Sunday, April 22, 2012

Kolbeck Shower

Yesterday was my first bridal shower with the Kolbeck women.  It was thrown by my (almost) mom-in-law Kathy and sister-in-law Nicole and it was AMAZING.  The whole thing was Italian picnic themed.  There were red and white checked things everywhere, yummy food, and cookies (biscotti and almond cookies) and two kinds of tiramisu for dessert.

Each guest brought a bottle of wine for us, and when they got there they signed their bottle.  Our wine fridge has a lot of wine in it now!

We got quite a few lovely gifts, including the quilt that Kathy made for us that is our bedspread.

At the end of it, as I was opening gifts, Mat showed up to surprise me.  He gave me a special gift - a gift certificate to a spa so I can get a massage or facial or both before our wedding.  I'm marrying an amazing man.  :)

I feel SO incredibly blessed by the love and generosity that was shown by all yesterday.  It was better than I could have imagined.

Some pictures from the shower:

Amanda and I with the winning toilet paper veil she made.

Nicole and I

My dad came by at the end and we got a family picture.

Wine picnic basket

Bride and groom after he surprised me!

Games outside

Toilet paper veils :)

My mom gave me super cute sandals to wear when my feet start hurting at the reception!

We had a mimosa bar!

Desserts

Food!

Mom, me, Amanda, Kathy

Making veils

Dessert

The front table - Kathy made the M and M sign for us!

Nicole explaining the veil game

Guests arriving

Flowers on the tables

Amanda, me, mom

I think I'm laughing at the veils...

Pretty

It was a gorgeous day!

Their veil was hilarious!

The quilt

Right when we got there

See?  It's hilarious! 
The favors were M n Ms!  In mini mason jars!!

I finally got to have an invitation.

Because the back was a surprise :)
This isn't from the shower.  But the quilt looks FABULOUS!
 67 days to go!


Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Weekend Off

This is the first weekend in a long time, and the only one for a long time, where there is nothing we HAVE to do.  Nothing for our wedding, nothing for anyone else's wedding.  It's glorious.

Yes, I have some extra credit packets to grade but they're multiple choice, not nearly every kid did them, and Mat can help.  Yes, I have a few little things for BTSA to finish, but I'll do that while Mat's at work tomorrow.  On the agenda for today?


  • 14 mile run (check!)
  • Food hehe (check!)
  • Sit around and watch tv/browse the internet (doing it as we speak)
  • A couple errands later - the kind you can do without caring if your hair or makeup are done.  And I'm only willing to do these errands because we sort of have to.
In other news, our rehearsal dinner is all set!  I talked to Kathy (Mat's mom) this morning and she told me that we're having lasagna or eggplant parmesan - people get to choose one.  We'll have a champagne toast, wine on every table, and tiramisu for dessert.  I'm so excited!  It's more than I could ask for and I feel so incredibly blessed!

76 days!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

One of those Months

It's one of those months where you find yourself spending more money than usual or than you want to.  Most of it is wedding related, so at least I know it's temporary (only 86 days to go!!).  But it's still annoying.  Fortunately we are both big planners when it comes to money and are both fairly conservative with our money, so it always works out.

I crossed a couple of things off my wedding to-do list today.  One was the rehearsal dinner, which I found out last night has been booked.  Yippee!!  The dinner is going to be at Portofino, an Italian restaurant near our church.  My (almost) in-laws know the owner, so it should be a good time.  And they have yummy food (if I'm able to eat anything the night before the wedding).

The other thing was silly.  I've had on my personal wedding list to get pens for the guestbook and wedding advice cork board.  Today at Target I accomplished that.  It seems trivial, but the kind of pen you use is actually sort of important.  Our guestbook is one of those photo books you can get from Shutterfly or Mixbook (where we got ours).  This means that the pages are that sort of shiny stuff that regular ball point pens don't work on.  So, I got fine point sharpies in fun colors.
Fun colors and the ink won't bleed!
Since there's 5 of them, there's no need to worry when one gets lost.  Our guestbook will start at the church and then my buddy Katlin is going to take it from there to The Summit House.  It will then join our homemade wine cork bulletin board that we're going to have for guest to pin marriage advice cards to.  We'll have pens galore!  :-D

I looked for cute thumb tacks too, but didn't see anything.  These are the little things I need to get my butt in gear on.  Spring break is half over already and I still have lots to do.  And Mindy's wedding is in 24 days!  Eeek!