Wedding & Body Worlds

So this weekend we did plenty of last minute wedding stuff which included a lot of running around here and there. One small craft project by Andy as well. After plenty of running around on Saturday I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour along with my baby girl, Izzy. Andy of course felt the need to capture the sweet moment.


To take a break from all the wedding stress we headed to the Body World's exhibit at the AZ Science Center. This was kind of neat, but also a bit disturbing to know these were real human bodies. The area that really creeped me out was the fetus section. It was kind of disturbing to know the pregnant woman was once alive and actually died with the fetus inside of her. Also all the baby fetus' on display from 2 weeks old and beyond were crazy to see as well. The other interesting thing that stood out was the display of the lungs. They had a healthy set next to a smokers lungs and that was then next to a coal miners lungs. Very interesting and nasty as well. The only thing about this exhibit we did not like was the amount of people that were there. Andy and I are not a fan of crowds at all so we really found this annoying. It actually made us move through the exhibit faster than usual. Despite the crowds we had a great time together and it was a nice distraction from wedding stress.

It was nice to have this break in the weekend from wedding stuff because I was starting to get very stressed out. Over what you ask? I really do not know. I was experiencing stress and anxiety on Saturday evening that I couldn't eat my dinner. I do know that I cannot afford to skip a meal because I don't want my dress to be too big so I slowly (and I do mean s-l-o-w-l-y) ate my meal. I then had two glasses of wine to relax me and that did the trick. Mmmmm...am I going to need to drink two glasses of wine from now until the wedding???

Another thing I did this weekend was make Pokey sticks. These are the famous cheese sticks you dip in pizza sauce and/or ranch dressing that you get at bar time from Gumby's when you were in college back in the midwest. They are oh so good! Thanks to Erin for recreating this recipe so I could relive those 2am college days, but on a Sunday night at 6pm.


Yummy!

One big accomplishment this weekend was Andy and I writing our vows. I am so proud of us and it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. It was actually kind of easy. Maybe that is one sign of true love! Thanks to my friend Pam for sending us a very helpful book on how to write your vows. Now we have less than two weeks to go before we get to exchange vows.

Home Alone

This past weekend Andy was in Chicago for his bachelor party, so how did I spend my weekend? Well, for starters, I planned ahead of time. I took the girls to doggie day care on Thursday to tire them out for Friday and hopefully Saturday too. I went through the usual routine with Izzy and Madison when I dropped these two overly hyper dogs off. They couldn't contain themselves so they had to go out the "side" door until they can control themselves before they can mingle with the rest of the dogs. When I picked them up they were exhausted and spent the rest of the night on the couch just like this until I woke them up to go to bed later that night. My plan worked! They were exhausted.


On Friday night I had some arts and crafts activities to do for the wedding. I opened a bottle of wine and got started.


I also got caught up on all my thank you cards from the various wedding and bridal shower gifts we have received.


On Saturday I got up and did my usual run around Look Out Mountain.


Then I did a bunch of errands for miscellaneous items for the wedding. Then I got home cleaned the house for two hours before I got my nails done. I was planning on cleaning the house in my wedding shoes to break them in, but I just was not in the mood. I was in a hurry and didn't have time to be careful in the new shoes...hopefully next weekend. Saturday night I watched a really bad Netflix movie with plenty of more wine...ok, so my alone weekend included plenty of wine.


On Sunday after my mountain run I did some grocery shopping to make Andy a fabulous meal. While I was there I picked up some roses for myself to put in my new vase we received for our wedding gift.


After some laundry I decided I could squeeze in an hour or so out back by the pool. My goal was to relax as I am finding I am pretty wound tight these days. Even though it was a beautiful day it did not help me relax.


Then I made these shrimp cakes. Recipe courtesy of Dinners, Dishes and Desserts. Ok, so anybody that knows Andy understands that he does not like shrimp. I love shrimp and when I came across this recipe I thought maybe Andy might like it because it's not like he is eating a big shrimp. It's a shrimp cake where the shrimp is chopped up into pieces and has an avocado salsa on it. Yummy! I loved it, but Andy's response was that it would taste better with crab instead of shrimp. I wasn't shocked because he really does not like shrimp. You can find the complete recipe here.



Andy arrived home on Sunday night and he survived his bachelor party. He looked exhausted, but he survived and I was happy to see him return home.

WI Bridal Shower

Last weekend I flew to Wisconsin for my bridal shower that my awesome friend, Kelli, threw for me. She hosted it at my mother's house because she does live in Minneapolis now. She decorated with the colors of my wedding, apple green and royal blue and did a "tropical" theme.


Kelli, my mom and my aunt made a ton of food. This picture was taken before ALL the food was placed on the pool table.


My mom made some super cute beach themed cup cakes. Half the cup cake represented blue water and the other half represented sand and had flip flops and an umbrella stuck in it.


We played a couple games such as guess the spice, gift bingo and the purse game. I was so bad at the spice game that it was borderline pathetic. Hey, I do not cook much that I didn't even know names of spices to even write down. The only one I got was cinnamon. Oh well, Andy doesn't love me for my cooking ability. Ha Ha!

I got a pair of super cute "Just Married" undies from my girlfriend, Mindy. Can't wait to wear these on May 28th!


Here I am with my aunt Margie and cousin Makalya who helped Kelli with food.


Me and my future (in 3 weeks from tomorrow) Mother-in-Law.


My mother and I.


Kudos to Kelli for hosting my WI bridal shower!