Xapa to the World

  • Getting Married: 27 Weeks – Thankful

    This was my first year having two places to go to for Thanksgiving. I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but everything went very smoothly. The only thing I regret was that I skimped out on turkey for fear of over-eating at either place, but Mom and I had got a roast, so we made up for that.

    I’m going to apologize now that I have no pictures to accompany this post. I’m a bit disappointed in myself. No fear. The next post will have plenty of photos for you to enjoy.

    We started the day with sleeping in. This was glorious, or would have been much more glorious had I been able to sleep in passed 8 am. Mom used to complain about not being able to sleep in after some time, and I would balk at her. I completely understand now. Darn body clock. I had baked my goodies for the meals the night before, so I was free to lounge around in the morning, play Lego Lord of the Rings on our Wii, until we headed out to my sister’s for lunch.

    We’ve been having Thanksgiving lunch at either my mom’s place or my sister’s house for several years now. It’s a great time, and very low-key. And when we’re all tired of each other, we pack up leftovers and head to our respective homes to munch on turkey sandwiches for the rest of the evening – usually put up the tree, watch Christmas movies, get into the spirit of the next holiday.

    This year was a bit different since I have a fiance and his family to include. Late afternoon, I hopped in my car and drove on up to Matt’s parents’ house for some more grubbing. It’s been great to be able to spend more time with Matt’s family and to get to know them. My biggest concern was that I don’t really know what everyone’s regular “dish” is. At our family Thanksgiving, we have it pretty well established who brings what. But this is a new group of people. I decided to play it safe this year and bring cornbread and the World Famous chocolate chip cookies. Those went over famously (haha!) but the cornbread didn’t do so well. I think I’m going to try to perfect a twice-baked potatoes recipe and make that my regular dish. I told Matt, and he loves potatoes, so of course he was on board.

    Throughout the day, I updated my Facebook status with things I am thankful for. Here they are:

    • I’m thankful for brekkie. It’s my favorite meal of the day. I will frequently have it for lunch and for dinner…and sometimes elevensies, 2nd breakfast, afternoon tea, or a midnight snack (but I’ve been really good about not eating anything late in the day.)
    • I’m thankful for coffee. Also for getting paid a day early, and for the overtime I accrued this pay period.
    • I am thankful for technology. For the internet and phones where I can keep track of all my friends and family scattered across the globe. It is such a blessing!
    • I’m thankful for games. I love playing sudoku, Farmville (yes….yes I do) and all the Lego games for our Nintendo Wii. Thanks to my cousin Tessa and her family for first introducing me to them while in Tokyo. You created a Lego Wii playing monster…and I’m totally talking about Mom and not myself *cough* *cough*
    • I am thankful for creativity and being able to make things. I love that God gave us His passion to create and grow. 🙂
    • I’m thankful for lazy mornings and the smell of things baking.
    • I’m thankful for my car. He’s such a good little machine.
    • I’m grateful for holiday lunches with my family that my car drives me to. They are few and far between.
    • Thankful for adding future in-laws to the holidays 🙂
    • I’m so thankful for an amazing man who I will get to call Hubby in just over 6 months. Love you so much Matt!

    There are so many other things that I’m thankful for; I can’t even list them all. God has been so good to me this year (every year, but this year I feel the blessings especially well.) I am so thankful for my church family and the cherished memories with believers all over the globe. There have been so many people in my life who were there for a season and yet so valuable to me and my walk.

    What are you particularly thankful for this year? What special time did you have this year for Thanksgiving?

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    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

    My Pinterest Wedding Board

    Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

    Related articles

  • Getting Married: 28 Weeks – Cake: Not the Band, But They’re Cool Too

    The last big, sorta expensive, thing we’ve needed to get booked is the wedding cake. I was able to go to the Bridalrama in Cincinnati (find more here about that) and sampled quite a few cakes. That is, by far, the most enjoyable part of the wedding planning we’ve had. Together, Matt and I scheduled tastings at two places in the area. We wanted something really nice where we could get a wide variety of flavors and make it unique to our style (well, probably more my style, but Matt was super-excited about the tasting part). For us, the emphasis is on taste, not so much on appearance, although I would love to have a pretty cake too. We also wanted something that wouldn’t cost double what my dress did. Yikes, there are some pricey places out there!

