Instagram Dump

I decided to DIY clean my wedding dress....which has been hanging dirty, half bustled in a closet for 2 years.  No judging here.  It somewhat worked!  I'll do a whole post on this later.

We finally had a weekend at home...it's been wedding after wedding after wedding this summer.  Ryan and I were each in one, so we also had showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, etc.  We loved it, but it was so nice to not be traveling this past weekend!  We hit up the farmer's market on Saturday morning, and I got a blueberry lemonade with a fun pink umbrella.

We're doing a CSA this summer (a bi-weekly share), and our last box included this mind-blowing heirloom watermelon.  So we high-tailed it to the farmer's market where our farmers have a booth as soon as they opened and bought them out of these glorious Sugar Baby watermelons.  I can't tell you how sweet, juicy and wonderful these are.  We are saving the seeds so we can have dozens upon dozens of these next year.  

Then I made cheesy kale chips.  I like these MUCH better just barely not-crispy.  Yum.

Then I made these zucchini fries with marinara sauce to dip it in.  They didn't have a ton of flavor on these own, I think I'll add more seasonings next time....because there will be a next time.  It might happen tonight.  Here's where I found the recipe.

Then we went to this winery with a badass pizza oven yesterday to celebrate our 2 year anniversary.  We pretty much went just for the pizza.  We've wanted to go for a while but it's 45 minutes away.  Our pizza was AWESOME--mine had pesto, grilled chicken and feta and Ryan's had sun dried tomatoes and sausage.  

Wanna guess how many pictures it took to get this one good one?

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

There was more, I just didn't feel like uploading all of them.  We only got the good one because the winery dude offered to take one for us.  

And then we worked on getting stuff together for the garage sale we're having next month.  I miss living with Alli, and I'm sad we're selling this couch we bought together at a junk store for $40.

How was your week?

2

Today is our 2nd anniversary.  It's gone by so fast, yet so slowly at the same time, somehow.  Thankfully I do feel like I'm getting better at this being married thing...I feel like I know Ryan better and better, and that helps enormously.

He still makes me laugh, every day.

It still takes my breath away when he looks at me like this.

We still hear about how much fun people had.

I still love to hold his hand.

It's still HOT, just like it was 2 years ago!

I still do, and firmly intend to always do so.

We're heading to a winery with a pizza oven this weekend to celebrate...mostly for the pizza as opposed to booze!

I love seeing everyone's anniversary posts....and I love staying in the loop on your lives!  In a non-creepy way.  I'm basically glad we're still wedding-blog-buddies :).

Wedding Season

You guys it is wedding SEASON!  I was in my sister-in-law Erin's wedding on July 14th, and then this past weekend Ryan was in his friend Jason's wedding.  WHEW--I have a feeling baby shower season is next!

I got my nails all done up for Erin's wedding....and I got my engagement ring re-dipped.  I had never done that before; it looked like a new ring, so shiny and pretty!

Erin picked out the prettiest dresses, all from J Crew in a pretty dove gray color, and everyone's dress was just a little bit different.  Definitely a wear-again dress.  She gave us all pearls; it was lovely all together.  Here's Ashely, one of the other bmaids and I.

Erin's photographer, Forever Yours Images out of STL, already posted some preview pictures on Facebook.  Doesn't Erin look stunning?  

I love this picture of Ryan and I at Erin's wedding, we look so happy :)

Ryan's cousin John's fiance Megan and I-she's getting married in September!  I LOVE her.  I think we were making fun of how short I am here?  Obviously it was fun.

Then in between the weddings, I walked the dogs with my sister at our riverfront.  4 dogs + 2 girls trying to eat ice cream?  Not well planned, but very entertaining.  

 While Ryan was off doing his groomsmen thing I went shopping!  Almost bought this dress at American Eagle...the color was gorgeous, and I loved everything about it except for the flutter sleeves and the price tag.  It was $45 full price, I just couldn't do it...I have a pretty similar dress from here and didn't feel like I needed it.  Do you have a hard time buying stuff full price?  I will do it if I really need it and it's perfect, but that's about it!

I flew Cape Air to STL, since the rehearsal dinner was Thursday night at 4, and I had just taken vacation for Erin's rehearsal dinner (also on a Thursday night) the week before.  Ryan drove up Thursday, and I flew up Saturday, then we drove back down together.  Flight seated 9, and was only $50, including taxes, so it was actually cheaper for me to fly.  It was hysterical...the restaurant in the airport wasn't open at 6:30 (my flight left at 6:45 a.m.), so they had free coffee and pastries set out.  They called you up for security by name...and you had to verify your weight, for balance reasons.  I only had to get there 20 minutes before the flight.  It was amazing, must've been what flying was like before things got so crazy.  I would definitely do it again, especially for business trips since it'd be cheaper than parking/gas reimbursement.

