Dallas to move in with Paul & Shannon Mints for 2 weeks until the wedding. All my furniture and stuff went to Randy's apartment - our home for our first 2 months. Who knew the two of us had so much stuff? :) But we did stop to celebrate at Don Pablo's...yum!

April 24, 2007 - My last day of work before the wedding.

April 25, 2007 - Randy & I headed to Marietta to take care of some last minute plans and start getting ready for the wedding. We got our marriage license, only to discover Paul wasn't registered to perform weddings in Oklahoma. Good thing to know before Saturday. So we started the process to get him registered. Thankfully we had a friend at the courthouse who was coming to the wedding and she said she would take care of everything when Paul arrived on Friday. Little blessings. We decorated for the reception on Thursday, it looked so pretty. Friday Randy's family arrived and we decorated the sanctuary while they got ready for the rehearsal dinner. My mom had worked so hard in the weeks before the wedding to plan out our reception. It was so pretty and exactly what we wanted. Thank you mom!

April 27, 2007 - Rehearsal time. Our rehearsal went rather smoothly. We had to have a few fill ins for grandmothers and such but overall it was a success. You know you hear all these horror stories about things falling apart right before the wedding and surprisingly I was calm. I think all the planning ahead of time worked out. That and I knew that even though things might go wrong, I still would be married in the end. And that was all that mattered. :) We finished the rehearsal and headed to the rehearsal dinner in the youth room, hosted by Randy's parents. Sonia and Kristy did such a great job decorating the youth room. It was a western, chuckwagon theme - complete with homemade cobbler!! They covered the tables with brown butcher paper, layed out pictures of Randy & I all over them, and then covered all of it with heavy, thick plastic. It looked amazing! We had such a good time visiting with friends and family and watching our Wedding Slideshow. Before the night was over, everyone signed a frame for us and wrote us "well-wishes" and prayers out on cards for our Wedding book. We will treasure these always.

April 28, 2007 - Wedding Day! It was finally here! I woke up early and had breakfast with Mom and Dad. Then Mom and I headed to the church to get ready and finish some last minute set-up for the reception. Julie B. did my nails, thanks sweetheart! Then it was time to start getting ready. The fun began. I had April, Amy, Ada, and Abby all with me in the dressing room (that is a lot of A's!). We had so much fun. We did hair, nails, took pictures and were goofy. I so enjoyed that time with them. Shannon told me before I left their house on Wednesday to enjoy every minute before the wedding because it would go by so fast - and it did! Pictures began and we were getting that much closer to 2 p.m.

2 p.m. - The wedding began. Daniel, April, Kristy and Andrew sang some beautiful songs at the beginning of the ceremony. Parents and grandparents walked in. Then came the groomsmen, Paul, and Randy. Then it was time for the bridesmaids. That's when I heard it - Bennett didn't want to walk down the aisle. He was so scared! Shannon got Brad to come back and Brad talked him through it and with Abby's comforting, it's going to be fun, he was ready! Then it was mine and Dad's turn. Wow, I had imagined this moment my whole life and it was finally here. The piano played, the doors opened and we entered. We made our way down the aisle, slowly, because I kept tripping over the front of my dress. The rest is pretty much a blur. I remember the look on Randy's face. He was so happy, giddy, like a little boy opening presents at Christmas. Thankfully Adam videod the entire ceremony and Terry recorded it, otherwise I might not have known what Paul said to us! We said our vows to each other, which we wrote ourselves. Randy actually finished his the night before, but they were wonderful. We said I do, were pronounced man and wife, and Randy kissed his bride.



The reception was full of our family and friends and we were so glad each of them got to share the day with us. The cakes were exuisite! There was none of Randy's left at the end! We did the bouquet and garter toss and then it was time to leave. I was sad, it had all gone so fast and I felt like I had hardly got to spend any time with the people who were celebrating with us. Little did we know, we couldn't leave. The groomsmen had "stolen" our car and were decorating it out back. Thank you guys! You saved us! So we did a "fake" leaving for the photographer and then headed back inside to visit some more. I know, we're hopeless. We just weren't ready to leave. We finally said our goodbyes and headed to Dallas where we spent our first night of our honeymoon in a charming B&B. Then it was off to Lake Tahoe for a week.

So there you go, our Wedding Day. Wonderful, fun, special, perfect! Just exactly what we wanted. Thank you for sharing this with us!

Anniversary Trip

So for all of you wondering how our anniversary trip went - here goes:

For our 1st anniversary, Randy & I decided to take a weekend trip to Fredericksburg, TX. I am so glad we did. It was a wonderful weekend away from work and responsibilties. We left Friday before our anniversary and drove down to Fredericksburg, TX. Who knew Texas had such fun little towns to visit? (I'm just kidding, everyone pokes fun at me being from Oklahoma...lol!) We checked in to our B&B and unloaded our stuff. Here are pics of the outside and inside of the cottage.

Buona Sera

Kitchenette

Bathroom with Jacuzzi tub

After getting settled in, we went into town to visit the shops we had heard so much about. Well, most of them close at 5 on Fridays! So we just stopped for dinner instead. The next morning we woke up early and headed to Enchanted Rock State Park. Our friends told us this was a neat place to go hiking and exploring. And since Randy can't turn down exploring - we went. :)

Enchanted Rock State Park - the rock from the bottom

We hiked all the way to the top! Whew! it didn't look that high, but the rock is bigger than you think. This was our attempt at a self-portrait.

