Hand on the hip

Since I don’t get to see my wedding pictures until Sunday, I thought I would write, what I thought, were some helpful tips/advice for weddings and such. It would be light and sweet and funny and basically all about doing what YOU want since it’s YOUR wedding.

Until my mom called.

My mom went and picked up the pictures last night. She was crazy busy at work today, so I didn’t get to talk to her all day about the pictures. I was dying to hear about them, knowing they would be great and she would say, “I just don’t know how I’m going to choose.” You know how moms are. Their daughter is the most beautiful in the world and all that jazz. (Please don’t interpret that as I think I am the most beautiful. I don’t.)

We talk for about 15 minutes and no mention of pictures, which is shocking coming from my mother. She has ooed and ahhed over every bit about our wedding and was just itching to see pictures. But she’s talking about how our home state is cracking down on construstion zone speed limits with cameras and if you are 1mph over they send you a whopping $400 ticket???

Useful information for when I go home next weekend because I drive like a bat out of hell quickly, but not what I expected.

So I asked. I figure she had a long, hard day and her mind is a little slammed. No big. Goes like this:

Me: So Mom, how are the pictures? I’m dying to see them

Mom: (slight pause) They are fine, good.

Me: (pure terror on my face but trying to hide it) Fine? What’s wrong? Did they get messed up? (Me thinking something happened in printing the book and can be fixed.)

Then it comes out. Mom says that there is hardly any variety in poses. That many of them look the same. Not much difference.

And then she says it. The thing that now has me sitting here, having a minor panic attack, crying having cried, complete freak out.

“It’s not like anyone was going to plaster their walls with 30 pictures of the wedding, so they can find a few they like.”

WHAT THE HELL?????????????????????????????????????????????

Actually Mom, as wedding gifts, which you were there when I opened, we received two HUGE collage picture frame and my EXACT plan was to fill them with pictures of the wedding and hang them up. Not all of me or Mr. A of course, but of the wedding, and throw in some honeymoon pictures too.

Yes. That is what I was going to do.

Apparently not anymore if, according to her, nearly every picture I have my hand on my hip and look the same.

Terror. That’s what this is. I don’t even want to look at them at the moment.

And to top it off, some friends who got married right around the same time we did put their wedding pictures on Facebook. Guess what? Their’s are fucking gorgeous. The photographer had an eye and did some awesome poses and cool shots.

What the hell do I do now? Not like they were senior pictures and we can just go reshoot them. I can’t get back into my wedding dress, ask all the guys to go rent a tux again, and go take more. I guess Mr. A and I could go do casual ones, he in a suit and my in my dress, but more laid-back?

No. I want my wedding pictures to be perfect. I wanted to look over them a million times and not be sure which ones to print.

I know. I should relax until I see them. Or you will tell me that it isn’t that bad or that I loved my wedding so don’t worry.

But that’s the thing. We loved our wedding. I keep asking if we can relive it. But in 5 years, I’m not going to remember everything and that’s what the pictures are for.

And what’s more disappointing, from what I can see on my photographer’s blog, she didn’t have this problem with any other couple. Every other bride looked like a super model and they had fun and edgy pictures.

Is it because I didn’t have bridesmaids that she didn’t know what to do with us? Is it because it felt about 150 degrees outside in that dress and those tuxes, so we cut some of the outdoor shooting short because I was trying to be nice and didn’t want everyone to sweat to death before the ceremony? Should I have taken pictures after the ceremony like normal people and then we could have been as sweaty as I asked them to be? Is it me?

This is what happens to me. I fall apart. I’m getting teary eyed right now because I just wanted these pictures to turn out how I thought they would.

And looking at others, I have no getting ready pictures because I got dressed at the gallery and already had my hair and makeup done, so by the time the photographer got there, I was ready. No fun pictures of the guys getting dressed.

I can’t think about this anymore. I’ll just have to see come Sunday. Maybe I’ll just steal other bride’s pictures and pretend their mine…

No more stalling

FINALLY! Some wedding posts. I think I thought (still think?) that if I keep it to myself, then I get to hold onto it longer. But at the same time, I want to share. Is that vain? I sure hope not.

