Wedding Preparations

The other girls and myself spent all day (and a little the night before) making ourselves beautiful for the big event. I'm pretty sure the guys just got dressed a few minutes before the ceremony!


We spent Friday night painting our nails and giving ourselves relaxing facials.

Saturday morning started off with 10:00 hair appointments. Julie, Sam, and I all had our hair up in curlers and spent a few minutes catching up on the celebrity gossip of the day while our curlers cooled.

My mom had her hair styled.

My hair was so curly it bounced!















I made pearl and bead bobby pins for our hair.




















The final product!

One of my lovely coworkers, Cody, helped us all with our make up once we arrived at the American Legion. Then, all we had to do was put on our dresses and smile!

Wedding Set Up and Rehearsal

Friday night before the wedding we had lots of help to set up and decorate the American Legion. Thank you to all of you who helped to make our wedding beautiful!


Julie and Jen (among others) set up the centerpieces.

Sam, Dani, and my mom folded napkins.

Matthew and Nathan put Matthew's custom stairs together.

The place setting for the bride.

After set up, we rehearsed the entire ceremony twice.

Watermelon

It has been a busy year and my garden was mostly neglected, but we did enjoy a little produce. We actually had some green peppers (last year the plant did not produce anything) and the watermelon plants went crazy. Here is one of the 4 large yellow watermelons. We had so much fruit I had to give one away so it didn't go bad!

Zia

Our new cat definitely adds some excitement around the house. She loves to play and be silly. She also actually uses the scratching post we bought for her! Here are a few videos of her antics.

Zia Knocks off the toys.

And I said stay down!

Zia LOVES our wet bath towels.

Shower #3

In September, our friends Jamie and Edward threw a "wedding" shower for Matthew and I so that we could celebrate with all of our Savannah friends. Jamie went all out and had lots of games to play and lots of prizes. All of the decorations matched (down to the sprinkles on the chocolate covered pretzels!) and the food was delicious.

Playing the "sock" game. We had to guess what items were inside socks by only touching the items with our feet. The clue was "things you would take on a trip or honeymoon".





















Jamie made me a veil to wear during the party. I also used it for the rehearsal the night before our wedding.





















Opening gifts.
















A small fraction of the food!





















The best gift EVER!





















Matthew and I with our hosts, Jamie and Edward.


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Aquarium Visits

Matthew and I have been a bit busy lately (ya know, getting married and all!) so our blog posts have fallen way behind. I will try to start where we left off and catch back up quickly.

After our white-water rafting trip at the end of August, Matthew and I stopped at the Tennessee Aquarium along with our friends Jamie and Edward. Although they did have some great exhibits, overall I was not very impressed by this aquarium. Here are a few photos of the animals and of us.


Button polyps in the coral exhibit.

An anthias fish in the coral exhibit, I used to have one of these in my tank.

A type of sea nettle jellyfish.

Matthew and I by the giant ocean tank.

Touching a sturgeon.

The following weekend we were back in Tennessee for Matthew's grandmother's funeral so we decided to make a weekend trip of it and stop in Gatlinburg to visit the Aquarium of the Smokies. This aquarium is part of the Ripley's Believe it or Not series so I was a bit skeptical of how educational it would be. As it turned out, this is a wonderful aquarium with great exhibits and lots of interesting information. It was also laid out in a way that made sense and flowed nicely.

A look at the tropical fish tank.

Matthew in the tunnel under the ocean tank.

A leafy sea dragon (a type of seahorse).

A cuttlefish (related to squid and octopus).

Matthew checking out the sea nettle jellyfish exhibit.