Meet Baxter!

I have been begging Andy for a puppy since forever, but since we lived in the condo for the past two years we settled on a cat and got Remington who we love. But now that we live in a place where theres a yard we adopted a puppy. Baxter is a terrier mix and is about 6 months old. He is a great dog, already knows to sit and fetch in the 4 days we have had him. The only bad news is that we were lied to a lot by the rescue group. They told us he was 4 months old and was a labradoodle and that is probably why we paid the price we did for him. We took him to his first vet visit today where he told us all the right information as well as some bad news. Baxter has an upper respiratory infection, worms as well as walking pneumonia in his right lung. We have tons of medicine for him and have to rent a nebulizer to try and knock out the pneumonia. Thankfully we have 45 days of free pet insurance!

Here he is on the first day...on the way home!

He loves the car already.

The holidays are coming!

As we get closer and closer to christmas im getting more excited that 2009 is right around the corner. I remember in 2007 when Andy and I got engaged that 2009 seemed so far away and I could see it in peoples eyes when they asked about the date. I worked customer service so it happened quite a bit. Well now ill soon be able to say, "Im getting married this september!!"
Whats even crazier than that is that we had our first snowfall of the season on 10.29...yes before halloween!

Andy and I had just put up the halloween decorations and the spider webs ended up being ruined by the wind and snow.

Im happy we arent in NJ were some places got 14 inches!

As for Halloween itself, we ended up handing out candy with Andys family on the front porch dressed as the Flinstones.

Photographer!!

So last month Andy and I met with Nikki from Nikkinicolephotography at the Vanilla Bean. Its a cute little cafe that I grew up around and where I havent been in a long time. We really enjoyed our conversation and Andy actually showed his excitment over a vendor through this whole process. As soon as we left the building he said shes our photographer....so we booked her. We probably wont do our engagement pictures until next spring/summer. I dont mind waiting for so long since we have been engaged for over 1.5 years anyway. We probably wont be using them for anything in the wedding.

I have also decided that we are going to make our own invitations. I fell in love with a San Fran themed invitation online until i found out they were about $15 an invitation! Instead ill be making my own for roughly 300 dollars at the most (instead of 1200 if we bought the other ones).

We have also decided on Hawaii for our honeymoon! My parents have a timeshare and were willing to let us use it next year for two weeks!! Im soo excited. I have always wanted a longer honeymoon and it looks like we will probably get it. If we only end up trading with someone else for a week in hawaii we will be visiting San fran for another week. We love that city and I hope we can go back soon.

Not much going on..

Andy and I havent been doing much about the wedding lately. Im just looking around for more ideas and ways to decorate, and for favors, and table settings. My parents were kind enough to let us use their time share for our honeymoon which is going to save us a bit of money. We are working through the book trying to find a place to visit and will only have to pay for the flights and our food/drink down there. Andy really wanted a place that was all inclusive like sandals but if i dont have to pay 9thousand for a honeymoon ill gladly give up the all inclusive. The next thing we are going to book i believe is the photographer. I have to call and set up a meeting with them, but hopefully that will all go well. I am all ready to get this planning on a roll, but its hard with out the funds.
In other news andy and i moved to NY. I've been kinda depressed down here since my family and my friends are all in ct. We are trying to find some jobs, but that isnt working out very well either. I just wish the troopers would move through the scores faster. Well we did some improvements to our little house. A lot of painting...with the bedroom still left to do.



So the whole place was painted this really ugly dark green and we definately couldnt keep that. So we decided to paint over it...and bought lots of paint.

We also put a new floor in the bathroom. It was my first time doing anything like that...and yes it was only the peel and stick kind but still.

So the bathroom now has this pattern on the walls:

Taking the inspiration from a rug that i bought at home depot:


The walls in the living room are now red rose bouquet, with the trim and bottom shelving painted oyster shell. I love it red now.



Now all thats left to do is move our furniture in and the other furniture out and paint the bedroom. Hopefully we will get that done this week.

9.19.09

That's our wedding date! It's official now. Andy and I went to sign the contract with Tyrone farm yesterday and I couldnt be happier with our choice. Since our very first visit Ian has been awesome and willing to take time with us to talk about weddings overall and not just whats happening with their venue.






