Catching Up

Since we have just decided to join the wonderful world of blogging, we will take this opportunity to let you know what we have been up to this year. It has been crazy busy to say the least. In the midst of planning our wedding, we decided this would be a good time to take ourselves into debt for the next 30 years! We made an offer on a house in February and closed the last day of March...so we have officially been homeowners for 5 months.

We bought a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath ranch with a finished basement on just over a half acre lot. We were not prepared for the amount of yard work we now have, but we were very lucky to find a house that the previous owners had updated. It looks like 1960 on the outside, but has a whole different look on the inside. Our first and only major project for the time being (aside from painting every room) was to cover the sky blue vinyl flooring with laminate wood, which runs from the entry way through the kitchen, into the half bath and into the "fireplace room". We aren't sure what we're going to do with this room yet. For the past 6 months it has been deemed "the wedding room" housing all of the decorations and gifts.

Kitchen Floor (Before)

Den with carpet (Before)

Kitchen Floor (After)

Den Floor (After)

In May, Dan and I decided we needed a little break from the painting and rearranging and spent an extended weekend down in Austin, TX with my best friend and Maid of Honor, Elaine, and her boyfriend Chris. I had a frequent flyer ticket for Dan and Elaine cashed in her birthday present from Chris and flew me down there (yes, I did say her birthday present). I was only 7 months late. So we spent 4 days here...

...it was pretty rough. We spent our days in the sun and nights playing the Wii. And then it was back to reality again. We had a couple of wonderful wedding showers thrown for us...one in May by Dan's Uncle Ted and Aunt Marcia and one in June by my mom and Elaine. We also played in the annual Charlie Kearns Memorial Tournament in June, which was rained out both days for the first time ever (that I can remember anyway).

Dan's ride back into the clubhouse

I love stormy skies!

The majority of the summer was spent finishing the rest of the wedding details. We made invites, programs, chocolates, name cards, table numbers, etc.

Hard at work, but I had my good friend Miller Lite helping me out. My friend Emily helped me with the design!

We did manage to squeeze in our bachelor and bachelorette parties. I had the perfect weekend. The girls came into town on Friday. We had lunch at Cheesecake Factory and did some shopping out at Mayfair mall. We took it easy that night and hung out at my house...drinking wine around the fire pit.

Saturday, we started the day out with 9 holes of golf (does this sound more like a bachelor party?). Check out some of the golf pictures on Emily's photography blog: http://www.regenthilldesigns.wordpress.com/ (August 12 post). Afterward, we had a mini-shower at Leslie's house (my future sister-in-law), dinner at Mo's Irish Pub and then out to a couple of bars downtown.

At Bar Louie

Dan had his party a couple weekends later. They played golf on Friday at Rolling Hills (formerly Lac La Belle) and spent the evening at the Wille house shooting pool and hanging out. The big day was Saturday in the Dells. They played another 18 holes at Cold Water Canyon, had some dinner and drinks back at the cabin they rented at The Wilderness, played cards, went to the casino...and if you need to know the rest of the night's details, you'll have to ask Dan...