Let's Dish

I was so excited to have my first shower a few weekends ago.  Rebecca, LeeAnn, Allison, Mrs. Paula, Annie and Melane were so kind to host a kitchen shower for me at the Lewis' house.  We had a light lunch and had a great time visiting.  I was so surprised and humbled by the amount of people there and the thoughtful gifts.

The invitions were so cute and came with a recipe card.  I am so excited about all the great recipes that we got from all the ladies at the shower.  I need to take pictures of the invite and recipe card, but here is the cute favor tag to go with the yummy cake balls Annie made to give out to the guests.

I was so excited and had such a great day.  I can't wait to use all the great new dishes, serving pieces, and kitchen tools cooking all my new recipes for Gill.  Thanks to my fabulous hostesses for all their hardwork making my shower so special!

A Few Engagement Pictures...

These are a few of our favorite engagement pictures.  Our great photographer, Kevin Beasley, did a wonderrful job and I can not wait for the pictures from our wedding!

Last Dress Fitting

Three hour ride.  Thirty minute dress fitting.  Three hour ride home.  But at least this time my dress and veil came with me!!

My Birthday!

I have had a great birthday this year... it was on the Friday before I started back to school on Monday this year.  It was a great way to end the summer!  I had a great dinner with my family during the week and had my favorite cookie cake from Albritton's! 

The day of my actual birthday, we went to Portico for dinner and then to Dawg House. 

We took a ton of pictures through out the night and had a great time! 

Centerpieces... Everywhere!

Mama and I spent last Sunday afternoon working on centerpieces for the wedding.  We bought everything the florist isn't going to provide and we needed to make sure we had everything we are going to need.  I also needed to know everything was organized, labeled, and stored neatly!  We started by soaking all the pieces to get price tags and stickers off. 

We decided the best thing to do was just to set them out in the living room...

We only ended up needing to pick up one more set and we are done with glass!  We got them all measured and all the candles ordered.  (The blue on the bottom is a label designating the table number where it belongs, I want to make sure everything is as easy as people for our sweet friends and family that have offered to help the day of the wedding!)

Gill had a great nap during the three hours Mama and I organized... but he was a great help lugging everything up and down the stairs for us!

Our First Purchase for Our House!

Gill and I will be living in his house in Haughton after we married.  Since we both own our homes already and with our new wedding gifts, there isn't much right now we need to buy for our home.  We have lots of plans for things we want in the future, but as of right now all we needed was a new TV.  We went to Best Buy on tax-free weekned and Gill got to pick out the new TV he wanted... he definitely has a better understanding about all that stuff than I do.  Our idea of fun on Friday nights has definitely changed!

Here is Gill and his new favorite thing!  Just in time for football!

We didn't measure for it to go on top of the mantle, but it fit perfectly!  (I originally wanted a new console table for it, but I didn't know these houses are wired for the TV to go over the mantle.  There are two big ugly plugs above the mantle!)

We still have to work on those cords... but at least it is up and working!  We went and visited with my mom on Sunday and she surprised us with a new TV for our bedroom!  We were so excited!

Sandestin

Gill and I went to Sandestin this past week and we had a great time.  We flew out of Shreveport and had no problems with our flight or rental car, which was so nice.  We were tired when we got in and just went at the pizzeria at the Baytowne Village.  We got up bright and early the next morning and ran a few errands and then went straight to the beach.  We had dinner at Finz that night and ate on the deck looking out over the beach. 

The next morning Gill explained to me how he strategically placed his dirty clothes on top of his suitcase so he could tell if the maid pilfered through his things.  Doesn't look obvious at all...

Our beach had waitresses, so we got to have some yummy sushi and drinks for lunch while never leaving our chairs.

We had a couple of people tell us to try The Back Porch in Destin, so we decided to go there and try it.

We kept seeing this cat walking around outside while we were waiting to be seated and then I noticed he had a little home in the flower beds in front of the restaurant!

We had a great view while we ate and got to watch it rain off the coast.

I think my favorite night at the beach was the night we spent walking around at Baytowne Village.  We wasted money on things like this:

We had a great dinner at Italian restaurant that was half blues club and then we went to Rum Runners and listened to a great singer and then dueling pianos.

We had to wake up early to catch our flight the next morning to leave (we had to get up aboout 5:30, but of course, I was up at 4:30) and it was pouring down rain and cold.  It helped our feelings that we were having to leave!

Fourth of July

We spent the day at our friend Daniel's camp at Lake Claiborne on Sunday.  We didn't go until around 4 because we were going to stay and watch the fireworks.

Gill, Daniel, and Jeremy getting things ready to go!