I’ll do this a little backwards. I’m doing honeymoon before wedding pictures. Figured no point to post about the wedding and then have to do it again when wedding pictures were done. I got an e-mail that our wedding pictures are in, but since I do not live in the same city as the photographer, my mom is picking them up and  I will get them on Sunday when my mom comes and brings us our wedding gifts that are stashed in her basement at the moment. I tried to say she couldn’t look at them until Sunday, then we could look together, but she nixed that idea really quick. She says she paid for them, she gets to see them. Touche, Mom. Still bummed though.

But anyways.

View from our balcony.

We went to Mexico (in case you missed that somehow.) It was beautiful, but HOT. Now, before you say, “Mrs. A-it’s Mexico. What the heck did you expect?” I know this. I knew this. But the heat was something else.  When the workers say, “Man, it’s hot for this time of year.” That’s telling you something. We took about 5 showers a day…cold showers. I think I only took one warm shower the entire time because it was just too effing hot.

We LOVED our resort. (If you want to go to mexico and want to know which one, e-mail me and I’ll get you the info.) It was perfect. Granted, had we payed a FORTUNE more, we could have been at some super ritzy place, but this was INCREDIBLY nice and from reading reviews on trip advisor, had some of the best reviews, even compared to the others.

Our resort was basically 3 in 1. We stayed at C, but we could use any of the amenities/restaurants/bars-anything at both A and T. They were all connected and had little shuttles going between places. These were the 3 lobbies:

Fountain and statue in C.

All the lobbies were open, so no doors and you could usually feel the breeze blowing through. It was very nice.

All the lobbies had these awesome thatched roofs that were just very neat. They looked awesome.

(sorry it’s huge, but wanted to show the detail.)

The resident iguanas. They were EVERYWHERE. I had never seen an iguana in real life, not at a zoo, so it was crazy to see them everywhere. And some were gigantic, like this guy. He lived in the garden area outside our building. He had a wife and a mistress. He’d switch up which one he hung out with. And they loved bananas, so we gave them our bananas from the fruit basket as we left the resort. Probably not supposed to, but we enjoyed them so much that we had to. Mr. A tried to touch one. That was a no-go.

Our room.

The super wonderful jacuzzi tub. I frequented this about every night. Filled with cold water and it was so relaxing after 113 degree days!

The food was just delicious. The buffet was really good, but then the a la carte restaurants were to die for. I'm drooling now.

They had towel animals everyday for us. I was SO excited about these. I took pictures of all of them except 1. Can’t remember which I missed, but they were awesome! I couldn’t believe how good they were. The elephant and the sea turtle were my favorites. I love sea turtles, so it made my day since we couldn’t see any.

Elephant with flower that was in my hair at the wedding. They saw it on the dresser and used it. So cute.

When we arrived, we were greeted with these!

Sea turtle. Cute that they put it next to the figurine we had bought.

There were coconut trees everywhere on the resort and the beach. I loved it. I thought the clusters were fascinating and I probably have 30 pictures of them. I wanted to get one and open it, but Mr. A told me that might not be a good idea. One day I will.

Ever see the movie Emperor's New Groove? Remember the ball game? This is what it really looked like at the Mayan villages. They played to the death. Now that's some motivation.

This was the super crazy tall Mayan ruins we saw. At this point, we had already been ziplining in the jungle, rapelling 75 feet into an underwater cave, climbing back up those 75 feet, hiking through the jungle, and walking 2 miles to these ruins. I was completely wiped out. My original goal was to climb these ruins just to say I did, but I just couldn’t. I knew we still had a 2 mile walk back and I thought my legs were going to give out they were shaking to badly. (I also learned on this little adventure that you CAN sweat from EVERY. SINGLE. PORE. on your body. All of them. Legs, arms, back, stomach…everywhere. I’ve never been so drenched in sweat in my life.

So, long story short, I didn’t do it. I still wish I could have, but it just wasn’t going to happen. But Mr. A did. I took his picture at the bottom. I turned around to walk down to the log to sit on. I figured it would take him a little bit and I would take pictures of him along the way. I was wrong. Apparently I married a monkey. By the time I turned around at the seat, he was at the TOP.  Other people were saying, “Did you see that guy run up there???” And I missed it.

At the top. He said he looked down and got a little nervous. Ha.

Glorious. The beach was my favorite part. Living in the midwest, I never get to see the beach. Lake beaches are gross and the water is brown and you can’t see what is swimming around you. Icky. But this beach. I could live here. White sand that didn’t scald your feet. Crystal clear water. Cool breezes. Little cabanas. Beach bars. How soon can I go back? It was so clean and I just loved it here.

