Working on a house will destroy your blogging

Obviously, right? But SO MUCH has happened! And Ryan bought me a camera (it's orange!) so now I can actually show you what I've been doing!

Ryan is painting the kitchen cabinets for me! They were this gross dark stain, and it was all streaky. They will be this gorgeous bright white. I LOVE the way our Crate and Barrel Essential dinnerware looks inside. Definitely the silver lining of no cabinet doors, I can enjoy my dishes. And I LOVE these dishes.

Since the kitchen cabinets are somewhat out of commission, our living room is the holding area for the majority of our kitchen stuff:

Ryan was baking pies today (yes, my man makes home made pie crust, yes, I scored big time) and discovered how truly inconvenient this is. Which is why he's painting the cabinets right now. Honestly it doesn't bother me too much, I know how time consuming the cabinet painting is and I moved in prepared to be inconvenienced. It bothers Ryan though. Hence the painting right now.

More of the inconvenient kitchen. Isn't that sky blue color pretty? Ryan is so nice to paint these, I can't tell you what a huge pain in the *ss these cabinets are. The oil based paint looks like it's awful to work with, and the clean up takes him so long it almost isn't worth it unless he can paint for a while with no interruptions.

We have decorated for Christmas though! Having our own Christmas tree has made me feel more "grown up" than anything else. Isn't that weird?

Our Christmas tree. With tinsel!

I'm thinking that after I clean up said tinsel, the only exclamation points will be after expletives. It's so pretty though.

A dear family friend gave us a set of wedding-themed ornaments. I hung the bride and groom up together.

My Grandma quilts, and she pieced this lovely quilted ornament for me last Christmas. It's one of my favorites, and it has our wedding colors in it.

Ryan's Grandma on his mom's side used to make these gingerbread cookies for ornaments:

Yeah our "tree skirt" is a yard and a half of fabric that looked somewhat Christmasy that I pooled around the base of our tree. I will be way more prepared next year!

Ryan set up the train he's had since he was 10 around the bottom. It actually blows smoke out of the engine, but we're too cheap to buy 6 C batteries. Next year.

Our neighbors brought us this poinsettia over, and I put up our brand new nativity set next to it! Ryan says without a stable and animals it's not a nativity set, that this is just the Holy Family. I maintain that it's the nativity right after Jesus was born and before everyone else showed up. Obviously.

I am beyond thrilled to have a camera and have more free time, so I can get back on the blogging train!

How're the holidays treating you so far?

Whew!

Hey guys! We're still alive...I've missed blogging, but this house is sucking up 110% of our free time. We're hoping to move in this weekend!

The basement has really set us back, time wise. The jack*ss who owned the house before us (we also call him "that sh*thead," among other things), owned a dog that he had no business owning. The dog escaped from the fenced in backyard and bit someone, so the owner locked the dog up in the basement. For 4 months straight.

This breaks my heart for the dog. The dog was forced to go to the bathroom in its playspace, which is so cruel.

We knew the basement was gross when we bought the house, but I didn't think that clean up would be this intense. The basement is unfinished with concrete floors, wooden stairs, a walk out, a 4 windows. Last week Ryan and I soaked the floors with Comet and hot water and scrubbed with these nylon scrub brushes he bought at Big Lots. That made it smell worse, because then it smelled like old dog pee and wet dog. Yum.

Then the drain clogged. Ryan pulled out handfuls of matted, soaked dog hair, but the drain wasn't draining 100%.

The next day, Friday, my mom and I scrubbed again with a special product made for animal urine in concrete. That got off at least 1 layer of grime. (Mom had a snake and unclogged the drain. A dog toy was stopping it all up). I took a shop vac (best thing EVER) and sucked up all the fossilized dog turds and huge wads of dog hair, then we scrubbed the floors again with vinegar.

It still smelled worse. The more we scrubbed, the more dirt leeched up from the concrete floors, the more urine smell we seemed to unlock. The smell was rising upstairs, too.

Saturday. Saturday we scrubbed twice with Tri Sodium Phosphate and a power sprayer. This was the most effective thing yet. We've come to the conclusion that the stairs (which are wooden) are responsible for a great deal of the smell, so we're painting those with a special odor blocking paint. We're also going to rip out the wood shelving that's down there. It's oak, and we hate to do it, but even if the dog didn't pee directly on the wood, those shelves have been marinating in that stench for years.

