Beach House

Our biggest decision lately has been beach house or no beach house?  And if we do a beach house, which beach house should we book?  I originally wanted to have a bonfire on the beach for our "rehearsal" dinner.  Brian mentioned that he thought it would be nice to have a beach house down on Balboa for the rehearsal dinner as well as a place for some of his friends to stay and a place for his groomsmen to hang out on Saturday.  I loved the idea and immediately went to town looking for places available Labor Day weekend.  The sky's the limit as far as options, just depends how much you want to pay and a lot of places will not rent to you for less than a week.  So these are the ones that we narrowed it down to.

I like this one.  It sleeps a lot of people.  It's a townhome so it's only half of this building and doesn't have the boardwalk in front of it but it would be a little bit quieter location.

This is the front runner right now.  The price is good or at least we think. We keep getting mixed information from the girl were talking to about booking it, so we'll see!

This one doesn't sleep very many people and the owner lives upstairs.  Not ideal.

This was my favorite but when we went to book it, it was already rented. Big bummer!  It was adorable inside and perfect location.

This is my new favorite.  It's a half block off the beach but it's gorgeous inside and brand new.  Doesn't even currently have furniture.

Hiatus

I'm wedding planning hiatus for the short term while were winding down to Whit's wedding.  She's got 45 days left and I'm beginning my job as resident counselor to talk her down off the cliff and keep her sane. haha  Wedding showers have begun and last weekend was like the whirlwind tour of showers.  My mom was here all weekend, working like a dog might I add.  I think she went back home just so she could rest because she didn't get any of that here. haha  I didn't want to post a lot of pictures because I know Whit would like to on her blog, but here a couple of my favorites! :-)

Uncle Kirk heard Whit was having a shower so he got her a shower cap.....fitting! haha Looks more like a chef's hat!

I had a little mishap with my new shoes.  I stepped back and both my feet sank.  I looked down to find my heels caught in the register and I couldn't get them out.  I had to pry them out of there and unfortunately scuffed up my new heels....tear! haha

My aunts threw a lovely shower.  We spent the whole weekend going from one eating engagement to the next.  Needless to say I gained like 5 pounds! haha

Kait will hate me for this picture but I couldn't resist.  She has the fly away alfalfa look going on just sticking out to the side and not on top of her head. haha

Gotta love the candid shot where I didn't get Whit looking at Kait is staring off into space.  My favorite quote of the day from Kait is when she helped Whit open the "simple human" box you see to the right and as she was pulling it out Kait says, "oh it's a chocolate fountain"  Nope it's actually a trash can.  Nice try! haha

Disneyland/Hollywood

It was a nice break to have a little warm weather, retail therapy, and some good food.  Tami and I went home for a week.  I was going to work on wedding stuff but it was more fun to just relax and take a break from wedding planning for a week. :-)

Our typical spot to see the Hollywood sign.  You can't really see it but I'm telling you it's behind our heads! haha

Tami and I took advantage of Phil and Kate's two day Disney pass and walked our legs off all day.

It started out a little rough.  Everybody and their brother were at Disney that day and the rides we went on at first were pretty lame.

the teacups were a highlight however the ride was about 30 seconds long and they didn't spin nearly as fast as we thought they would. :-)

Our expressions were a little exaggerated since the ride was a little bit of a letdown.

We left Disney and went to California Adventure and stood in line for about an hour to go on California Screamin'.  The day started looking up.  This picture doesn't prove that we had fun on this ride, but I promise we did! haha

We wanted to go on It's a Small World.  We had remembered it from being kids as being one of our favorite rides.  It's actually really lame and not nearly as neat when were 30. haha

Tami was totally enthralled with Small World.  Can't you tell? haha

Best ride of the day at Disney.......Indiana Jones!  We thought it was going to disappoint like the rest of the rides we had waited patiently in line for but we were in for a wild ride!

If this gives any indication! haha

We were literally hanging on for dear life! haha

One last picture of Disney Main Street.  We were tired, broke, feet were bruised and then to top it all off we couldn't figure out where we had parked! haha

Bridesmaid Dresses are Ordered!