Pier

We're dorks.

Started reading this on recommendation of Life of a Doctor’s Wife. Really like it. Not finished, but getting there.

Heaven.

This cracked me up. In the U.S., we put tiny little labels about the dangers of smoking and that is could cause cancer. Nope. Not in Mexico. Huge letters and they just put it out there. This will kill you. No doubts. Good job Mexico.

Had this little guy in our room one day. Mr. A named him Intruder. I ran away until we got someone to get it out of our room.

Last night in Mexico before dinner.

Most expensive meal.

By the time it was time to go to the airport, Mr. A and I were kind of craving some “American” food. The resort food was excellent, but we wanted some cheeseburgers. So, we went to Margaritaville at the airport to get some food. I had a yummy margarita. Mr. had a Corona (which we could never get on the resort. It was strange.) And delicious food. But this is a chain. How much could two drinks, free chips, some guacamole, a burger, and a shrimp sandwich cost? We thought maybe about $50. It was the airport so they could charge a little more. Fine. $50 was worth it. Nope. $80. Yeah. That was our reaction.

No more airport meals for a while. Geeze.

It was a truly amazing trip. Mr. A and I finally got some quality time together. The last couple weeks leading up to the wedding were so hectic that we didn’t get any alone time or time to just relax. Finally, in another country, we were able to breathe and just enjoy being married.  We did have some bad news, but we made the best of it all and loved every minute. I would love to go back.

Off to dream about when we can finally return to our little paradise. In 3 years? Better start saving now.

Such a Grownup

If I don’t have you on Twitter, I’ll update you.

WE HAVE AN APARTMENT!!!!!!!

Never in a million years did I think I would be so excited about this.

We entered into this apartment game a little late, and it was getting VERY nerve-wracking. We went to look at apartment Meth house first yesterday. We had an appointment, the price was right, the online pictures looked great. Man, am I glad we went to see it before committing. It was a drug dealer’s dream home. Holes punched in doors and walls, no fridge (no clue where that went), drawers missing in the kitchen, stove looked like it was ready to explode, some of the grosses kitchen and bathroom floors that I have ever seen, light fixtures looked like they may set the entire place on fire while you slept. You get the picture?

So, we called around. We visited SuperTownhome apartments. We liked them. It was a two bedroom townhome. Huge living room, large kitchen, washer and dryer in the apt, BIG bedrooms and nice bathroom. It also had a fenced in back patio that was nice.  Truthfully, I fell in love with it, but it was about $150/month more than we were intending on spending. Also, we couldn’t get in until August 5th, and we were wanting to move much sooner than that. However, after all the crap holes we looked at, I thought, “Hey, we will just take out a little more student loans and not live in squalor.” We thought we would probably go ahead and do it, but we figured that we had driven 2 hours, so might as well call a couple other places while in town.

So we called Very Nice Lady Realty*. She showed us an apartment and we really liked it. It was available right away and more in our budget, especially since I am still looking for a job. (Oh, economy. How I hate thee.) It’s a one level apartment, but with two bedrooms. Obviously not as much space as the townhome, but it wasn’t a teeny-tiny closet either. Nice and clean bathroom, nice sized bedrooms, nice living room and super plush carpet. No washer/dryer int he apartment, but they have an on-site laundry area that is key entry only, so it won’t be random people off the street. A lot of law students and med students live in the complex, so not a bunch of freshmen in college who just learned what a beer bong is.

It’s not the biggest and greatest place on the planet, but it is nice and clean and in a great area. It’s very close to school, so Mr. A won’t have far to go. We also won’t be embarrassed to have our friends over, which is nice. We will be on the first floor (only two floors anyways) and we’re on the end, so only one side of us has other people.

We sent in the paperwork this morning. And by lunch we had a phone call that everything was approved and it was ours!!!

This will be our first apartment. The current place is really Mr. A’s apartment and I have stuff stashed here and there. I can’t wait to decorate and get moved in. Can you tell I’m excited? I was afraid we’d be living in the car or at a hotel.

Thought I would post some of the pictures from their website. I think we are trying to move next week, so I will post plenty of pictures after we get settled in!!

It looks smaller in the picture, but both bedrooms have large closets, so we should have plenty of room

A little small, but the shower is nice and it's clean!