Just working in the basement requires masks for your face and gloves. It is the grossest thing I think I have ever done. But we are finally seeing some progress, because when we got to the house yesterday, the odor seemed much less pungent than it has.

Anyway. Hopefully I'm buying a camera this weekend, so I can document all of our progress!

Did you run in to any roadblocks with your home?

Another WTH moment

Last night, while I was happily enjoying a fantastic episode of Glee at my parent's house, my husband was finishing up painting the trim in the office, so that I could rip up the carpet and take out staples, etc. We knew there was hardwood under the gross and dog-urine stained carpet, and Ryan was trying to get the painting done so I would have something to do.

I come back from watching Glee, and Ryan informs me that there is good news, and there is bad news.

Good news: lovely, honey colored hardwood floors underfoot for a good half of the room. Darker stained hardwood floors for the back half-no biggie. Character, right?

Bad news: Gaping hole in the honey colored hardwood floors, plugged with a random piece of wood. Also gaping hole by the closet, also patched with random piece of wood.

So like I said last week about the poisin ivy....WHO CUTS A GAPING HOLE IN INDESCRIBABLY GORGEOUS HARDWOOD FLOORS?!

Anyway. I have plans, plans that include salvaging the original hardwoods from the closet to patch the holes. Plans that might not work, but I have back-up plans that include rugs. Area rugs.

Honestly I'm not that bothered by it. When my sister and I were ripping down wood paneling in our house we live in now, we found a window that had been bricked over and stuffed with insulation behind a chunk of wood paneling.

Truly though, it's a small room, and we can definitely make it work. With houses as old as ours, you have to go into it expecting crap like that to happen. But it does concern me for the upstairs, which is 100% carpeted. We can hide stuff in a small room, but the upstairs has much bigger rooms, meaning any fixes we have to do will be more expensive.

Other happy house news: the entire main floor is 100% popcorn ceiling free, and our living room and office are both painted a cheerful, sunny yellow. Also we did yardwork almost all day Sunday, and the house already looks much more loved.

Have you ever had any home improvement or decorating surprises? And how good was Glee last night?!

Holy Hell

Holy Hell is exactly right. Ryan and I are both covered in poison ivy that we got from our own house. WHO LETS POISON IVY GROW IN THEIR FRONT YARD?!

Ryan did some yardwork Monday, trimming bushes in the front yard. I did his laundry late Monday night, and I've got poisin ivy and so does he. Not cool. And I'm in a wedding this weekend, so I've been having mild anxiety attacks that the bright red welts will show, but it looks like they are all going to be covered. Whew.

My friend Melissa is getting married tomorrow! I get off work at noon, then I have some stuff to finish up and a few errands to run and I am on the road. According to the intinerary, the b-maids are decorating the church from 3-6, so I will hopefully get there right at 3. I am failing miserably at the bridesmaid bit this week...I told Melissa's mom I'd bring some baked goods for the wedding breakfast tomorrow, but this house is sucking up 100% of my free time. I was up until 11:30 last night baking bread and muffins, and I just didn't have it in me to knock out cinnamon rolls too. So I'm cheating and stopping off at a bakery on the way to get something delicious. I'm heading home from the wedding after the reception tomorrow night, so it's going to be a marathon however many hours! I'm so excited for her...she's had such a time of it, and I know she's going to have a beautiful day.

Also, my little sister Mary is running at her state cross country meet tomorrow at 9 a.m. She's a senior, so this is her last rodeo. My sister Alli is video taping it for me :)

We're scraping popcorn ceilings. It's a much bigger project than I thought it would be, but hell, we'll NEVER do it while we live there since it's such a freaking mess, so we might as well do it right now, right? Right. Thankfully it's coming off like a dream, and revealing nicely textured walls that we don't have to patch or sand. Woohoo!

I am so worthless on Fridays....what about you?

Blogged!

Wow I'm slow on the uptake...but our wedding was blogged by our photographer, Gail Fleming! You can check it out here, and if you aren't 100% sick of our wedding pictures yet, at the bottom of the post you can click on "Stacy and Ryan slideshow" to see a sampling of pictures.

I just love our wedding!

House

Ryan and I closed on our house on Monday, and we've been over every evening since working on it. Ryan has taken on the huge job of sanding, priming and painting the kitchen cabinets, and I've been cleaning along with help from my mom and my sisters.

