Hellooooo? Anyone There?

Obviously it's been a while since I've posted.... you know, over a year and a half! While I love my husband dearly, after we got married there really isn't anything to blog about :) OR time to blog! I would love to keep this going, but only with material that is worthwhile so I'll see what I come up with. Until then I'll keep it so I can comment on all the other fantastic blogs I follow!!

Christmas in August.. yikes!

This summer is flying by! I cannot believe it's already August.. there are Christmas decorations up at Hobby Lobby already! But August means we can start saying "We're getting married next month!" Only 54 days left and still so much to do! It's hard to find the time to plan a wedding when every weekend is filled with friends and family events. This post is going to be filled with pictures!

7/4: We had a great 4th of July party at our house with the best of friends. Good food, fireworks and beer plus Brittney’s boyfriend from Austria joined us! We feel pretty special to say we’ve hosted an Austrian in our house. :)

Cupcakes on the 4th (See the flag?)

The girls at the pre-party on the 3rd

Haileigh, me, Stephanie and Brittney

7/18: We also had a great time at my Grandpa Hawker’s 90th birthday party. The whole family was there and a ton of friends came by to wish him a happy birthday. There was a live band that played all night and was really good! And I’m sure it was no surprise to anyone there that me, my mom, my dad, Jenni, Tim and even the grandkids were out on the dance floor pretty much all night!

The Hawker Family w/ Grandpa Marvin Hawker

The band

My boys dancing with G-ma and me

Sydney dancing with G-pa and G-ma Hawker

7/25: Ryan and I made a trip down to Wichita, KS for the weekend to see his college roommate, Brett. We drove 6 ½ hours in 90 degree weather with no air conditioner! And to top it off, about 10 minutes outside of Topeka we blew a tire and had put on the spare and buy a new tire. Thank God KC traffic lead us to the Topeka route or we would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere! Fortnately we got there with no other problems. I shouldn’t complain though, Ryan’s friend Nate drove 8 hours from Texas to stay that weekend also… Anyway, it turned out to be a very fun weekend and the drive back was flawless (except again, no air conditioning and flying mattresses in the middle of KC).

Ryan and Brett

Sheri and Ryan

An extremely ghetto field for AA team "Wichita Wingnuts"

Ryan, Bill and Brett

hehe.. Brett works at Wichita State University and he gave us a tour of his office :)

7/31: Don and Cyndi had a champagne tasting party with us and some friends to determine which champagne is the best for the rehearsal dinner and the winner is…. Actually, we don’t even remember. It was #1 (out of 7) Whatever choice that was… :)

So now it’s August 3rd and Ryan and I are watching our weekends as semi-single people are filling up fast. Bachelorette party, bachelor party, 2 bridal showers… Pretty soon we’ll be married and everything will change! Hehe.. not really, other than a signed document and Ryan wearing a new shiny ring married life can’t be too different…. RIGHT??

Second place.. so damn close!

First is worst, second is best.. right? Ryan and I competed in the 97.3 the Hawk dream wedding competition last Thursday and finished so close.. second place! The total dream wedding was $35,000 which would have helped nicely in wedding planning!
Ryan and I did awesome though… the questions were tough! I dare you to try to answer these and match them :)

What color is her toothbrush?
What is her favorite comfort food?
What is her favorite non-alcoholic beverage?
Where was your first kiss together?
What one thing of his would you get rid of if you could?
If he could change jobs what profession would he be?
What is her worst cooking disaster?
What is the first movie you saw together?
Who will over-indulge in champagne at your wedding?
If he could date a famous actress, who would it be?
How many kids does he want to have?
To her: what kind of animal would you describe your future mother-in-law as?

And remember, you had to match the answers exactly! We went through 4 rounds, about 30 questions total and each round we had to get 3 out of 5 correct. So we made it to the final round where we just wanted to get more correct than the other couples. It came down to the last question and whether we would have gotten it right or wrong, the next couple would have won because we had gotten one more wrong than them so far. The last question was what was the first gift she got you? I answered cologne, he answered a movie (I’m pretty sure it was actually a shirt though) and we got second place. Too bad we don’t actually get anything for coming in second but it was still a really good time! It showed us that we know each other really, really well :)

Here are some pics from the t-ball game we went to last night in Osky. Jake’s team played Alex’s team so it was the perfect time to see them both play! They did great! :)

Alex (in red) playing second base

Jake coming in from home, picked up a pink bat on his way :)

Caution Ahead: Central Grads Entering Real World

Tulip time was great - the weather was nice, the food was awesome and we got to hang out with Reid while we were there. We ran into some friends from college who actually live in Atlanta so it was a nice surprise! She is actually letting me use her table centerpieces, sashes and various other things for the wedding reception and the decorations are soo pretty. I love them! Here are some pretty tulip pictures and Reid and Ryan.