Front door/living room from the entrance to the kitchen. It also goes farther to the left The kitchen area. There is also another little area for a kitchen table and chairs.

I can’t wait to move and set up our little home. So very happy.

A little blogging proposition

No idea if this is a good idea or not. I trust many of you and your judgement, so I’m doing it anyway. (No I have not forgotten about wedding blogging and pictures. I am just so stressed right now that I don’t have the patience to do all the pictures and such. Maybe after Wednesday if we get good news. I’ll keep ya updated for those fo you who care.)

So. Number 1. I have seen on Twitter and blogs that many of the people I follow are trying to diet/work out more/ eat better. I, too am in this group. I have a wonderful husband who tries to help, but his addiction to cycling and running lets him eat anything he wants…right in front of me…and then expectes me to eat a salad. HA.

Yeah, I need to develop more will-power. What else is new?

But, I thought if I wasn’t the only one, maybe we could find a way just to encourage each other. No. I do NOT want to turn my blog into a healthy eating/workout blog. I would probably quit blogging asap if that’s all I wrote about. However, if there was a way that once a week, or an e-mail group/listserv thing, and we could send healthy, but delicious, recipes, low calorie things, workout tips/advice, etc. I know some of you run marathons, and hats off to you, and maybe you could offer some advice to me those of us that might need some direction. Could be totally lame, but thought I would throw it out there. (feel free to throw it right back…)

Number 2. A lot of you blog about the books you have read/are reading/want to read and I love it. As an English major, I love to read, but sometimes I get caught in a genre-rut and need some direction or leads on books. I got a great book suggestion from Life of a Doctor’s Wife. It is called Little Bee. I haven’t finished it yet due to life interferring, but it is so good so far.

Over at Duoly Noted, she has a bunch of book suggestions, and I think I am going to take her up on her latest one, Hunger Games.

Where am I going with this?

Again, throw it back if it’s silly, but could there be such a thing as a blog book club? Read the same one, discuss. Maybe that’s completly LAME, but it came across my mind.

I would love any input, otherwise, I hope you all have a great next couple of days. Wednesday/Thursday I should have some news. We shall see….

Floating

The real world has hit, and has hit hard. We couldn’t even make it through our honeymoon without it sticking it’s spiteful little head into the door of our little paradise.

I know I’ve talked about it before, but now that I’m on the other side of the wedding, I think I am more stressed out than before. Not only have we gone back to zero, we can’t seem to catch a break for anything. I don’t want pity and I’m not trying to whine, but life has crept back up and reminded us that the wedding and honeymoon are over and now we have to deal with everything we left behind.

The largest of this being my lack of a job. I’m feeling rather helpless and worthless. I try to keep reminding myself that I am going into the education field at a time, when in my geographic area, education has been hit very very hard. In my home state, there is not one job south of Chicago, at least not on the major education job search site. I looked at 20+ schools that are withing 1.5 hours of where Mr. A will be attending law school, and nothing. Most schools, didn’t have a single job posting. I saw one chemistry teacher and a couple superintendent jobs. That’s it. I guess I knew all of this, but it’s just hard to come to terms with. My parents wouldn’t let me get a degree in business,  organizational communications, or PR because I “couldn’t find a job”. I wanted to teach and that’s a field that you “can always get a job in”.

Then why is it that ALL of my friends who have degrees in those majors have jobs? All of them.

The school I student taught at has a position opening. I would be driving a little over an hour one way to a from where we will be moving, but that’s not much more than I commuted this past semester. But I haven’t even been called yet for an interview. The teacher I worked under and the principal have told me that they would love for me to work there, but still no call. I applied for another job, but was informed they they hired internally. I found out they KNEW they were going to hire internally, but posted the job and never interviewed a single person that applied and just hired who they were going to. I know if you’re already in the school, it’s just about guaranteed that you will get it, but it’s frustrating. So now I wonder if this other school I applied for will be the same situation.

Mr. A’s best friend’s dad owns a large business and it randomly came up that he needed a receptionist/clerical person, so the friend brought up my name. I’m still waiting to hear more about it. I feel like I can’t turn it down because I don’t have any other options. No, I don’t want to be a receptionist or work in an office my whole life. It’s not what I want to do, but I feel like I don’t have a choice right now.

