Dumpster Diving

HI! We're back! So sorry for the long delay, we had a few things to take care of the past couple of weeks. ;) I will start from the last post and give you a blog by blog update. Hopefully by the time we get through all of the updates we will have professional wedding photos back from the photographer :)

Lets start with: My Big Redneck Wedding - Dumpster Diving for centerpieces.

One of my bridesmaid's (Jana) came all the way over from Germany to participate in our wedding. To make a trip like that you have to make it worth your while, so Jana came to America for 25 days. I was very excited to have her help :) I warned her that the day after she arrived we had a big day planned. So she arrived on Thursday night, I went to work on Friday and she rested up from her jet lag all day. Then Saturday came. Oh boy! Here was our schedule:

8:00 a.m. - Gomer's Liquor to order alcohol for the wedding. I was so excited they were open so early! I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there that were excited too....they are called alcoholics. Jana and I spent one hour at Gomers selecting the beer, wine, and random liquor. The good thing about Gomer's is that they take back anything you don't open :) So we over-ordered. They owner said we would be returning at least 1/3 of what we ordered. Turns out we ran out of beer two hours into the wedding and somehow forgot to set out the wine. So we have about 80 bottles of wine in our garage :) Nothing is being returned.

9:00 a.m. - go to bank

9:15 a.m. - head towards the mall - stop by every Wal-Mart we can find to clean them out of green ribbon

10:00 a.m. - go to mall and return 5 bridesmaid dresses Jana didn't need

11:00 a.m. - Meet Megan and Lu at Costco to get utensils and such for reception. We were 9 minutes late. (Megan made sure I was aware of this)

12:00 a.m. - go to Sam's Club in case they had a better selection (and Megan got a Sam's Club card) They did not have a better selection

12:30 p.m. - Eat at Applebee's so Jana doesn't faint. Meg and Lu came with :)

1:30 p.m. - head back towards the Northland stopping by Wal-Mart's on the way

2:00 p.m. - Arrive at the recycling center. Theresa had this great idea to decorate the tables at the reception with clear wine bottles. All I had to do was come up with 100 clear wine bottles for free!! So we showed up at the recycling center, found the massive dumpster full of clear glass and dove in. 40 minutes later we had made a lot of friends, heard lots of congrats on the wedding, and had 120 clear wine bottles.







3:00 p.m. - head home to unload car (stinky old wine bottle stench)

4:00 p.m. - meet Ross and Tawny at the wedding site to spy on a wedding

5:00 p.m. - make a last minute stop to my seamstress' house to get Jana's dress altered

5:30 p.m. - stop by liquor store to get some wine for the night (tons of wine bottles, but no wine)

6:00 p.m - meet Kathy at the house to begin our project



Middle of project...after we emptied a few more bottles...



2:00 a.m. - Mission accomplished



I have great friends :)

Stay tuned for pictures of the wine bottles decorated, and on the tables...

Emotions

I am overdue for a good solid post of wedding developments. We have been quite busy, but I haven't documented it enough to make the post interesting with pictures. So it will be a little delayed.

For now I couldn't resist the cuteness of miss Lucy Lu on her mamma's site showing off her emotions. This is a good prelude to the wedding post as I have gone through each of these emotions on a daily basis for the past two weeks.

Thinking
DJ or no DJ?

Surprise
30% off bridesmaids dresses! No way!

Silly
If we run out of chairs people can sit on each other's laps!

Sad
rain rain... go away... come again another day... -notonmyweddingday!-

Angry
Why are the hotel people so unreliable!

Lucy is no longer a cute baby, she has turned into an amazingly beautiful little girl. Sad and Silly are my favorite!

Happy Earth Day!

I am so excited about Earth Day today, everyone seems to be embracing it. The entertainment world, Google, especially politics!

I have been trying my best for the past few years to be more energy efficient, less wasteful, and more conscious of my carbon footprint.

I take our recyclable materials to the local Bridging the Gap location every other Saturday, which includes pulling cans and bottles out of the trash that my dear husband-to-be mistakenly disposed of.