Ryan and I have both read Angels & Demons so we went to see the movie on Friday night. I was very disappointed and Ryan said he went into it with low expectations so it was about right for him. The movie was very different from the book and had changed all the characters and storylines. I know they say the book is always better than the movie but I thought this one might be close.. But no. Not at all.. I got the Twilight book series for my birthday so we're going to start reading those even though we've already seen the Twilight movie.

Reid graduated yesterday! He's going to be the assistant pro at Otter Creek golf course in Ankeny. Central had a graduating class of 262 students which is so small! I don't remember exactly how many were in our class but it was over 300. Hard to believe that Ryan and I have been out for two years! So much has happened since then.. we got a job, both got incredible promotions, got engaged, took a trip to Vegas,moved from a tiny little apartment to a brand new house, bought a lawn mower... phew! We're on the fast track of life.. :-)

I met a lot of the women in our neighborhood on Saturday - we had supper at Noodle Zoo and then went for drinks at Tonic. They were all really nice - most everyone in the neighborhood has kids and is a little older than us but the girls I met were a lot of fun. There is a couple that just moved in down the street that is engaged too so we want to meet them to see what they're like. We're planning to block off the street and have a bbq this summer with the entire neighborhood... which is growing everyday, since we moved in January we have 1 new neighbor just 2 houses down and expect the house next to us to be done in July!

Wedding stuff - decorations are going to look fabulous! I'm most excited about the decorations and the glasses the wedding party gets to use at the head table. The limo is booked, flowers are starting to come together and Ryan and I have been assigned a sponsor couple from our church. Plus we're trying our hardest to find an open night to go register but something always comes up. That's our goal this week! We're registering at 4 places actually... :) Kohls, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Younkers or Dillards. Oh.. and Ryan wants to register at Best Buy. That's still up in the air ;-)

Hmm.. Which Gas Guzzling Limo Do We Choose??

Sorry again that it's been so long since we last posted we've just been so busy! Most of it has been fun & play but that counts right? First I'll share a video with you from the other weekend we stayed at my parents house. The kids were so funny that night.. this is a video of them sliding down the stairs in their sleeping bags. And even though my mom freaks out at the end, no one got hurt!!





It's better than what my brother and sister used to do to me. They would wrap me up in a blanket like a burrito and then take the open end and pull as hard as they could, unwrapping me and sending me flying down the stairs. Usually before or after that they would shove me down the laundry shoot to some blankets and pillows below.. lol.

Ryan and I celebrated my birthday on April 30th and went to eat at Johnny's Italian Steakhouse.. it was sooo good! I love that restaurant because they have the BEST bread and oil. We couldn't finish our meals so we had the waitress put them in styrofoam doggy bags. When we got home Ryan of course immediately went to check on the lawn and see how it was doing and I was stuck carrying in the 3 boxes.. well that didn't go well and I ended up tripping on the stairs and throwing a garlic pasta chicken dish up in the air right onto the garage floor. Whoops... So if you leave our house craving pasta and chicken thats probably why.

Then on May day we celebrated my birthday with friends at El Bait Shop. It was a Meredith MAC event which meant free beer and appetizers.. it was a blast. Here's the only picture that probably best illustrates our state of mind that night.. we got a little silly :)



It was a great weekend, thank you to everyone who sent cards, called or emailed!

Ryan and I went to look at limousines for the wedding last night. Ryan's never actually rode in a limo before so he was pretty set on getting a nice limo. He really liked the big Excursion limo but I really liked the big Hummer limo (I know, not like me at all.. stupid Hummers). So I guess you'll have to wait to see who wins at the wedding :)

We're off to Tulip Time either tonight or tomorrow, whichever day the weather looks better on. Can't wait to eat some poffertjes and dutch letters!!