We are lucky to have such a large amount of cabinet space, but lots of cabinet space means way more work for Ryan. It'll be worth it in the long run! We both knew that once we moved in the cabinet painting project would just keep getting pushed off, since it comes close to making the kitchen unusable. Who wants to mess with that when you live somewhere? So Ryan is doing this before we even move in.

The kitchen is huge, and the cabinets and appliances are in the great U-shape. The fridge is pushed way out from the wall for cleaning right now.








This is the living room. The big opening on the right is the kitchen. I love the open staircase.

We are super lucky that my family is so close and so helpful! Mom, Alli and Mary have been over every night this week. Mary took a toothbrush to the woodwork last night...needless to say, their help is making this gargantuan project seem much more managable.

This was post-floor cleaning.


Mary cleaned dog hair and dust out of the vents. Sidenote: Mary qualified for state in Cross Country, so she'll be running in Jeff City this weekend!

The ceilings are 10 feet high, and the woodwork around the windows is original. This is the living room again.

More living room.

This is wildly unique for an old house: main floor laundry! And it's right off the kitchen and the master br, so it couldn't be more convenient.

This is the upstairs landing. We're thinking sewing machine spot or reading nook, not sure yet.

Here's one of the upstairs brs (the master is on the main level). We'll set this up as a guest room..maybe that will induce some of our St. Louis friends to come down for a visit!

I love the transom above the front door.

Our first night in the house, all I did was clean out the fridge with bleach spray. I worked on it for over 3 hours and didn't even get to the freezer. I have never in my life seen a dirtier fridge.

It's sparkling clean now. We have 2 pears (courtesy of Grandma, thank you Grandma!, 1 Coors Light courtesy of my mom, 2 bottles of Michelob Ultra and 1 bottle of champage. The freezer has freeze pops to bribe people to help us.

(That's a sorority rush shirt, I was a ZTA but I went alum when I transferred in the middle of college.)

Here's the other upstairs br.

This is the main floor guest bathroom, nice and clean.

Last night we realized that the popcorn ceiling comes right off and reveals a lightly textured ceiling that looks WAY better than the popcorn. So tonight I scrape popcorn ceilings. I'm hoping it won't completely ruin all the cleaning I've done, but we'll see....

We are hoping to move in in a couple weeks, but we'll see. If we keep on discovering big messy projects it's going to be longer! We also have to decide on paint colors tonight. Any ideas?

How long did it take you to move in to your house after you closed on it?

Bachelorette

Saturday night we threw Melissa the best bachelorette we could manage! With everything that has been doing on with her, we just wanted her to have the best possible time. Mission accomplished!

Everyone minus me and plus a few others took a bus to some wineries all day. I met up with everyone for dinner and the bars.

We dressed up to go out downtown in the worst b-maid dresses we could find.

This picture is from the local paper's online photo gallery for Halloween. The caption below it says "A bride and her groomsmen walk down Main Street on Saturday, Oct. 30th." I personally don't feel as if we look manly, thank you!

I pinned a bow to my dress to give due honor to the classic bridesmaid butt bow.

No idea:

It was a great night, and I hope Melissa had a blast!

Also, a hangover at age 24 takes much, much longer to shake than a hangover did a few years ago. Who knew.

What did you dress up as for Halloween?

Not Cool

You guys.

A dear, dear friend of mine, Melissa, is getting married a week from tomorrow. I'm a bridesmaid in her wedding.

Last night, her matron of honor called her and dropped out of the wedding.

She didn't drop out of the wedding because of a death in the family, or a sick husband or child, but because of selfish reasons. She was in charge of the bachelorette party, and she refused to let anyone help her plan it. The planning was very poor, prices for the party doubled overnight on Wednesday for all of the participants, and she called the bride, wanting the bride to front the extra money. She "tearfully" called another bridesmaid and turned over the planning of the party to her the day before yesterday.

In conclusion, this girl is embaressed. Her solution is to drop out of the wedding. Scratch that. She had her husband call Melissa's fiance and drop out FOR HER.

This post isn't to crucify the ex-matron of honor, but I wanted you all to have enough background to know that her reasons for dropping out are selfish. I feel that she needs to suck it up and stand up with Melissa regardless of how embaressed she is. Because that's what friends do.

I am heartbroken for Melissa. Her wedding planning road has been rocky at best, and I hurt for her, because she has had to work so hard to isolate the joy in this process. She has had to cling so hard to her love for her almost-husband in the face of some really ugly family nonsense and now, some really ugly friend nonsense. I wish I could do something for her, to ease this a bit. But all I can do right now is listen and do whatever I can to make sure she has a blast tomorrow at her bachelorette. Which doesn't feel like it's nearly enough.