I try not to use lights when not necessary, I like sunshine better anyhow. Does it count as being energy efficient if I go to bed before dark in order to save energy on electricity? Is that a good enough excuse to sleep a lot?

I reuse bottles despite the cleaning people at my office insisting on taking them off my desk at night and throwing them away. Although I am having troubles with our new dishwasher at home melting them, our old one didn't so I could use them over and over again.

Heath and I carpool about 50-75% of the time to save on gas and parking. We do this more to save money but it helps neutralize the fact that I drive an SUV.

I was excited to see that President Obama and the Secretary of Agriculture (who happens to be from my hometown and former governor of Iowa!) are in Iowa today celebrating Earth Day :) I'm a proud girl! Here is the interview from this morning with Tom Vilsack regarding their policy and visit to Iowa.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Fresh Air

One of the things we love the most about our new diggs is the location. You know how in real estate they say "location, location, location!" (always followed by an exclaimation mark....point...mark? whatever... too much pistachio cake today)

The best way to describe our new environment is to imagine taking a subdivision out of the center of Overland Park and dumping it into the middle of fields, pastures, cows, and gravel roads. We live in a community called Forest Oaks and when you venture out of the neighborhood there is nothing for miles. It's great. The black top road to the entrance has no road markings and it is long and winds back and forth. It is like a fantastic mix of suburb and the area I grew up in.

Here is the view from the road on our way into town:

I love the random white horse in the middle of all the cows :)

Not only does the location seem perfect for us, but it is also perfect for our dogs :) There are plenty of places to take them to run free and play fetch (Abby needs lots of room for fetch!). The best part is look how close it is to our house! No excuses now ;) The arrow is pointing to the house, not Heath's arm.

I had to add this picture, how opposite are our dogs? Abby looks like a lion/cheetah and Satchel looks like Gilbert Grape.

Suits us!

We managed to put off getting Heath's suit until the last minute. Notice how I said "we", I am totally all over this 'two shall become one' event coming up.

We ran across an amazing option to get a suit custom made for Heath at Bachrach. The store recently decided to do custom suits to the every detail. From the fabric, to the lining, to the buttons, to the angle of the buttons, to the pocket style, etc. We made an appointment on a Saturday when they opened and Mindy was there waiting for us. She had a notecard with our names on it, bottled water for each of us, and a white rose for me! It was so personal and fun.


Heath was quite overwhelmed with all of the decisions that he had to make for a full hour. Reminder: these are the ONLY decisions he has had to make for the wedding. Poor guy, a whole hour. ;)

The best part of the whole experience was that the suit was within budget for a whopping total of $536! Awesome price for a custom suit that he can wear for work as well.

Oh yeah.....Heath's Birthday

Heath's 28th birthday was in March as well - I'm not sure why I remembered to do Abby's birthday post and not Heath's.....priorities I guess.

Ever since we decided on this house we have been excited about the front porch, especially Heath, who really wanted a rocking chair for his new front porch. And since I know him so well he played into my surprise by coming home that day excited about the beautiful day (for a change) and enjoying a cigar on the porch before dinner (yes! I cooked!). Of course he even added the sadness about having to use a kitchen table chair because we don't have porch furniture yet. Such a sucker.

Happy birthday Abby!

Our dear female dog Abby turned 6 yesterday. Abby's official name is Abender Dun Dat. No, we did not name her, we got her when she was 4 and this was what was on her papers. We are thinking maybe a kid named her? Kind of silly, we like it!




She has been a great addition to our family and companion for Satchel. Her and Satchel are quite different, Abby is built and behaves more like a hunter rather than a show dog, like Satchel is. She has amazing balance and is super swift (Satchel - not so much). She is also super needy and stubborn. Abby is Satchel's best friend and lover - well.....not so much on the "good lovin" part.
















I read the other day that Labrador Retrievers live to be between 12-16 years old. So I'm excited that we have a good 6-10 more years with our pups :) Especially when Abby is in this kind of shape!
















Photography by Megan Peters