Our Wedding Day...In Pictures

I have finally sat down and picked out a few (okay maybe more than a few) of my favorite wedding pictures. So without further ado.....

Getting laced up

Hard at work

The chapel

Arriving at the chapel (the rain stopped!)
Peeking into the sanctuary
About to walk down the aisle with my dad
The give away
Vows
My aunt and uncle singing the Lord's Prayer (they sang a duet before the ceremony as well, and also sang at my parent's wedding 25 years ago!)
Bubbles!
Relaxing after the ceremony
So happy!
The girls (look at that blue sky!)
The boys (my brother, of course, is not looking at the camera...making this picture perfect. He always does that!)
Cheers!
The Carolina Hotel
Arriving at the hotel
Wasting time before our introduction
First dance
Dancing with my dad
Somehow the flower girl got a hold of a bouquet
Our families (No...our mom's did not plan to wear the same color, and we did not plan to symbolize our union by sitting in front of each others family)
Dancing with my grandpa
Enjoying the rock concert
Our beautiful cake
Our rings

Last shot of the night

Such a wonderful day! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

All photos: Courtney Gray

Everything Happens for a Reason

Sorta Spoiler Alert....Four months later...

When Sex and the City: The Movie came out back in May I wanted to see it so bad it wasn't even funny. I was an avid watcher of the series; I started watching during Season 4, and acquired all the DVDs so I could catch up on the episodes I missed prior to having HBO. Love love love it. I still watch repeats and aspire to be as well dressed as Charlotte. Needless to say, I was hooting and hollering when I found out they were finally making the movie!

When the release date was first announced, the girls from my grad program made a date to see the movie together the weekend it came out...with dinner and cosmos before, of course. Unfortunately, we moved right before the movie was in theaters, so I wasn't able to attend the soiree. I was going to go with a couple girls from my book club, but I had some other obligation and couldn't make it. I also thought about dragging Alson to go see it, but ultimately felt bad about making him go when he had no interest whatsoever. I then planned on watching it with my mom while I was back in NY over the summer, and finally, on multiple occasions, thought about hitting up the movies by myself one day when Alson was at work. Alas, I didn't see it until the other night.

And it's funny how the universe works in mysterious ways.... I was really sad that I didn't get to see the movie when it first came out, but after watching it...I am so glad I waited to see it until after I was married. Especially since I would have likely seen it only a couple weeks (or days?!) before my wedding. Not that the movie would have changed my mind or made me think that Alson didn't want to marry me, but it just would have left me feeling uneasy and anxious on my wedding day.

Perhaps I am reading too far into it, and I really wouldn't have been concerned about some movie on the best day of my life....but it made me grateful that I didn't see it until this week. Just one of those "everything happens for a reason" moments.

Ohhh High Schools

Just a funny little excerpt from my day:

Today I had to test at a high school. I don't have my own office at this school so I set up shop wherever there is free space. Today they put me in a random office that no one was using at the moment. I assumed it was the speech pathologist's office; they usually have offices that are not being used. Sigh.

Anyway, I was busy getting all my materials ready and only briefly noticed the wall art. I did register that all these really cute monkeys with bananas were hanging on the wall, as well as sparkly letters and posters everywhere. The monkeys with bananas were things that a lot of elementary school teachers use to showcase who is in their class. Know what I mean?

After a while I tuned in more closely. This is when I realized I was in the probation officer's office. Yes, the high school apparently has a probation officer on staff.


I then decided to investigate the wall art more thoroughly. Written on the bananas were things like "pay court costs", "electronic monitoring", "CHARGES", "no re-offending", "obey all laws", "pay restitution", "complete community service", as well as plenty of other motivational and informative phrases and words related to being arrested. Lovely.


I can't speak from experience, but I don't think the kids on probation really want to see monkeys with bananas. It's a little age inappropriate!

TV and a Christmas Preview

The Biggest Loser is back! I love this show so much! I find it both heartwarming and motivating. It will coincide perfectly with the rest of our 10k training. Just what I need to help keep me working hard and preparing for the big race.