The other issue hanging over our heads is our lack of a place to live, which falls back to where I will work. If I get this job with the friend’s dad, then we will live in one place and both commute some. If I get this other teaching job, we will live in the town of the university and just I will commute.

We went up to look at apartments last week and it was just disheartening. You can pay $1,200 a month for an apartment the size of most people’s bedrooms in a house, or you can pay more reasonable prices, but be assured that everything you own will be stolen when you leave. Take your pick.

And then there’s the issue of Mr. A’s unreliable vehicle. It tried to explode on me when I was going to my friend’s bridal shower and he had to come rescue me. I know others live with one car, but it really wouldn’t work unless I just find a job in the same city as the school, which could be a real possibility. I’ve decided I will give it until about the beginning of July and then I’m throwing in the towel. I’ll apply at banks and other “more respectable” jobs that I can work full-time. I have a couple years of banking experience, so I’m hoping I can find a banking job.

At the A household, we sure are getting thrown into the world of life after college pretty quickly.

I’ll get back to the wedding updates soon. I just had to get some of this off of my chest. I am thankful for what we have and we will make it work. I know we will.

Pre-wedding schtuff…

Life is being stubborn and apparently does not want to give me any time to blog about this sill little wedding. I work at a summer program and today we had a field trip to the water park. I usually only work mornings, but they needed people, so I went to the field trip as well. I ended up working a 10 hour day. I know many of you do this EVERY day (and more power to you and I think your commitment is honorable), but running around a water park all day, in heat advisory weather, is very tiring. So, at 8:35, all I want to do is go to bed since I’ve been up since 5:30, but I am forcing myself to stay up and stay in touch with all of you who are quickly becoming friends.

So….I’ve decided to break this up. If I tried to write one post…no one would ever finish it because I will probably want to relive every detail via the blog since I can’t really relive it. So a few little chunks to make it more manageable. I’ll throw in the day to day stuff as well.

I have also decided that I think I am going to show my face, but still keep the names out of it. That way, our names won’t be showing up anywhere…and, obviously, any pictures that I think might be taken as questionable…won’t be up. I think I knew this would happen once wedding pictures came out…oh well. (I just hope I don’t get any mean criticism…hah)

On to the pre -wedding stuff. I know I posted a couple pictures from the showers and bachelorette party. I’m pretty sure those have been covered, so I guess next would be rehearsal dinner. I wore this dress, in this color actually:

I loved the jewel blue color. And, a good problem to have I suppose, the dress was actually too big when I went to wear it that night. I really like it, so I’ll have it altered, but I was so annoyed when I tried it on and it was baggy…my mom told me to deal. Isn’t she sweet?

This is where we had dinner and rehearsal since we couldn’t get into our actual space until the day of the wedding:

Kind of a wonky aerial view, but you kind of get the idea. It had this neat old bar that was from prohibition with the big window behind it. They decorated all the tables and after dinner and all the teary-eyed speeches, we set up a little aisle to do our run through. The food was EXCELLENT and everyone had a great time.

Hello! Me at rehearsal dinner....all smiles!

I know I mentioned that my bridal party was not traditional at all. My brother was my “Man of Honor” and my best friend since 5th grade was my “Bride’s man”. It was wonderful. My best friend, A’s dad was the judge that officiated the wedding, so it was a whole family thing. A’s mom was a riot. She brought her big, professional looking camera, and took, literally, hundreds of pictures. She would walk up to everyone in the room, not knowing most of them, and get people to pose for pictures. She took a ton of candids and just captured everything. We appreciated it so much because all of us involved, such as myself and parents, we were too busy talking and being excited to think about pictures. She did this at the wedding also,  so it has been fun to have so many pictures to look at before all of the professional ones come in.

Just another shot from inside the restaurant.

So delicious

I know fried chicken doesn’t sound classy or something you would have at a rehearsal dinner, but once you tasted this stuff…you would understand. And the peach glazed pork chops? Heaven melting in your mouth. I might be drooling as we speak.

Lots of wine and other libations were consumed. It was wonderful. This pictures says it all….

Male bonding at the bar. Nothing else more natural.

My dad and Best Friend A….the comments are endless.

Tears were shed as my parents gave some pretty sentimental speeches. Mr. A was annoyed that I wrote 4 pages for my speech when we had just found out that we had to give a speech the day of. This translated into him speaking for about 45 seconds and I spoke for about 6 minutes. Yes, I ramble in real life too.

