Hello November!

Hi Everyone! I can't believe we are almost halfway through November already. After my anniversary marathon of blog posting, I needed to take little bit of a break from the blog. But I'm back! Here are some ramblings of what's going on my life.

Life is going well. Shamrock has settled in nicely to our little family.

We still haven't decided if we are going to change his name (probably not, but we'll see). Currently Sam has been calling him "The Dude" like from the "The Big Lebowski". Even though I haven't seen the movie, it seem like it's a pretty good nickname.

In other news- we finally have a washer & dryer!

Yesterday afternoon was spent with Mike & Sam in truck going into the city to pick up the washer and dryer for Sam's great uncle's house.  I'm excited that I won't have to keep trucking my clothes across town to our parents to wash them. Now, I just have to wait another day until they are hooked up and I can use them. Being that it's been over two weeks since I last washed any clothes, I see a lot of laundry in my near future.

Tonight Sam flexed his cooking muscles and he made us duck for dinner.

Sam is a good cook, but he always makes "fancy" food. And by "fancy" I mean he uses a lot of pots and pans to make our meal.

Sam made a glaze and a sauce to go along with the duck. We never had duck before at home but it was good, so it's was worth the mound of dishes I have waiting for me.

All and all things have been good around here. I have found a good balance right now in my life (work, family, friends, etc.) and I hope to keep it that way.

Have a good week!

My Anniversary Gift

I first want to thank everyone who wished us "Happy Anniversary". It meant a lot to me. Also, I didn't realize until late last night that the highlight video wasn't working. It is now fixed, so if you wanted to watch it you can check it out here.

For our anniversary, we didn't do too much. We got our license changed with our new address, we got lunch, we got a cat...

 
Sam said he had a surprise for our anniversary and this was it. He didn't have a cat picked out, but he took me to our local shelter and we picked this guy out. It was hard to pick between his guy and a kitten named "Batman", but I really wanted a cat who was laid back and his guy totally is.

His name is Shamrock, but I'm not sure how much I like it. I thinking maybe calling him Bob or Max or something other then Shamrock. He's 8 years old and he came from a home of an elderly lady who just couldn't take care of him anymore.

He loves to snuggle and get attention, but he's totally cool just sitting next to you. I also love that he was already declawed on his front paws, so I didn't have to worry about him destroying our new couch.

Currently, it seems like I have a bit of an allergy of to him, but I'm hoping it gets better after a bit of brushing. If that doesn't work, I also bought some cat shampoo to try.

I won't lie, I feel like I'm cheating on my first fur baby.

I love my Sammy cat dearly; and he still safe and sound at grandma's house (my mom's). However, he doesn't travel well, and doesn't do well in new places. The last time I moved him, it took him over a week to get used to his new environment. Shamrock- it took him a whole 30 minutes to check out the whole place and make himself right at home. Sammy will always be my first pet, but Shamrock is our family's first pet.

All in all it was a great anniversary! And my husband did good on his surprise and gift. 

Happy Anniversary to Us!

I can't believe that our wedding was a year ago today! This year has gone by so quickly.

I know many of the readers were at the wedding (yes, I know my friends stalk my blog and that's ok with me), but I thought it would be fun to share our highlight video with you.

This highlight video was the nicest thing my video/ photography company did for me, because I wanted something to show at my Michigan wedding reception which was only two weeks later and they were able to put that video together for me.

Now that we have a year of marriage down my belt, I can say that the first year was harder then I expected  it to be but we made through it together.

~Sam,

I love you so much. Thanks for making me the luckiest girl in the world!

Love Your Wife,
~Stacy 

Top 5 Wedding Things: #1- The Bridal Party

When you think of weddings you think about so many things, but I really feel like the most important thing we did for our wedding was picking our bridal party.

For both Sam and I, we think of our friends as extensions of our family. I mean we love our friends so much that we asked them to join us on our honeymoon- not too many people would do that. So when it came to picking our wedding party, we wanted to include some of our closest friends.

When it came to picking the boys, I knew that Sam wasn't going to have too hard of a time picking. To start, he knew he had to include his two brothers.

Being that they're brothers, they have always supported our relationship and have always made me feel like family. These boys are characters and I was glad to have them join us on our special days.

Sam and Mike have been friends since junior high. Mike is one of Sam's oldest friends and it was a no-brainer that would be in our bridal party.

Tommy has been our of friends since he was in 8th grade. We were introduced to Tommy through Mike, but Tommy quickly became on of our good friends. Many of our stories from high school were at his house and/or he played a major part of the shenanigans that were had. He's fun, crazy, and knows how to have a good time.

Finally you have Chris. He is one of our newest friends, but he has a huge place in both of our hearts. He is crazy and he always makes for a good story (aka- the garter fight). We always have a good time when we are with him, but we also know he always has our back. When you think of people you want by your side during the zombie apocalypse, Chris is that guy!