So when I found Lula Kate as the Designer I wanted for the bridesmaids dresses, the only place that carried that line was Bella Bridesmaid.  The closest one to us was downtown Chicago.  So we've been making trip after trip after trip to Chicago to get all my bridesmaids fitted.  With 11 bridesmaids, you can about imagine how tough it is to get everyone's schedules and factor in babysitters for the kids, etc.  So last Saturday was the last fitting so I was able to place the order today.  Thrilling I tell you, thrilling!  It's so nice to just have one more thing out of the way.  I let each girl pick the style and skirt that they wanted.  Lula Kate allows you to mix and match the tops and bottoms and then they custom make into dresses so that way each girl could get exactly what they liked best as far as style and fit. So here are the dresses that were chosen.  Beware, the model in these photos does not do them justice.  They look cuter in person and on.

Bella Bridesmaid is in this cute old buildin on the top floor.  They have just a little boutique so it can get a bit crowded with multiple fittings going on but the girls there are great to work with.  All young and fun and very accommodating!

All the dresses will be green with a hot pink sash but these are the styles.  This is Holly's.

Tami

Whitney and Marissa

Rebekah

Nichole and Kaitlin

Denise

Ashley

Heidi

Amy

Off to Cali

Tomorrow is the day!  I'm going home!  Woo hoo!  One whole week out of the 30 degree weather.  And who did I convince to go with me to work all week in California?  Who else?  Tami!  She's always up for my last minute trips and ideas.  Somehow I convinced her that working at my dad's office for a week would be so much fun and she should come along! haha  So while were there I'm hoping to get in some of the following:

Working unfortunately, but I can't take days off because I have to save them for the wedding.

We probably won't be on the beach but I hope to get some sun time in while were there.

We always have to hit up my favorite boutique stores while I'm home.

I want to work out but I doubt we'll see Brittany Spears at the gym! haha

Yogurtland is a definite must!  Were obsessed with this soft serve yogurt.  Brian and I joke half seriously about opening one in Bloomington someday.

House Hunting Review

So we went to see all these houses Friday night.  While we liked some of them, none of them have everything were looking for.  What are we looking for exactly?  Well were not sure. I guess I keep thinking we'll know it when we see it.  Unfortunately all the houses were the exact same layout.  I didn't care for that because I wanted to see some variety.  It was like take this house, swap out a cabinet, add a different fireplace, different tile job in the master and voila you have a new house. haha  So here's the review on the ones we went to see.

• Liked the hardwood floor in the dining room
• Liked the master and the closet being off the master bathroom
• Had weird tan colored windows that almost looked mauve at night
• Liked that we backed up to Ashley and Andy, although they may not be thrilled that we could borrow sugar A LOT! haha
• The basement was not laid out well for finishing off which is a huge bone of contention for me

All the way around we didn't like this one.  I couldn't write fast enough all the stuff we didn't like so I just wrote DON'T LIKE at the top of my paper

• The layout was a smidge different than all the rest
• Dining room and family all open to each other with all hardwood floors that we liked
• Had a "mudroom" off garage with bench and cubbies to store shoes, coats, scarves, etc
• Different island in the kitchen that we liked
• Liked the lighting and the cabinets
• Three car garage
• Huge master closet
• The location wasn't ideal.  Backs up to a bunch of apartments and the street running along side the house is very busy

• I thought this one was going to be my favorite from the pictures I saw and I thought it had nice curb appeal.  We didn't care for it when we walked in.
• The kitchen didn't have granite like we had seen in the others
• It was in the very back of the subdivision and there was no good way to get in or get out
• It had teeny tiny bedrooms upstairs. 

• This is the only one we looked at that was not new construction
• They had it staged very nice but the layout of each room was very odd
• The colors were awful.  Felt like I had stepped into the house from the movie Fools Rush In.  Not a big fan of a coral/orange dining room
• The basement was finished which was a nice bonus but there was no storage whatsoever
• Only two car garage

• This was probably our favorite of all of them. 
• It has a monster pantry closet that would be enough to sell me on the house! haha
• Nice kitchen with granite
• Nice master with big closet
• Mudroom with bench and cubbies off the garage
• Three car garage
• So definitely in the running but we didn't necessarily love it

• Don't like the front
• We like the layout
• Family room was a little small
• Loved that the basement in finished
• Master bedroom is pretty tiny
• Does have a three car garage
• Backs up to busy road
• Not a huge fan of the kitchen layout.  No island to be able to work on.

Back to the drawing board.  We go look at more this weekend.  We'll see if we come any closer to finding one we like. :-)