So the pictures show a little bit of the farm including the view, our ceremony site, and a bit of the barn. I'm really happy that we are going to get married around where I have lived since five years old. It's not in Woodstock unfortunately but Pomfret is just a few mins away. Afterwards we continued on to Mohegan Sun since we had tickets to see Ron White. We had dinner with my mom and Godmother Diane to celebrate, then went on to the show. Ron White was so funny and we had awesome seats.

One step forward...and two steps back

Sooo...you know that last post where I said we found a reception site? Well I lied. They just charge you so much for things like a tent and dance floor (about 6k for both together) when other places we have visited include that in the site fee for a lot less. We ended up going back to Tyrone Farm which has been my number one choice the whole time. Unfortunately i didnt take any pictures but it is just so gorgeous in the summmer. The flowers are everywhere and we were able to see how it would be set up with the tent over the terrace and the bar tent by the barn. This time Andy liked it more too and we have decided to have the wedding there!! So good thing right? wellll then we found out that may-july is booked solid so the wedding is pushed back to september :( We just want to be married already. But on the bright side they have sunflower fields around the site that will be in bloom at that time. We also met with the florist they have on site there and she was very very nice and made me a bouquet. It was all the flowers they are growing there at the time and was beautiful.

The man in my life...

So I just wanted to take some time to talk about (brag) how proud i am of Andy! Back in jan he took the NY state troopers exam. We expected results back in about two months, but that quickly turned to late april, then sometime in may and then finally June 30th. Well even though Andy thought he did terrible on the test he scored an 89.5 and placed 4,957 out of 22,000 people!! He did amazing and I am so proud of him. We are hoping to get a call back in the next two years. The scores are good for 4 years. It is a goal of his to become a state trooper and this is just the beginning.

Picture of Andy at the chatham fair grounds for firefighter day. Plus it doesnt hurt that he looks good in uniform. :)

Times are slow...

Not a lot going on in the wedding department. We are moving at the end of July to new york with Andys parents so we have been busy packing and working.
If i wasnt so against a destination wedding we would definately be having it in san fran. I love that city so much. We both do and i cant wait to go back and visit. The weather is the perfect temp, and there is so much to do. One day we will live there! I have to get out of the north east at some point in life.

Ceremony/Reception site!

So after being engaged for over a year we have settled on a site for the wedding. Luckily for us we only looked at three places (my area doesnt have a lot of options) and this was the third. And the lucky place is: The Gwynn Careg Inn. The inn is located in Pomfret on 14 acres with a pond. The ceremony is going to be in the spanish gardens surrounded by stone walls, and then the reception will be out closer to the water. We havent officially booked the place yet but we will be going back soon to do so.





First is their puppy Gatsby who was so cute and came along with us on the tour. Andy is standing in front of where the ceremony will be in the gardens.

The proposal story

Im sure most of those who read this blog know the story already, but I want to do a post about it anyway. Andy and I started talking about marriage really early in our relationship and it never seemed odd to either of us. I recently told my sister Kerri that during those nights when Andy and I used to stay up late and talk I fell in love with him. This was even before he asked me to be his girlfriend. So like everyone says, when its right you'll know.
We were visiting his parents in California for our spring break in 07 and had a lot planned for the whole week. We started the week by driving down the coast to visit Hearst Castle. It was a beautiful house, and I remember thinking that if Andy was going to propose on this vacation...some of these spots would be perfect. But we left and no ring.

Over the next few days drove back to Tj and Traceys house and then Andy and I took a day to visit the zoo. Now we must be kids at heart becuase everywhere we go Andy and I are always visiting a zoo or aquarium. The San Fransisco zoo is the best zoo we have ever been to! The animals are all so close, even the hippos which are my favorite.

So our last full day was filled with lots of fun in San Fransisco. We started by touring Alcatraz which was a first for me. It was fun except for a bunch of little kids trapping me in solitary confinement.

So at the end of the day we met back up with his parents to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. Since our first visit to california i have have fallen in love with the bridge and the area around it. For a while I would joke with Andy and hint that it would be a perfect place to propose. After walking all day however the last thing i wanted to do was walk across the bridge. Andy convinced me to walk just halfway and then back, now im glad i did. His dad came with us while his mom stayed in the car (where i wanted to be with my sore feet!) and we walked. It was soo windy up there. There was a lot of fog around the bridge earlier in the day but luckily it had disappeared by the time we got there. And in the middle is where Andy proposed while his dad was taking pictures (Andy knew i wanted pictures of this moment and asked his dad beforehand). It was amazing and perfect for us, although i made Andy do it again since he didnt get on one knee! By then my feet didn't hurt any more and I couldnt wait to walk back across and call my family!

