in which my dear friend goes to work dressed up like food

This is Autumn.

You may remember her as the one who loves bacon and popcorn, always wins Scrabble, and wears a leopard print Snuggie.


Autumn is employed at the Land of Stuff-Your-Own-Animals properly known as Build-A-Bear.


And Saturday she went to work dressed as a hotdog.

As she tells the story, they were introducing a new line of food-related animals and she felt she could join in better by showing up in the appropriate attire. (When their line of Star Wars animals came out, she went to dressed work as Darth Vador. She's a model employee who goes ALL OUT.) Her boss shot down all the other food costume ideas Autumn had, but agreed to let her come as a hotdog if she could find a costume. (It's my personal belief that her boss thought she couldn't find one before Saturday rolled around.) As it just so happened, a girl at the salon where Autumn works had a hotdog costume sitting in her closest. 

And so she went to work as a piece of meat stuck rolled up in a slice of bread.

As an accessory(I don't really count the mustard as an accessory), she carried around a matching stuffed dog. 

There really is nothing that girl won't do.

some people had a birthday

Yesterday we had a party for the twins birthday. Seeing how they were 7 just a few weeks ago, this birthday came way too fast. 

To help celebrate the big 1-7, a bunch of their friends came over after church. 

Hannah and Willigers were in attendance, OF COURSE. 

No party is complete unless the honorary family members are around.

Hannah Banana(not to be confused with Hannah from Savannah pictured above), Courtney, Nikki and Kelsey came too. I love them and was very excited they were there because I hadn't seen them since August. I've always liked Nikki, but when she started telling me all the plans she has for Kelsey's romantic future, I was so happy because it's not often I meet someone else who's so intent on matchmaking. (Kelsey kept denying that she likes a certain young man, but it was quite obvious that she really does like him because she kept blushing. Blushing is Sign #1 that love is quite possibly in the air.)

I attempted to decorate a cake in under five minutes which produced rather sad results. I am indebted to the can of Cool Whip for saving the day and making the crowd happy after it was cut up.

Don't they look SO HAPPY to share a birthday?! Look at the LOVE in those faces! You can almost FEEL the joy!

Saturday Happenings

Look who came to visit me today!! 

 They are so cute.

Molly found some (washable) markers at Nick's and decided that paper really was too boring to color on. I'm so glad I saw Molly because my Molly o'meter was running very low and I needed a little LOUD in my life. 

We discovered a nest with three baby birds in the glider swing Grandpa made for Grandma years ago. Molly named the first Katie, the second Kate, and probably would have named the third Katelynn if she hadn't gotten distracted by the trampoline and the jumping opportunities she was missing.

What fascinates me about this pictures is the bird seems to have eye lashes. I had no idea that was possible!

 Daniel and Erika came to visit too! 

I am a huge fan of all my people, big and small.

our wedding~preceremony

Let's start at the very beginning of this wedding recap by looking at the invitation. I wanted to use a daisy and this quote, so Erika the multi-talented created this for me. I love how it turned out.

My aunts took these pictures and when I got them in the email, all productivity immediately halted. I couldn't wait to show them to Christopher so when he got home from work I said, "I have been WAITING AND WAITING for you to get home so I could show you ALL the wedding pictures! But don't worry, I am glad to see you too." I just make him feel so loved.

(I feel the need to say something before we get any further- I don't have very many pictures at this point so there will be some gaps in the day for now, but I'll go back and fill them in later as I get more pictures. I don't know why I felt the need to explain that. I think it must have to do with a little issue called OCD.)

Here we are waiting before the ceremony to begin. The church did have little rooms we could wait in, but we were running a little behind schedule so by the time we came inside from pictures, guests were already arriving and we would have had to walk by them all to get to the rooms so we hung out in this doorway. The flower girls were VERY excited which resulted in a lot of waving around of their flowers. Keturah was especially enthusiastic so we spent quite a bit of time explaining to her that the petals would fall off her flowers and that's not a very good thing right before the wedding. 

The girl in the teal shirt behind me is my friend Dani. She's the same Dani who was in Daniel and Erika's wedding with me and the same Dani who makes people out of balloons. She is a wedding expert and came to help us do hair and makeup, and sing songs to put everyone in the wedding spirit. She was also the Official Fixer of My Train before I walked down the aisle.

Jimmy and Zachary took advantage of the couch to do a little pre-wedding chillaxing.

While Zachary spent the day looking quite suave...

...Logan prefered to spend some quality time with his thumb and his grandmother.

I love this picture ONBB picture Keri the photographer took.

Old- the blue and white handkerchief of Grandma's wrapped around the flowers

New- my dress

Borrowed- the little gold and blue butterfly pin from Grandma Connie(I gave that pin to her years ago!)

