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!!

Foodies

Chicken breast supreme, pork loin in rosemary sauce, roast turkey with sage dressing... sounds delish huh? This was our supper last night. Ryan and I, my mom and Ryan's mom went to a tasting last night at the hotel where the reception is. The food was so good but we don't know what to pick for our entrees. We do know we want the garlic mashed potatoes and baby red's because everyone loves potatoes, right? We worked out some other logistics of the reception such as decorations and pre-function areas which made me really excited!! We're less than 6 months out, 5 months 24 days to be exact. Our picture and announcement made it in the Des Moines Register, Osky Herald, North Scott Press and Manchester press.. so I think that means we're famous now. :)