New beginnings

So Andy and I are now officially UNH graduates. It's pretty scary but really exciting at the same time. We are going to be out on a cruise for the next week to Mexico but once we get back its head first into the wedding planning! I have an appointment to look at a beautiful place in Pomfret. I'm hoping that I'll like it in person as much or more than the pictures you can see online. Andy and I met freshman year at UNH and have been together through all four years. I'm happy we were both able to help each other through those too fast years, but now it's on to the "real" world. I'm looking forward to seeing what we have to help each other through in the future.

My girls!

So i officially have bridesmaids! I'm so excited and thankful that they all agreed to be in the wedding. All of my girls really mean a lot to me and have always been awesome friends to me. I wanted to do something different instead of the cheesy will you be my bridesmaid cards you can get online, so i made my own using all the scrap booking stuff i have around. I made them all different for each girl and then wrote a silly question along with personalized messages inside. The questions were of course all jokes and just meant to be funny: "Will you wear an ugly dress?" "Will you be my bride slave?" "Will you hold my dress while i pee?" and "Will you get me a stripper?". Of course i don't really want them to do any of that but they were cute anyway. So i then put together a dinner for us and asked them all with pictures of each of us together at some point.
So...the girls are Kerri (who is my stepsister), Sara (freshman college roomie and one of my best friends), Amanda (one of my best friends who i met working at BRU aka Hell),Sarah (neighbor and friends since we were 5!), and last but not least Nicole (we met during summer orientation for UNH and was my first friend here). For a while I wasnt sure if i wanted to have a maid of honor since all these girls mean a lot to me. However I knew deep down that I wanted to ask Amanda. She has been a great friend to me (and Andy) and is truly a life long friend to me.
So again thank you all for agreeing to be my bridesmaids!

Reception Sites

On wednesday my mom and I had an appointment at the Mansion at Bald Hill in Woodstock. It's a very pretty house and the rooms are beautiful upstairs. The only downside with it is that the land is a bit small and there's not a lot of option to put the reception tent. If we did decide to have the wedding there, the walk down the aisle where they have ceremonies is awesome and a good length. Since im having both my dad and stepdad walk with me down the aisle it may be a tight squeeze so we would have to look into that.
On saturday we are also looking at the Gwynn Careg Inn in Pomfret. I've looked into them early last year after andy proposed and actually forgot about the site. The inn is actually catered by the Mansion at bald hill so in some way both sites would still be connected. I'm leaning more towards the inn now just because its larger (14 acres) and they have more options to set up the reception. I'm just glad that there are good choices around where I grew up.
Oh, and we also changed our wedding date a bit. Instead of may of next year we are looking into july.

Planning Delay

So the planning has been put on the back burner lately. Andy and I are both graduating in 24 days (eek!) so that has been our focus. Soon after graduation and our cruise we will be jumping head first into planning again. It's crazy to think that theres only a year to go until our orginal wedding date of May. I thought I had all this time to plan everything perfectly and to do it slowly. Boy was I wrong, the past year has gone by very quickly and we have to get going.
Oh and a little side note, Andy got me the best pink luggage set for my birthday yesterday. I can't wait to use it on our cruise and honeymoon.

It all seems real now

So after a year of being engaged we had our first wedding appointment yesterday. What started as just a visit with us and my mom ended up with my entire family and god mother tagging along. It was a bit crazy having everyone there but it definately meant a lot that they are all excited about our wedding. Plus it doesn't hurt to have more opinions than just our own.

We went to visit Tyrone Farm in Pomfret. I found the location online and fell in love with the land and the barn! It was raining all day but luckily it stopped long enough for our tour. I've been picturing a barn reception since Andy and I first started talking about getting married and I am so happy that I found the farm. The barn is beautiful and looks great all lit up. The choices for ceremony set ups all have a great view of the valley and the land of the farm. Having the wedding one town over from where I grew up really means a lot to me. Thankfully Andy really likes it too. We had originally planned to have the wedding in May but after seeing pictures of their sunflower patches I'm started to reconsider waiting until fall. It's a bit hard to picture what it would be like on the actual day since we went to visit in winter but their pictures speak for themselves.

Im excited that the actual planning process has finally started. I have had a lot of ideas over the past year and can't wait to see what is going to work out.