Oh and they sell the co-pilot's seat, so you can sit up there if you want
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Then Ryan was in our dear friends Jason and Kristin's wedding on Saturday.  It was beautiful, I can't wait to show you more pictures!  And he looks so handsome in a suit.  

They had a really cool polaroid picture deal set up, and they had painted a silver tray with chalkboard paint so you could write messages to them.  We did a cheesetastic one, of course.

 We had a great time seeing some of Ryan's old Fleet Feet friends (he met Jason working at a specialty running store).  We've visited Jason and Kristin in Chicago, where Jason works for Fleet Feet again, so some Chicago Fleet Feeters were also at the wedding.  Then there was a Fleet Feet STL vs. Fleet Feet Chicago dance off, which was priceless.  We ended up at the after party until 2 a.m., it was such a blast.

We have a break in weddings until September 21 when Ryan's friend Jessica is getting hitched and September 28, when his cousin John marries Megan.  Then we have another wedding in December.  We're lucky to have such a great group of friends.

What have you been up to lately, wedding-it up?

Rock N Roll

A few weeks ago, I signed up to run my 4th half marathon on October 21--the St. Louis Rock N Roll Half Marathon!

Source

My father-in-law was signed up, and he wanted some company.  We run together whenever Ryan and I visit St. Charles, and we are very well suited running buddies.  We have some great conversations, so I'm excited.  He's wanting to run about 9 minute miles, and it'd be nice to break 2 hours; right in line with what I'm good with!

It's the biggest and priciest race I'll have ever done.  The other 3 half marathons I've ran were not dinky or anything, just smaller, more community based affairs put on my local running groups or a locally-owned running store.  So while it cost a chunk of change ($86 prior to June 30th, includes processing fee and a $10/coupon code I found), I think running a big race with crowds and all kinds of fancy things will be fun, and a cool experience.  It felt WASTEFUL signing up for it, isn't it funny how it can be hard to spend $ on yourself like that?  For some reason the smaller amounts don't feel that way to me.

Since my hubs is a cross country coach, I lucked out training schedule-wise.  He worked in my weekly Zumba classes and my beloved elliptical (I can watch Toddlers and Tiaras while on that thing, it's beautiful), which was very sweet of him.  I'm on week 3 of the training schedule, and so far have only slacked off on not doing 1 40-min elliptical session, which I plan to make up...sometime.  When I started this training stuff, I was working out maybe 3 times a week, so getting back to a regular schedule has been an adjustment.  This weekend, my appetite caught up-and then some-with all this increased activity...all I want to do is sit around and EAT, which doesn't defeat the purpose, but it's lame.

This was my first 1/2, part of the Frostbite Series in St. Louis' Forest Park.  I didn't own any hardcore tech running stuff, and I froze my ass off.  Now I have tights and a zip up top lined in cozy fleece that get me through chilly days.

And here's one 1/2 marathon I did with my mom last September.  I hadn't trained at all and I still have no idea how I finished.

And the other one went completely undocumented.  It was 3 weeks after the 1st one, and it was so cold the water in the cups at the water stops was frozen solid.

I'm a much better spectator.  This looks so much more comfortable!

Nerd alert:  I printed off my training schedule, hung it up on my office wall and cross my completed work outs off in red ink.

Are you training for anything?

The American Queen Docks

Today the American Queen, an old-school paddlewheeler docked at Cape's riverfront!  Since I work in tourism here, I've been going back and forth with them to get them what they need, set stuff up, etc...seeing it all happen was really exciting.

Here she is approaching our riverfront...with the Mississippi being so low right now thanks to this severe drought we're in, their schedule was all wacky.  They were supposed to get here at noon and showed up at 10:15.  Better early than late!

We had a few small hiccups, but nothing major.  For the most part everything went smoothly (whew!).  The director was nice enough to take me on board and give me a tour.  They have a 24/7 soft serve machine....yum!  I am really good at locating ice cream.

They had a Mark Twain impersonator on board.  I just started reading Life on the Mississippi this weekend to get ready for a "Mississippi Mondays" series I am doing for my work's social media (I manage Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr and Foursquare for VisitCape), so when I saw this guy walking towards me, it gave me goosebumps!

And I'm wearing my skirt!  I got lots of compliments, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I wanted to wear something professional that was comfy AND wouldn't make me sweat to death.  Though running around on the riverfront from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in 104 temps pretty much did that anyway-hence the red face in the ice cream picture!

Such a cool day!  Not temp wise-you know what I mean.  They dock 2 more times, and we also have 2 dockings with another boat.  Can't wait--and hoping next time it isn't 104.