 When it came to the girls, I also knew pretty quickly who I wanted to join me during my big day.

My sister was a pretty easy choice. Being that she's my only sibling, I knew I needed to make her my maid-of-honor. Even though it has taken us many years of fighting while growing up, we are finally starting to understand each other. I feel like as the years go on, we continue to grow closer and closer. We always have each others back, even if we don't express our love for each other as much as some other siblings may.

These three girls were very obvious picks for me. We have been friends since high school, but our relationships have only got stronger as we get older. I have been spent countless hours with these girls over the years. I know if I every need anything, all I have to do is pick up the phone and call. If I went into how important each of these girls are to me, would be it's own blog post. So simply put, my wedding wouldn't have been the same without them.

Finally, the last of my girls was my friend Cathy. She's been my friends since high school, and is always my shoulder to cry on. I have always had this connection with her that I've been able to talk to her about anything. She was great during the wedding process to help me with some of the things I just didn't want to deal with (my flowers, my dress, my favors, etc.). She was always willing to offer a helping hand in whatever I needed.

Without our friends I know Sam and I wouldn't be the people who we are today. Each person in our bridal party has played an important part of our lives, and I'm so happy they decided to share in our of special day.

Top 5 Wedding Things: #2- The Dress

I hope everyone's weekend is going well so far. I think that after watching 3 or more "Say Yes to the Dress" episodes in the last 24 hours, this post comes at the right time.

#2- The Dress

When it came to dress shopping, I wasn't too excited. Like many brides I wanted to lose a few pounds before the big day, so I really didn't want to go shopping until I had lost a few pounds first, but my bridesmaids had only plans. Even though my wedding wasn't until October, for some reason I had to get my dress by the end of Christmas break. So on New Year's Eve after 3 different bridal stores and many dresses tried on, I found a keeper.

I won't lie, I didn't cry or freak out when I found it. However, the sample dress I tried on was about two sizes too small and the dress was white. Like really really white!

When I first started dress shopping I figured I would get a white dress; but after seeing ivory dresses and how they looked with my skin tone, white just wasn't going to work for me.

Of course when the dress came in the store was willing to do the alterations for an additional cost; however, I have heard too many issues of brides who got the alterations done at the store and had been unhappy, so I figured I would go to someone who I really trusted... my cousin Carla!

So I packed up my wedding dress and brought it to Michigan just to have my cousin do the alterations and make the bustle. I loved that I was able to visit with family and get my dress completely altered in one weekend. It was awesome!

Come the big day, I was so happy with the how the dress made me look and feel. It made me feel like a real bride. Plus I could tell by the look on Sam's face, I picked the right dress. 

Top 5 Wedding Things: #3- Music

It's the weekend! YEAH! I hope you have exciting weekend plans. And exciting totally can include doing nothing, because life is sometimes just too busy. But on to other business...

# 3- Music

I can't tell you how important music is to a wedding. I have worked enough weddings to know that the music can either make or break a wedding. However, being that I have worked so many weddings over the years that I really didn't know what I wanted my first dance song to be.

I knew that more than likely whatever song I picked I would have already heard it many times at other weddings, and it really wouldn't be that special. So I did something most brides wouldn't dare to do... I let the husband pick our first dance song. Not only did he pick it, I also didn't know what he had picked until the moment it started playing at our wedding. And this the song he picked out... (fyi it has a long intro, so if you don't want to listen to the whole thing- I understand)

My wedding day wasn't the first time when I heard this song. In truth I had heard the song probably hundreds of time before because this was one of Sam's favorite bands in high school, but I never would have thought about using it as a first dance song. However, it was perfect. These are my favorite lyrics of the song...

Your arms in mine, anytime
  I wouldn't trade anything
You're still my everything
To my surprise, before my eyes, you arrive
Don't worry I'll catch you
Don't ever worry

I think that your first dance song should be something special that you and your spouse will remember for a life time, and this song was that for us. The lyrics are prefect and it was a prefect song for our first dance!

Top 5 Wedding Things: #4- Garter Fight

#4 - Garter Fight

Everyone knows that some women can get a crazy when a bouquet is tossed their way, but typically the men try to stay as far away from the garter as they can. Well this was not the case at my wedding. 

There not much else to say other than we had a full blown garter fight at our wedding... and it was awesome! I'll let the pictures just tell the story.... with my side comments.

Sam gets the garter...

 He's ready to throw... (and he does, but there no picture)

And Chris takes my cousin Travis down!

Chris goes for an arm twist.

Travis is still hanging on and fighting back.

Travis gets up to hoping get an advantage.

But Chris is not going down that easy! He's so intense!

  No guy wants to be in that position. This could get bad for Travis if he doesn't let go.

And the winner is...

Chris!

If you would like to see the whole thing on video my DJ got some pretty good footage of the whole garter fight (but the fight not until the 8 min 50 sec mark). Check it out here!