Blue- my sash 

Dad's mother died before I was born so I never met her, but I have her wedding ring so I tied it onto one of the ring bearer pillows.  Because I had that, the handkerchief and pin, I had something from each of my grandmothers which was very special.

it's tough being popular

It has become apparent that when you visit your family and friends after getting married, everybody wants to hang out with you. It's tough being popular.

The first thing on my social schedule this morning was a visit to the mall with Marissa. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but we did spend a considerable amount of time telling each other that while we really liked a particular item, our bank accounts would not like us if we actually bought it.

Next was a trip to the craft store with Mom and Elizabeth. Obviously this was a trial for me, but we've all got our burdens to bear in this life. ;-)

We only had about 7,000 options when it came to picking out scrapbooking paper for tomorrows project.

We then traveled to Aaron's track meet with Grandma. Ever the eternal optimist, she looked at me and said, "it's a beautiful day to be at the games" as the rain poured down upon us.

That's Aaron in the middle looking to the right. Our friend Brady was racing also and he won the 100 meter dash in record time. I don't have a picture of him running because by the time the camera turned on, he was already at the finish line. He's fast as lighting,that boy.

My last, and probably, favorite visit of the day was with my fellow founding members of the Single Ladies Club and two of my very best friends, Joanna and Autumn! We had so much fun telling stories and laughing that we forgot to play Scrabble which has never happened in the history of the SL Club.  

One of the funniest moments was when the following conversation was spoken:
Joanna: "Oh guys, I have this friend..."
Autumn and Sarah: "OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! YES????????"
Joanna: "...and he looks like a monkey."

That's not exactly what we were expecting her to say.

I LOVE Joanna and Autumn and can't wait until they come visit me!

ps. On Saturday I get to see (drum roll please)....Molly McButter!!!!

Just Me and My Grandma

Grandma and I the first time she saw my dress.

Battle Buddy

Back when the twins were little, Andrew and Daniel were in Civil Air Patrol and introduced to me the concept of having a Battle Buddy. Even though I didn't know exactly what a Battle Buddy was supposed to do, I was fascinated by the idea and looked around for a Battle Buddy of my own. Despite the fact I had been asking for a sister for exactly 4 years and 345 days, I skipped right over Elizabeth and decided Aaron would be perfect. He had little say in the matter, but because I had spent so many days on the couch feeding him his bottle, picking up his dropped toys and kissing him, I was sure he didn't mind. As his Battle Buddy, I have been Aaron's main (and favorite) hairdresser, ironer of Sunday clothes, and Diplomat Between the Parentals and Their Children (Elizabeth has made good use of that one over the years also).

Our latest and greatest way of bonding is playing xbox games together. Aaron will be the first to tell you that I am not an expert at any game that requires me to simultaneously jump, shoot, and watch for enemies. My expertise lies more in the area of car racing, not because I'm very good at it, but because driving is something I know about while simultaneously jumping, shooting, and watching for enemies is not. Knowing he needed a new one and that the xbox is where our main bonding happens these days, Christopher and I got Aaron a new racing game called Burnout Paradise. The first thing I noticed when we played it this week was when the narrator said "you'll never have another ride like this". I am so grateful for that because I spent half the time driving into telephone poles and the other half seeing WRECKED WRECKED flash across the screen while my car went hurling through the California interstate. That's not exactly an experience I'd like to relive.

It really is no surprise that I get way more into the driving than Aaron does. When the road turns to the left, my whole body turns left. When I crash into other cars (something that happens very often), I apologize profusely. I might even throw a few yells in there if I feel the ride is especially wild. Aaron just sits there calmly getting tons of points and very seldom crashing. He always tells me which car to pick (he knows I'd pick a car based purely on the color) and which ramps to drive up so I can get extra turbo boosts. He's kind of a nice Battle Buddy to have around.

Official Date Night

Because Christopher's going be to in the field and I'm at home visiting my family, we declared Thursday night to be Official Date Night(ODN). The first order of business for ODN was watching part of Harry Potter as we ate supper. We're on a Harry Potter intensive at our house due to the new movie coming out soon and me not having seen any of the previous ones. Just as Harry was talking to the professor who wears the turban (I don't remember what his name is, but I do remember being convinced he had snakes under there) we paused the movie because we had a FRG meeting to be at. It wasn't the most informative meeting, but I held a very chubby baby with HUGE blue eyes so it was by no means a complete waste of time.

For a wedding gift, Stephanie gave us a bag of wrapped activities for eight date nights. Inside the cards that say "choose this date if..." is a description of the activity.

I sat on the floor for a good ten minutes reading the cards and shaking the boxes in an attempt to decide which one we should open. In the end, I left out the boxes that said "...if you're in a playful mood" and "...if you're feeling groovy" and let Christopher pick. He choice the playful mood one which was surprising because I was sure he'd pick the groovy. Inside was a dvd version on The Newlywed Game. 