The only problem....the second half of the show is at the same time as Fringe, the new JJ Abrams series. As a dedicated LOST fan, I tuned in last week to see what the show was about.... and I'm hooked. It is SO captivating. If you like Sci-Fi I suggest you check it out.

For us non-DVR folk, we have no choice but to pick one show over the other. Although I love the Biggest Loser, we will definitely be switching over to Fox at 9pm.

Tangent....in the first hour of the Biggest Loser there was a preview for Four Christmases, starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaugn. OMG I can't wait to see it! It looks so cute. I am a sucker for any Christmas movie (two of my all time favorite movies are Elf and Love, Actually), as well as Christmas in general. I saw somewhere today it is only 100 days until Christmas. I am not sure if it is true, but I can't wait either way!

Busy Bee!

I can't believe I haven't posted in over a week!

In fact, I last posted when I was in NC for my internship meeting. After that trip, which also coincided with Hurricane Hanna, I was exhausted. My lovely husband had a glass of wine and three movies waiting for me when I arrived home last weekend, so those (thumbs up - Vantage Point and Entourage Season 3 Part 2, thumbs down - Fool's Gold), coupled with the arrival of our wedding picture proofs and college football (Go Pirates!), equal me being too busy to post last weekend.

Then, of course, I got wrapped up in the work week. Like I've said before, I am bouncing around between schools and working with students throughout the day, so I don't have the opportunity or time to do any posting during the work day. Once I get home, I have about two hours to decompress and relax before Alson gets home. This is when I catch up on my Google Reader and usually get a chance to post. This past week I was immersed in Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld and picked up the book as soon as I walked in the door, reading for an hour or two. Then we went running, ate dinner (or just ate if it wasn't a training day), and then settled in for some QT together before ultimately heading to bed. Rinse and repeat. Interestingly, I find comfort in the predictability.

As for the coming week.....my parents are coming to visit this weekend; it's my mom's 50th birthday on Saturday! I will probably spend my free moments cleaning our apartment, but I will definitely try to post more frequently than I have in recent weeks!

Worth the Wait

Our Wedding Webshow

I am too busy crying (tears of joy) and playing it over and over to comment.

This is just a snippet of our day, so once I get all the pictures I will post my favorites!

Domestic Bliss

Yesterday was one of those strangely perfect days. To some people our day would sound like a lot of work, but to me it was calming and comforting.

We spent the morning cleaning our bedroom, doing laundry, and organizing for fall. I really like a clean house, but don't do such a great job upkeeping said clean house. So when we do take the time to clean it, I always feel a lot better.

Also, I was a cooking machine. I wasn't planning on making three meals and a dessert, but for some reason I did. And I liked it. For breakfast I made French toast, for lunch I made Caribbean chicken fingers and Parmesan green beans (which was one of the Let's Dish meals I blogged about here), and for dinner I made NY strip steaks with Caprice salad (with the leftover mozzarella from the farmer's market) and sugar snap peas. Good thing Alson is a trooper, because all that cooking meant lots of clean up (his chore). I know he loved all the home cooked meals so he wasn't complaining.

I also baked an apple pie yesterday. It was, surprisingly, not that difficult to make. It required just a few ingredients:

The only laborious part (since I used pre-made pie crust) was peeling and cutting the apples. I made it a little easier by using an apple corer/slicer. Despite the work, seeing this appley cinnamony sugary mixture...made it all worthwhile:

The smell when the pie came out of the oven was out of this world:

The finished product:


Doesn't it look delicious? Totally worth the effort!

To offset all the eating, we went for a 2 mile run while the pie was baking. It felt great. I wasn't about to die at the end of the run, so it was definitely a success. Alson was having some pretty serious shin splints so today we decided to invest in some good running shoes. We went to Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan, and after fittings for both of us we were in business. I chose Brooks sneakers, which I had not heard of until Melanie and Heidi mentioned them on their blogs. They were the best fit for me feet (apparently I need arch support) and definitely felt better than the 4 year old pair I was wearing. I wore them home and around the city today, but I can't wait to really break them in tomorrow! We also found out that Alson's sister got engaged this weekend! I guess that means a trip to California (or maybe Hawaii?!) for her wedding. Yay!