    As mentioned in the Bridalrama post, we had quite a lot of praise for J Annette’s Cheesecakes, out of West Chester. We had tasted the traditional cake in cupcake form at a birthday party and I had tried the cheesecake at Bridalrama. I recently had some more cake from there at our friend Dannie’s baby shower. So incredibly good!

    We were pretty excited about having a wedding cake with cheesecake, and the cost per slice was the same for traditional cake or cheesecake. We felt that the price for a cheesecake wedding cake was very reasonable. I loved that they do not opt for using fondant, and that with the cheesecake, they only use white frosting, which is perfect for what I have been wanting. I love my wedding colors, but I don’t want everything to be completely overwhelmed by them. We left that tasting knowing that we loved the taste, presentation and service. (Facebook)

    We decided that regardless of whether we had found OUR cake place or not, we wanted to do more tastings! So, a dear friend, Kim, recommended we check out “L&L’s Simply Sweet” out of Franklin, OH. It’s right on my path to The House in Carlisle, so I thought it would be a pretty good idea. I called them up and scheduled a tasting. They also have a plethora of flavors and boasted of being committed to coming up with new flavors on request – I was just glad that they had something with mocha in it. All Matt really cared about was the chocolate stuff. 🙂

    We tried out a few of the flavors and talked about design. The pricing is VERY reasonable and despite not having cheesecake to offer for wedding cake, I was very happy with the tasting. We love cheesecake, but if we really want to have cheesecake for our wedding, we’ll buy a small one and enjoy it ourselves. Goodness knows we probably won’t get to taste much of our own at the reception! I emailed them pictures of the cakes I wanted to pull elements from and of our topper and Lisa and Lori were both real excited about the cake! So, on Monday, Veteran’s Day, I stopped by and made the deposit for it. I can not be more thrilled! (Facebook)

    While I don’t want to show you ALL of my plans for the cake, I will share with you some of the designs and such that I have seen and liked for inspiration. Here you go:

    I’m just including this picture so you can see what a lovely combo red and yellow make. I do not like fondant and we will not be having it on our cake, but you can get an idea of the colors.
    I like square cakes, mostly because I like clean edges and I also like how much more cake can be got out of square than round. I also like the staggered effect.
    I’ve loved the spackled/rough frosting effect so much. It looks how I love to paint and gives it such great texture.
    I saw this picture in a “30 Best Wedding Cakes” or some such website and I love the ruffled icing effect. I put this up on my Pinterest right away for inspiration.

    I keep thinking that I can’t really remember what my friends’ cakes have looked like at their weddings. But I remember what they tasted like. I can remember my friends Audrey and Erik’s cake, but I think that was just because it was so super unique, and also the last wedding I’ve been to. I want people to remember our cake as being tasty and being exactly what they would have wanted. That taste is specific to each person, so I hope that what we’ve ordered will appeal to enough people. And if not, we definitely made the effort, so go buy your own. 😀

    I kid, I kid…but if you do, would you mind going to one of these two lovely places?

    —————————–

    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

    My Pinterest Wedding Board

    Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

    Related articles

  • Getting Married: 29 Weeks – Engagement Photos #2

    If you are friends with Matt and I on Facebook, then you will know that we got the rest of our engagement photos. (Yay!) You can read the first post about the experience and our photographer here. But we finally got around to getting the proofs developed. They turned out so good. Matt and I visited Michael’s for a frame for a gift and picked up this pretty little album to show them off in and to add our wedding photos to when we get them done.

    I took the CD-Rom to The Darkroom in Fairfield, OH. They are really good and I’ve had pictures developed there before. The quality of their prints with the sharpness of the photos – great combination! I will be using them to get more prints in the future and one of the best parts is that they are local! Just like my florist and just like our cake people (yes, we got our cake place! More info to come in the future.) Also, my mom picked up the pictures and the woman told her that she just loved our pictures and that we looked so incredibly happy. She thought we were a beautiful couple. I thought that was sweet.

    We had a lot of fun posing and getting the pictures done. It’s so good to finally have some photos of the two of us and I can’t wait to add to them with our wedding photos.

    Matt and I really love our cars. We call Matt’s car The Cube, or Cubie, or when I’m feelin’ rather fond and silly about it, Cubester. My boy’s Christian name is Mephibosheth, but his street name is Gravy – both because of his color and he’s a smooth ride. This picture might also have been my idea.

    Also, you should check out this website. The shop supports survivors and rescues for people of Human Trafficking. It’s pretty amazing.

    —————————–

    I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

    My Pinterest Wedding Board

    Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

    Related articles

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