It's just another reminder that wedding planning truly does bring out the best, and the worst in people. And sometimes it's a reminder of the warm and lovely people you have around you, and sometimes it's a reminder that a close friendship wasn't at all what you thought it would be.

I hate hate HATE this for her. She's so close to wedded bliss, then this happens.

Did bad behavior surface during your wedding/wedding planning? Do you have anything warm and fuzzy to pass on to Melissa? I know how much kind comments can help when bad things happen!

Boring Money Stuff

So Ryan and I close on our first house November 1st! We are first time homebuyer's, and this whole process has been quite the education. Mortgage stuff sucks hardcore. It isn't nearly as fun as looking at living room inspiration pictures. It's actually just like wedding planning!

Closing on the contract=getting engaged

Excitement all around, woohoo! We're on top of the world!

Waiting waiting=initial planning stages

We can put this here and paint this this color. THIS IS SO EXCITING. Much akin to wedding colors and the pretty pictures on heavily styled blogs.

Mortgage nonsense=wedding logistics

They need to know where I worked 5 years ago? They want pay stubs from my internship? They want WHAT faxed to them right this second?! Very similar to "the hall only holds 300 but we can't possibly invite less than 400...WHAT DO WE DO?! and my parents want to invite their 3rd cousins WHY WHY?!" Hair ripping out ensues.

And I'm assuming that actually closing and getting the keys and walking inside your first home is a lot like the wedding day...overwhelming and wonderful. A happy ending!

Ryan and I are so, so lucky to be able to have the kind of house we're about to have. I am super pumped to really make it our own and make it look like new again (it isn't in very good shape and needs work).

Quick warning on escrow: Escrow can suck it. And the banks are so into covering their *sses now that you have to pay 14 months of taxes and insurance up front AND keep paying both of those every month like you haven't paid way ahead anyway. Apparently with interest rates being so low, this is just the new climate of home loans.

I want to show you all pictures so badly, but the pictures online are not my property, and I hate posting things without giving credit to the source. I don't want to link back to the house for safety reasons...but I don't think the real estate site cares, right? So I'll throw a couple up here without giving credit. Shhh, don't tell anyone!

I am itching to paint those cabinets a nice clean white and paint a wall navy. I saw it in a picture online and it looks phenomenal.

The living room:

Just a sneak peek, with so much more to come! This place is going to be full of house nonsense.

Is the nesting bug getting to you?

Long Lost Friends

So last night, Ryan and I went to my little sister's conference cross country meet. Ryan had to stay and do recruiting stuff, so we didn't leave until 6:30. We were both starving, so we went and ate at Panera. Ryan had brought some bank papers in to show me over dinner, but we both got so excited over the prospect of broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl that we lost track of them. So we're driving to Schnuck's to get some produce to tide us over until our next big grocery run, and Ryan realizes that he left said bank papers at Panera. I pull up at Panera, park haphazardly so Ryan could run in, and wait until he comes back. As I'm waiting, I spot my long lost friend Suz sitting inside! Of course I dash in and bear hug her.

I worked at an Italian restaurant in town for 5 years, all 5 of those years with Suz as the manager. We were buddies. She's one of my absolute favorite people. Her dad passed away a few years ago, and she quit her job and moved in with her mom, changed phone numbers several times and stopped going out. I've been looking everywhere for her ever since, and last night I finally found her!

Me and Suz on a Bella Italia lake trip:

Me and Suz at Halloween:

I wish I could've tracked her down so I could get her an invitation to the wedding, but she has been through so much and I am so glad that I found her again!

Hurray for long lost friends!

Have you lost track of anyone important to you?

I'm It!

So Nikki over at The Fashionable Wife tagged me in this question game that's been making the rounds. Hopefully this will alleviate the spectacular boredom of waiting until Nov 1st WHEN WE CLOSE ON OUR FIRST HOUSE!

1. What is your favorite book?

I have about 50. I can't help it.

-Favorite Sci-Fi book: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Best surprise ending EVER. And there's a movie coming out Card is writing the screen play!

-Favorite Romance: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. And Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, both by Jane Austen. Oh and Like Water for Chocolate.

-Favorite Scary book: The Stand by Stephen King, also The Shining and his collection of short stories, Skeleton Crew.