We rode out to Snake Island and just enjoyed spending time out in the water.  There weren't as many people out on the lake as I thought I would be.  I was glad it was a calm day.

We went back to Daniel's and started to cook.  We grilled pork chops, had potato salad, and I made Cowboy Beans, per Jeremy's request.  The recipe for the beans was huge and I ended up having to add extra beans because of the amount of meat I had added.  (*Gill has a grinder and had packaged a deer himself.  I thought each Ziploc contained a pound of meat... well, Gill just filled up the Ziploc and did no measuring!  Next year, Gill will grind and package his deer in measured amounts so I will know what I am dealing with while cooking!) We snacked on Rotel and I made red, white, and blue cupcakes for dessert.  We ate out on the porch and it was great looking out over the lake.

We cleaned up and then got back in the boat and rode out to see the fireworks.  It was so beautiful with the sun setting on the lake!

Gill enjoying the boat ride!

Jeremy and Annie rode in the front of the boat...

We went to another camp on the lake to watch the fireworks with a friend of Daniel's from work.  Daniel and Annie enjoyed the fireworks!

On Monday, the 4th, we went to Bernice to spend the day at Aunt Lynda and Uncle Bob's.  Gill and I spent most of the afernoon in the pool... it was so hot!  I brought the left over beans and they grilled chicken kabobs and a brisket.  We had lots of good sides to go along!  It was fun to get to hang out with family and friends for such a fun weekend!

Save-the-Dates

183 Save-the-Dates are stuffed, addresses, sealed and stamped... Ready to go out!  I couldn't imagine doing this and working right now....

Engagement Party

We were so lucky to have Gill's family and friends through us an engagment party in St. Francisville.  The party was at Aunt Linda and Randy's house.  There was a huge spread of food and drinks and the band was great.  The first hour of the party, the band didn't play, which gave us a chance to visit with our guests.

I didn't take many pictures during the party, but Aunt Lynda was there to capture every moment.  I am sure there will be another post with her pictures.

It was so hot, but they had several tents, lots of fans, and LOTS of cold beverages to help keep us cool.  We had been outside for a while before we took some family pictures... so Gill was a little hot and sweaty.

Gill and his family love to dance and one of my favorite things is to watch him and his mom dance.  They have so much fun together.

We had a great time and I can't wait to see the pictures that Aunt Lynda took.

I wanted to include a picture of our wedding book.  I am absolutely love it.

We also went into Baton Rouge to meet with some florists about the flowers for the wedding.  And we met our fabulous florist, RJ Coco, at Billy Heroman's.  He picked right up on the look I was going for and was able to run with.  Two hours later we had everything planned out.  We are using ranunculus, hydrangea, roses, curly willow and green berries.  All the flowers will be ivory and in various states of bloom.  The wedding plans are definitely all coming together.

I am finishing up addressing the Save-the-Dates and they will go out this week.  I will post a picture of them after everyone has had a chance to receive them.

Weekend Fun!

We didn't really have any set plans going into this weeked.  We met Daniel and Jeremy at Portico for dinner Friday night.  It was so crowded we ran into lots of friends in town for David's wedding.  It was such a great surprise!

For some reason, during dinner we got a wild idea to go to Shreveport.  It was definitely too late to head over, but we did anyway.

We stopped at a gas station on the way over and Jeremy and I decided we needed cowboy hats!

We had such a great time and I am glad we decided to be spontaneous and go.  We stopped and ate at Waffle House before we finally got back to Gill's house around 4:30.  We are definitely too old to do that anytime soon again!

Gill and I came back to Ruston with Jeremy and Daniel Saturday morning.  We took a nap and went to Cane's for lunch.  We went and spent the afternoon with my mom and Gill took another two hour nap... he couldn't handle his late night!

Saturday night, we went to watch Jeremy race.  I have watched Jermey race since high school and I am glad that Gill enjoys going with me.

Here is our favorite race car driver and his car!

Here is Jeremy in the heat race... his tires were off the ground!

Jeremy did so good!  He got second in his heat race and then went back to the pit to make some adjustments to his car.  It amazes me how he can know how change all these things to make his race car better for how the track is running.

He took his tires off and grinded them down to get fresh rubber on them.

Jermey got second place in the feature raceand did so good.  It was a long race with lots of cautions. I am convinced that I am bad luck because I think wins every race that I am NOT there.

After the feature race... you can see how dusty it is at the races in this picture.  You can not escape the dust and dirt anywhere.  Nasty. (That is dust flying through the air, not stuck to the lens of my camera.)

We slept late Sunday morning, I got up about an hour before Gill and cooked Mexican breakfast.  My family eats this every Christmas morning.  Barkley had gotten Gill a card for Father's Day :).