I Ate Pork on Saturday.. Do I Have The Swine Flu? :-p

First - pictures of our house now that we have grass!

Front yard with Sod

Back Yard with Sod (could only get half of yard with camera)


It's much greener now that it's been raining the last few days, it looks like a home now :)

Sorry it's been so long since we've posted - it's been a busy couple of weeks! We had Easter at The Schaul's on Easter Sunday which was some GREAT food.. Marcia was up at 4 in the morning to cook the 20 lb ham! It was excellent though and now I'm craving mashed potatoes and gravy... The weekend after that we had Carey's wedding (a friend of mine from work) and had a blast! The wedding was a lot of fun and everything went pretty smoothly. The sweetest part was that Carey's daughter, Michaela, walked Carey down the aisle and I think everyone teared up then :)The neat part is that Carey's theme was also very damasky so we've been sharing ideas for my wedding which as you know, also incorporates damask. It's a very popular theme right now which is great because I'm getting so many ideas!

We finally picked our honeymoon destination - Punta Cana, Dominican Republic!! We are sooo excited because we've heard great things about the resort we picked and about the beaches, food, etc.. I wish we were there now! We're leaving Monday, September 28 and will be back on Tuesday, October 6... a perfect vacation :) And in other wedding related news we added someone to our wedding party! I had talked to my mom about how I felt like something was missing from our wedding party and decided that I wanted to ask Haileigh (my friend from college) to be in our wedding. So I asked her to be a bridesmaid and she said yes!! I feel so much better, now I feel like it's complete :)

Ryan and I went back to Osky this past weekend to celebrate my birthday and my brother Tim's birthday. We're only 10 days apart.. well, actually 5 years and 10 days. His bday is on April 20, I'm on April 30 :) All the kids were there (Alex, Jake and Syd) and we had so much fun. My dad brought out their 20 lb video camera and was capturing the kids being silly.. we kept joking with him because he looked like a news cameraman since the camera was so big.. lol.. We were up late playing this music trivia game and Chase the Ace.. it was just a really great weekend :)

What else.. well I'm freaking out about this swine flu pandemic. This morning I grabbed a large orange juice, took my vitamin and have washed my hands 4 times in the last 2 hours. I found this article to ease my fears about it but I'm still freaking out. Ryan thinks I'm overreacting :-0 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30423369/ They EU recommends no travel to Mexico, mainly from Mexico City and north to the border. They've shut down public events, schools and have handed out thousands of air masks to people on the subway.. it's just scary to see. (See, this is me freaking out!) Stupid swines.

New Addition to Our House

Finally a place to relax outside! If it weren't raining right now..

My dad and my brother, Tim, came up Thursday, Friday and Saturday to build our deck. My mom and Tim's little boy Alex came up on Saturday also between Ryan and I and the others, my dad and brother had a lot more help on Saturday. They still have to come back to finish the stairs but the deck and railing are all done. It looks so good! I'm so happy we decided not to have the builder add the deck because it wouldn't have been near as big and we think it's the perfect size. But like I said it's a rainy day so our plans to move the grill out there and grill out are probably out of the picture. But look forward to many deck parties :)

A close up of the railing, our favorite part!

And as you can see on the left hand side of that picture there is another house going up right next to us. We met the new owners on Saturday and they seem really nice!

We have finally narrowed down our honeymoon location to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and now we've got 5 resorts to choose from. Check them out and tell us your thoughts!! We need all the help we can get! I'm leaning toward Majestic Elegance and Ryan is leaning toward Moon Palace.

Paradisus Palma Real
Moon Palace Resort
Excellence Punta Cana
Majestic Elegance Punta Cana
Dreams Punta Cana

They all look so beautiful and fulfill Ryan's most important demand: good food. :)

It's going to be a busy summer, we've got my friend Carey's wedding this weekend, MY BIRTHDAY!!!, Reid's college graduation, my cousin's new baby Addison's baptism, my cousin Alex's high school graduation, a 90th birthday celebration for my Grandpa, an anniversary party for Ryan's Grandma and Grandpa Marten and many other things that haven't yet made it on our calendar. Plus there are a few wedding showers mixed in there and a bachelorette and bachelor party.. yay!

That's all for now! Leave us some input on our honeymoon choices!!