We played against a tv couple named Russ and Rayna who, unfortunately, probably got divorced immediatly after the show because they didn't answer anything the same and spent most of the time arguing. I think we have a much better chance of a lasting marriage.

For dessert after the game we had yummy,yummy,yummy baked peaches. I happen to believe everything is better with more butter so the amount of butter left in the butter dish was significantly less by the time I was done.

Before bed I should Christopher something I had made for him and put in our special mailbox.

I wrote out 21 reasons that I love him on little pieces of paper that he can open while he's there and I'm here.

♥

Pomp and Circumstance

Yesterday I got on the train and came back home for Katie's college graduation.

Katie had never been to the theater the ceremony was held at, so during breakfast four family members gave her their versions of when to turn left and right. Unfortunately it confused Katie so much that we were lost no less than 15 minutes after leaving her house. I so wished I could help her out but I had never been to the theater either and even if I had, we all know I would have be NO help whatsoever because directions are hardly my forte. We quickly resorted to calling her mother,father, and oldest sister for help but none of them answered their phones. Our next action was to ask a man crossing the street if he had any idea where the theater was. He looked up from his cigarette long enough to say that he did not, so on we speed. We then asked another (non-smoking) gentleman and he saved the day by pointing us down the street in the direction we were headed. 

Catastrophe #1 was conquered only minutes before Catastrophe #2 appeared.

As soon as Katie parked the car, we ran for the elevator like a couple of crazy women in high heels. As the doors closed, we began the process of stuffing all her belongings in my arms so she could put on her cap and gown. The gown went on without any trouble but her graduation hood decided to be troublesome and get all mixed up. For whatever unknown reason, my mouth thought it would be wise to open up and say "give me the hood! I know ALL ABOUT those things." It was one of those moments that the words popped out before I thought about them because I had never in my life touched one of those hoods, much less put one on someone. It only took the time between floor 5 and floor 1 to discover that I do not have a future in Graduation Fashions. 

We finally made it to the theater and Katie went one way (presumably in search of someone to fix her hood) and I the other to find my seat. I am quite possibly one of the only people who finds graduation ceremonies slightly interesting, so I spent a few minutes preparing myself for the coming event. I love the song Pomp and Circumstance and considered playing at the wedding, but I didn't want the guests to be confused about what type of event they were at. I looked over every single name in the program and remembered that one of my goals in life is to become the person who receives honorary degrees at graduations. It sometimes seems all they have to do it show up and they are given a real degree without having to do the homework.

For years I have been telling Katie that she was by far the smartest in her class but she always disagreed. I was thrilled beyond words when she received an award reserved for those with the highest gpa (hers was 3.991) of the graduating class. Finally someone else told her what I had been saying all along.

She has rightfully earned the nickname Miss Smarty Pants.

The Honeyballoon, part 4

Tuesday was our official Leaving Day and while Christopher did the responsible stuff like check us out of the lodge, I did the stuff I like and went around photographing things. It's an arrangement that has enabled us to have a very happy marriage thus far. 

This room had couches, tables and lots of Easter lilies, hanging plants, and various other forms of greenery. It was all very pretty.

Apparently Austrians think having animal heads up on the wall adds to the beauty of a room.

Since we missed this part of the tour on Sunday, we stopped by the cemetery where the von Trapps are buried. I almost said "where the dead von Trapps are buried" but that seems a little redundant, as well as quite obvious. 

We also drove by the cows one more time. In case it's not clear by now- we liked the cows.

All weekend long we saw signs pointing the way to Inky Dinky Oinkink. The signs were never clear what type of establishment it was, so it was a conversation piece for days. My guess was perhaps it was a tattoo parlor simply because of the 'inky' part. Not that I personally would name my tattoo parlor such a fluffy name, but to each his own. We stumbled upon it by accident as we were leaving and discovered that it is a very yellow bed and breakfast/tea garden. Very different than a busy tattoo parlor.  

Stowe happens to be the home of the Ben & Jerry ice cream factory and since we are not ones to turn down the chance to get free ice cream, we stopped for a tour. Tour guide Bob was no less than 6' 10" tall, a fact that has nothing to do with ice cream but is interesting nonetheless.

It was POURING on the ride home and we barely made it through the flooded areas without having to call Noah for assistance. As a precautionary measure,we had a lengthy discussion about how to escape a car the finds itself submerged in water. We do so enjoy light-hearted topics.

Thankfully neither Noah nor escaping a submerged car were necessary as we found the ferry to take us across the river. 

And so we returned from our honeymoon to our apartment. We both agreed that honeymoons are so fun that we should go on them more often(with each other,of course).