Misc: Anything by Dr. Crossan and Dr. Borg. Anything Pearl S. Buck writes, especially Imperial Woman.

2. How did you meet your significant other:

He was assistant coaching my little sister's cross country team, and I spotted his hot self at the state meet. I facebooked him and 6 months later we were dating!

3. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Prague by myself. London with my sisters, Fiji with my husband.

4. What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

I love thrift store browsing. I love to sew and quilt, and I never get tired of books.

5. If you didn't have to worry about money, what would be your dream job?

I would love to organize events for the Alzheimer's Association. Sewing or quilting would be a fun job too.

6. What is one thing that never fails to make you feel better after a long or hard day?

Ryan giving me a shoulder rub or making me dinner. And a successful shopping expedition is always good therapy!

7. What is your favorite thing to cook or bake? Or, what is your best recipe?

I have a tiramisu layer cake recipe that absolutely kills.

8. What is your favorite thing in your closet?

I have a black dress from Banana Republic with a ruffled neckline that makes me feel like a million bucks.

So who's it next? I'm tagging...

Mrs. T at 99 + Forever

Kristy at I'm Going to Marry You Someday

Tenille at 9 Years in the Making

Buhdoop!

So ladies, if you have a few minutes....

What was your favorite moment from your wedding? The one where you think of it and feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Do you sing in the shower or in your car when no one's around? What's your favorite song to belt out?

Flats or heels?

How long do you want to wait to have kids, if you're planning on having them at all? No judgment meant in the least, just curious what other people's time lines are!

How many nights a week do you and/or your partner cook?

If you could change 1 thing personality trait about yourself, what would it be? (I would 100% change my grudge-holding tendency)

Recent Happenings/Brain Dump

So....Ryan and I put an offer in on a house! And after lots of back and forthing, we have an inspection set up for tomorrow. We'll see what it turns up...I'm cautiously excited. The house was built in 1924, so there could be dozens of things majorly wrong with it. The house was really nicely renovated 6-7 years ago (wiring updated, plaster pulled out, new insulation, drywall put in, new windows, etc), so we should be in good shape. But we'll see, I'm not going to get all "we can put this there, and we should paint this room this color!" until we see how this inspection turns out. I have lots of ideas of course...but I'm not going to superimpose those ideas onto said house until this inspection is done.

Also, last week, I was driving home from an interview (more on that next week!) and I got in a wreck. Lame. But it turns out that a guy I went to grade school with works at my insurance agent's office! Weird, right?

Ryan and I have a double date tonight with my sister Alli and her super adorable BF Chris. He only eats cheese on pizza and he makes phenomenal popcorn.

Ryan and I are camping this weekend too! The weather looks like it's going to be gorgeous.

Oh and we turned in our first draft of edits on our wedding album. The list was...lengthy. And we need to pick out which pictures we actually want to print. Because we haven't done that yet. Oops!

I don't understand how people who have kids get anything done. I've been trying to get over to my Grandma's all week to finish up the binding on my quilt (I'm DYING to show it to you but I want to wait until it's finished) but it just hasn't happened. ARGH. Next week Grandma, I promise!

So what's rocking your world?

My Secret Love Affair

I LOVE Orla Kiely.

I remember the day I first stumbled across Orla. I was in college in Springfield Missouri strolling through a factory/reject store (clothes with broken zippers, missing buttons, items they had too much of at the department store, etc), when I found a super, super cute brown purse with a mod, graphic print. It had a very slight red line drawn on it that you could only see if you were really looking for it, and the handbag was made of a coated canvas. I loved it, but it was $30 so I almost put it back. But I carried it around for the hour that I was there, and finally sucked it up and bought it.

Years later, I am STILL carrying said bag, with only minimal signs of wear. It's held up beautifully.

So now I have a serious love for Orla Kiely. When her collection hit Target my sister and I were all up on that. I am kicking myself for not buying every single piece...hindsight is 20/20.

Needless to say, with the house search going on decorating is on my brain. Whatever house we end up in, I'll have at least a corner for my sewing set-up, and I really want to tie some Orla in. Because her stuff makes me so happy.

Source

Do you SEE those chair cushions?! I can't afford her fabric, but I could easily embroider her iconic stem print onto a pretty solid and recover a chair seat. I can't talk about her furniture, I get too upset and I question my whole philosophy of "do what you love, who cares how much money you make if you're happy!" Which is dumb, and I know this, but that's how much Orla tempts me.