I headed to bed early, and woke my happy self up at 7am to start getting ready.

My mom kept asking me all these questions about how I felt and everything. At 7am, all I could feel was that it was too early for me to be up and people expecting a whole lot of excitement from me. I said, “It feels like prom right now. Lots of anticipation, but not a lot happening yet, so not sure it’s even real yet.” I kept thinking it wasn’t real or that it wasn’t really happening to me. It was all sort of surreal.

Nothing felt concrete until I got my hair done. When I saw my hair with the veil in it, I knew.

Me and my wedding day hairstylist

We headed to the gallery to start getting into the dress, but we were ahead of schedule. Does that happen to any other bride but me, because all I kept hearing about were brides showing up to their weddings an hour late. If I had been even 10 minutes late, I would very possibly had to have been committed because I would lose it. To waste time, I ran around like a 5 year old in a candy store because I had never seen our dinner space set up exactly as it was going to be and took some fun pictures…

I must have thought I was cool or something. Excitement does weird things...

This had all the table seatings, guest book, and where gifts were put. Had to crop out Mr. A, but the picture was taken about a week after we started dating, and to this day, is still our favorite of the two of us. I’m hoping some wedding pictures will top it.

It was finally time to put on the dress.

Mom hiding the laces to the back of my dress.

Funny story. I have a very nervous stomach. Any level of excitement/anxiety/nervousness and my stomach goes haywire. My brilliant mother, knowing this condition and my fear of this acting up after I was in my dress but also knowing I would need to eat, packed the best food possible. A plain ham sandwich, and by plain I mean two pieces of bread and a piece of ham, bottles of water, and some multi-grain Pringles. We had to get a picture of me eating in my dress before pictures. I sure do love food…ha!

And then I saw Mr. A….

Picture Tease

I know I said I would wedding/honeymoon blog Friday. Well, we went to our future hometown to go apartment shopping, which was more frustrating than anything, so no blogging. Yesterday I had a bridal shower to go to for the girl whose wedding I will be in, in July and the car died on me and Husband had to track down a truck and a trailer, drive 50 minutes to save me, and then haul the POS car home. Today…I just have no energy. Laundry and unpacking have done me in.

But, I will leave you with a few pictures and I promise to start blogging all of this tomorrow, including how much I hate apartment shopping. Also, probably going to have to have a serious conversation with myself as to whether or not I show pictures that show my face. I will probably give in, but I know the husband doesn’t want to be shown. He’s more private than I am.

Mr. A approves this photo

Speaking of private, here he is. He approved this one because you can’t see his face. I figured he’s going to have to make an appearance on this blog at some point, but we will start small.

Bar shot at rehearsal dinner

View from our balcony in Mexico

Lobby at our resort

Mayan ruins

The gorgeous beach at sunset

Upstairs at the gallery, where we had dinner. (Kelly Manno Photography)

Little snippets from the wedding. Love the one with both of our moms on the bottom. (Kelly Manno Photography)

Tomorrow’s to do list:

-more laundry (blah)

-finish unpacking ( might hate this more than laundry)

-online apartment research

-blog about this wedding stuff…I think I keep hesitating because once I blog about it all, it’s over. I would relive every moment of our wedding…it was perfect!

Goodnight everyone!

New Teacher. New Wife.

Terrible timing

So I know you guys are waiting to hear all about the wedding and honeymoon in Mexico. And believe me, I have a ton of my own pictures, and just wait till the professional ones come in….you might be tired of them by then.

However, there has been some terrible timing. I’ll write about the wedding and funny stories this week, but tonight is dedicated to one of the sweetest people I have ever known.

She is Mr. A’s Granny. I think I’ve mentioned her before, but if not, a quick recap. She’s about 87, tiny, and just as sweet as can be. She and Grandad have been married for 64 years and they’re precious. They welcomed me into their home and their family from the beginning. The first time I ever went to a Sunday dinner, she told me I could come back without Mr. A anytime I wanted to. Ever since, I’ve just been one of the grandkids. She made the quilt I was so proud to have as a gift at my shower and we will cherish that thing forever.

My last remaining grandparent, and the one I was by far the closest with, passed away last summer. She had ALS, and if you know someone who had it, then I am very sorry because it was the worst thing to watch someone go through. Your mind is fine, but to know your body is failing you would be horrifying. So, Granny and Grandad became my adopted grandparents. They loved me and I loved them. They came to my graduation and always checked on me and made sure I was doing okay. Granny and Grandad were the first people we called once Mr. A proposed after we called the parents.