This was after some nice gentleman offered to take our picture, much better.

A cool tree on top of the rock.

Randy looking for the cave - time to explore!

Grant & Sarah had mentioned there being a cave you could go in at the rock. So once on top of the rock, Randy began looking for the cave. We saw a group of 5th graders all heading to the cave so decided to follow them. We get the entrance and realize this isn't just a cave with a big opening at the front, it is more of a crevice in the rock that you crawl through. Great! And to top it off, we didn't bring flashlights. So Randy asked the sponsor of the 5th grade group if we could follow them through. They said yes and we were off, or in. The first of the cave wasn't too bad, pretty wide and you could still see light from the outside. Then it got really narrow and dark. If you want a funny story to tell, put 12 5th graders in a dark cave with about 4 flashlights among them, none of the dressed to go hiking, and then put 2 tag-along vacationers and you have a story. It was hilarious to listen to the 5th graders talk.

We got about halfway through and thought we were finished because the cave suddenly opened to the outside - we thought. The guys (Randy & the sponsor) went to look around to see how we would get down. Turns out, that wasn't the end of the cave. We had to keep going. Well 12 5th graders had had enough cave for one trip so they proceded to find another way down the rock. We, on the other hand, kept going. There happened to be 3 college students behind us so we followed them through the rest of the cave. This is when it got really interesting. When the sponsor of the 5th grade group was great about sharing his light, the college students weren't so much. So we walked through (climbed, scooted, and squeezed) through most of the last half in the dark. We had our cell phones, and used them when needed for light. It really wasn't that bad - I knew we had to be able to get out, there were arrows on the walls telling you to go that way. But when you hear the people in front of you say, watch out! There is hole here and we can't see the bottom - it kind of freaks you out. And I did slip one time and couldn't stop until Randy grabbed my arm. But then again, I couldn't see what I was slipping into so it wasn't that bad. :) We finally got out and then climbed down the other side of the rock. It was fun, but I am not going back without a flashlight! Randy told me he was so proud of me for doing so great in the cave and not complaining until I hit my knee on the rock. I felt proud of myself - never did I imagine going into a cave with no light - but I did it!

My mountain man

Another self portrait, not too bad.

This is for Rhett - I thought it looked like a train.

After hiking up, through, and around Enchanted Rock, we headed back to our B&B to relax and take a nice hot bath. Ahhh! We did stop at the Wildseed Farm and got some seeds to plant once we have a house of our own. That night we ate at Mamacita's - a mexican restaurant in Fredericksburg. It was so good! We ordered fajitas for two and it would have fed four people! Yum!

Sunday we headed back into town to visit more shops and walk around the town. Its funny, but I didn't take a single picture of the town, just ones outside of it! Oh well. We'll do that next time we visit. We headed home Sunday afternoon.

These were some cows we saw outside of Fredericksburg.

We don't know what kind they are, but thought they looked like "Oreo" cows. :)

Monday - we visited the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. This is a picture of the Japense Garden.

A cute little squirrel

Cool picture of some Japanese statue

Randy took this one.

And finally a funny little turtle - this guy had his back leg up in the air like that for 5 minutes!

Wedding Cake

So tradition has it that newlyweds are supposed to keep the topper of their wedding cake and eat it on thier first anniversary. I've always wondered why, but thought it was sweet and sentimental and honestly I kind of looked forward to getting to eat ours on our 1st anniversary. Randy on the other hand, thought it was gross and couldn't understand why someone would want to eat cake that was a year old.

So my mom had taken our cake topper home along with much of the 2nd layer and froze it in her freezer. A couple of months ago, she brought our topper and 2nd layer to our apartment when she came to visit. Again Randy kept asking if we could just throw it out. I compromised. I did get rid of the 2nd layer (sorry mom!) but kept the topper. We did need the extra room in our freezer....so I rationalized it was ok to get rid of part of it. Then our anniversary came last week. We were so busy with our trip to Fredericksburg (post about this to follow soon) and then our day off on Monday, that I completely forgot about our cake. I remembered later on in the week, but it was never a good time to get out the cake. I did put it in the fridge to let it thaw. So it has been in our fridge all weekend - until tonight. Randy left to run an errand and I couldn't wait. I had to see if it was still edible. Who knows what happens to cake after a year in a freezer? Well I unwrapped it, and unwrapped it, and unwrapped it. Mom did a great job on preventing freezer burn. Love you Mom! :)

And guess what? It wasn't that bad. I cut a small piece from the back of the topper and tried it. The icing tasted great and the cake was just a little dry. Not too bad for cake that is a year old. So there you go. I did it - I ate our cake a year later. And Randy did actually try a small, small piece of it. He decided it tasted like old candy and then asked me if that was what it tasted like the first time around. Honestly I don't remember! I know it was good, but can't tell you what it tasted like. Enjoy the pictures!

Oh and now I kind of wish we had a piece of Randy's cake. It was all gone before we even left the reception - and thankfully they saved 2 pieces for us. It was amazing! But sadly, there wasn't any left to freeze. But we have pictures!