Wallpaper will never, ever make an appearance in Ryan and I's homes...both of us have spent way too much time scraping old wallpaper off various walls to ever willingly put it up. But, if we weren't so anti-wallpaper, and if it wasn't $98 a roll, this would be in consideration....

Source

Sigh.

Here's Ms. Kiely's office in England:

Source

Light, with a few pops of color. Simple.

My stubborn fixation on replicating expensive things that I love and can't afford has turned it's focus from wedding planning (*bouquets cough cough*) to Orla in my sewing space. Get excited, because I will have Orla's mod, unique and graphic touches without designer prices. Come hell or high water, it will happen!

But, I am thinking of asking for this for Christmas....

Source

Do you have a fav designer you love but can't afford? Do you want to incorporate expensive stuff into your home without paying lots of $$$?

Album

A part of Ryan and I's wedding photography package were 3 professional albums-40 pgs a piece, with 2 of them being smaller than 1. We're giving the smaller ones to our parents and keeping the big one for ourselves. We're greedy like that.

Our photog sent us the 1st draft of our albums 2 weeks ago. I guess I didn't really understand the whole process...I thought maybe we'd send her a list of our favorite pics or something? Anyway, she put the album together and then sent it to us for edits.

And do we have edits.

There are some pictures neither one of us care for, and some that we love that didn't make it in. Overall though, the way its organized and everything looks great. I think they're going to turn out really well, I just feel so nitpicky when I say "on page 33, take out this and this and this and replace with this and this and this." These are the only professional albums we'll have though, and I know we both want them to be perfect.

Did you get a professional album from you photog?

Houses

So Ryan and I have been house hunting for months. After seeing every house built before 1970 in our price range (it's not a big town, we had to see everything because that's just how we decide on things), we narrowed it down to 3 homes. We put an offer in on our top choice this week and we're into the negotiating process. So far so good, but plenty could go wrong. Even knowing this, I can't help but mentally decorate. Our realtor says this is 100% normal.

The bathrooms are all generic, cheap and bland apartment looking. The house was built in 1924 (!!!!), so I think that classic basket weave tile would look amazing:

Source

Plus, it's only $6ish a square foot.

The kitchen is screaming for a backsplash, and I LOVE subway tile.

Source

We also need furniture....have you seen how much furniture costs? Luckily, Ryan is super handy, AND I found a blog that has furniture plans based on popular projects so you can build them! Ryan also doesn't work during the summer (his coaching job is a 10 month position) so I'm thinking that he'll have plenty of time to make some furniture, right? Right Ryan? I'm just kidding, I worked set crew in high school and I am super handy. Plus, measuring fabric and sewing can't be that much different than measuring wood and cutting it.

Let's be honest, Ryan isn't going to let me go near his power tools.

Moving on!

This headboard was a door:

Source

Very doable.

I have big plans my friends, big plans. But first things first, scoring the house.

I'll keep you posted!

Are you house hunting?

Party

Our wedding was really and truly the most fun day of my life. It was laid back, everyone was easy going (for the most part and minus some minor stresses like missing suit pants and late arrivals), and it was celebratory in every sense of the word. I've had lots of people tell me how beautiful our wedding was, but I've had way more people tell me what a blast they had.

Both our caterer and the coordinator of the Polish Heritage Center told us that there was absolutely no way we'd go through more than 2 kegs. No way, especially since we also had wine and a signature drink. We had to tap a 3rd keg by 10, and we were 95% through with the 3rd keg at 11 p.m. when the bar shut down. That's 600 beers in 3.5 hours. Sweet success.

This is just a fraction of the dance floor, it was packed all night.

This a former professor dancing with one of my former classmates:

Sisters are the best!
Have you guys played that Wii Dance game? We LOVE it, and we know all the moves to "You Can't Touch This." We replicated the entire dance, don't worry!

This is Jason, one of Ryan's best buddies. They miss each other, and reunions are always happy and full of love.

Ryan's dad TORE UP the dance floor!

Every pretty little detail and DIY project aside, our wedding was outrageously fun, and completely joyful. We were surrounded by all of our favorite people, and they were all there with bells on to celebrate with us. And there is nothing like that feeling...I hope I never forget what that felt like.

That closes out the wedding recaps! It was the most intense, blissful, overwhelming, celebratory, hysterically fun, most spilling-over-with-love day of my life, and I wish that everyone could have a day like ours. I feel selfish saying that I want more like it...but I do. How could I not?