However, Granny’s health has not been good, at all. Her health kept Granny and Grandad from being able to make the 3 hours trip to the wedding, but we understood. All we wanted was for her to be healthy, so it was fine. We went to dinner with them about a week before the wedding (my amazing 6 minute get ready time) and we were able to spend some one on one time since we usually see them at family events.

So, on our wedding day, after dinner and once the reception started, we called them. We wanted them to know they were on our minds and just say hello. We said as soon as we got back form Mexico, we would come over and show them the pictures and spend some time with them. Granny sounded great and excited that we had called.

Granny passed away Wednesday, the same day we left for our honeymoon. No one had told us that she went into the hospital on Tuesday night. We got an e-mail that they were putting in a pacemaker Wednesday morning. Because the wifi was down at the resort Thursday morning, we didn’t get the urgent e-mail telling us to call my MIL asap until about 10 on Thursday night. Even before calling, we knew.

Of course, we couldn’t get through at first and we were in a bit of a panic to get a hold of someone. Finally, the call went through and we were told the news that she had passed on Wednesday. Terrible timing.

I was immediately running through my head how we could get a flight for Saturday and be home in time for the funeral sunday and who I needed to call and how to arrange it. However, my MIL insisted we stay because Granny would never have wanted us to cut our trip short. It was heart breaking. 4 days into being married and a day into our honeymoon and we received some of the worst news while we were thousands of miles away with limited communication. It was hard.  Mr. A said he didn’t really want to talk about it while we were there and we should just enjoy our vacation. But tonight when we went to MIL’s house for some home cooked food, it all came out. We finally found out the whole story.

Granny knew she was getting worse for the two weeks leading up to her passing. But, she is as stubborn as they get, and she refused to tell anyone because she knew we were all getting ready for our wedding. She didn’t want to be a burden or ruin any plans. That brought me to tears. She put her health on the line because she didn’t want to ruin any of our wedding fun. Granted, the whole family knows that if she would have been put in the hospital for any amount of time, she would have died anyways. She was a fighter and refused to go while withering away in a hospital. So, tonight there were lots of tears and some coming to terms. Watching Mr. A break down was crushing to watch and I put my own breakdown on hold so I could support him. He was there for  me so much last summer, and I knew he needed me to be strong for him now.

Tomorrow I will get back into my excitement of talking about the wedding, but tonight is for Granny. She is in heaven, no longer in pain, and taking care of her flower garden.

I now introduce to you

The new Mrs. A!!!! (I almost typed out my new last name just because I’m so excited!!!)

I have been absent for a little bit. This weekend was full of lots of errands, more food than any bride to be (or normal person) should ever consume in a weekend,  friends, family and one amazingly fantastic black woman who can sing and entertain like none other. She was truly fantastic.

The wedding was perfect. Mr. A and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. All the vendors exceeded our expectations and I would recommend them to EVERYONE!!! Our photographer was purely fantastic. She has a blog and as soon as she posts the preview online, I doubt in my own abilities to keep from sharing. The gallery and the staff was magical and more than I thought we would ever have for our own wedding.

The most common comment I received was, “You sure look excited and happy!” How else should I be?? I’m marrying my best friend in the whole world and this is the most perfect day. Am I supposed to be sad or something?? Apparently I was beaming and showed much more excitement and a lot less nervousness than most brides. I guess that’s just me.

I never turned into a bridezilla. I never had a need to. Everyone was so perfectly wonderful, I didn’t have a care in the world. I got the bottom of my dress dirty during our outdoor pictures (which we took before the ceremony). I figured if people were staring at the bottom of my dress, they were looking for something to pick at. Also, they didn’t know how much fun we were having running around and the bottom of my dress was the least of my worries.

We are headed to Mexico bright and early tomorrow (3am…yuck!). I will do LOTS of updates with pictures and funny stories as soon as we return. So, until then , this was our wedding cake. I loved it and it was delicious. People raved about it. Banana cake with a light icing….I might have to go have some of the leftovers now just thinking about it!

Huge picture, but wanted to show the details.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and I can’t wait to share more next week!

Adios!

New Teacher. New Wife.