House Hunters

First off, I want to apologize for not posting in a couple weeks.

So nothing has really happened with the wedding plans since my last post except that I did get my ring back last Wednesday and I stared at it for hours. I literally was walking in the mall and staring at my ring because I missed it so much.  For all our friends who have not seen the ring in person yet, I cannot wait to show you so you know what I mean. :)

Anyways, the only update regarding wedding plans is that we have a bridal show this Saturday at the Seneca Niagara Casino.  The "we" is going to be Matt, myself, my mom, and Summer (Maid of Honor).  Now, I did NOT force Matt to come at all, he chose to come all on his own! :) He deserves Fiancé of the year award!
*Boys take note!
I am really excited because this will be our first bridal show that we are attending.  There are supposed to be like thousands of vendors, prizes, discounts, and of course tastings!

So the reason that I haven't been posting lately is because of a couple reasons...
1) Grad School owns my life
2) House Hunting

House hunting is the most exciting thing ever (besides our wedding of course).  I really think that Matt and I should be on the show "House Hunters" on HGTV and they should have a Batavia edition.  So we have been pre approved and have been looking at a few houses.  Let me just describe a couple houses to you....
-One house was cute, big, and had potential...BUT was in the ghetto.  The neighbors house was bright blue with some funky shutter color and children's toys in the yard.  Our realtor told us that they are "fricken weird".
-Another house had the basement flooded.
-There was a fire in the bathroom in one house and the basement staircase was being held by a log post on a cylinder block.
-We have seen mold in the basement, siding rotting, wooden paneling, super tiny kitchens, etc.
-We were in love with this other house at the other side of Batavia but it was in a flood plain.  I guess it flooded really bad in 1944 and we would have to get flood insurance which would cost us an extra $600-$700 a year.  The staircase was also very steep and the master bedroom and living room were tiny.

So with all that said, we got an email yesterday morning for a new listing and we fell in love.  It is in the best part of town, looks amazing on the outside with many updates as well on the inside, has a wrap around deck for entertaining all of you guys, huge master bedroom-they actually call it a "King Master bedroom", and has 2 other rooms that are great sizes for when we decide to have adorable babies one day, french doors, HUGE closets for all of my clothes, study den, good size yard, and we could work at a coffee shop right across the street because we will be poor...

We ended up putting an OFFER on it today so we are crossing our fingers that the lady who owns it will accept our offer or counter our offer.  We want her to do anything but decline! So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Heath Updates: He is now almost 5 months old!  His stitches from his man parts came out and he is back to his old self.  He likes to eat flies, bugs, worms, rocks, and loves this toy turkey that my Grandma got him for Christmas. He will literally play with it for minutes (he has ADD) by doing this...thanks Grandma.

It's been 25 days....

So it has been 25 days since Matt & I got engaged.  We are still in the moment of calling each other "fiancé" because admit it, it just sounds so much better than "boyfriend" or "girlfriend".  I mean lets face it, the boyfriend/girlfriend thing got a little old after 8 years of dating.  Anyways, a lot has happened in the past 25 days so prepare yourself....

For one, we already have our venue picked out and our date! We looked at Samuel's Grande Manor but it was not for us for a few reasons....
1. 6 weddings could be going on that day (imagine the movie Wedding Crashers)
2. There is no bridal suite, just their office to get ready in (cheap!)
3. No food tasting, they just want you to trust them & assume their food is to die for (food is the one thing people remember at the wedding)
4. We had our hearts set on the Avanti Mansion (It was love at first sight)

So later that day, we went to the Avanti Mansion to check it out.  This place is the most amazing/beautiful place on earth.  I would add a picture, but its a surprise (obv!) I guess you could always go to their site to look but it still won't be the same, so if I were you, I would wait.   Anyways, we booked the Avanti Mansion for both our ceremony and reception, so everything will be outside for our July 2014 wedding day.

Another huge accomplishment we have done for the wedding is picking out our photographer! We narrowed it down to 3 photographers and went from there by meeting them. We went with an amazing lady named Robin Fox from Rochester who does both Rochester and Buffalo weddings, free of travel charge-yes!  We have scheduled our engagement session for June up in Buffalo in Delaware Park in the gardens & other cute little places in the park.

On another exciting note, I had the opportunity to give one of my best friends, Summer, her maid of honor invitation and had a girls night where we spent hours in Barnes & Noble looking at Bride magazines while sippin' on Starbucks and went out to dinner to celebrate. We even got some nifty travel planners to write down important dates (pinning wedding ideas on Pinterest, girls nights, bridal shows, etc.) and a book for myself on everything you need to know including tips of planning your wedding.  It is probably the best book ever for a bride to be.  It is called "The Ultimate Wedding Planning Guide", it literally says what it does.

This Friday, I will be giving the rest of the bridesmaids their invitations in person or by mail.  Matt still needs to ask his groomsman, but each of our parties has a total of 7 in each.  Our event planner at the mansion told us that some parties had a total of 30...wayyy too many for our liking.  I just think that is nuts. It was one of the hardest decisions we had to make, so don't be offended because you are still invited most likely.
On a sad note, I am now ring-less because it was time to get the most beautiful thing I have ever owned re-sized down a whole size to a 5 1/2.  This has been the hardest part because even though I have showed everyone, including the students I sub for, teachers at the 4 districts I am in, and our realtor,  I still love to flaunt it.  We dropped it off on Saturday at Zale's and the lady told us it should only take a week, BUT it may take up to 2 weeks.  I am hoping to pick it up this Saturday because right now I have been wearing my promise ring and its just not the same.

If you're wondering how Matt has been through all of this so far, he has been a champ. 

So that's pretty much all the wedding excitement right now that has happened in our lives.

 On another note, our little man Heath had to get his man parts removed Monday, so I will leave you with a picture of him... he is doing great, a little groggy when he first got home but back to his ball of energy self last night and today.

"The inflatable pillow cone of shame."