Valentines Day in Deadwood

Hopefully everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day...we spent our weekend in Deadwood. A little gambling, dinning out and tubing on Deer Mountain. Enjoy a few pictures. As you can see we had fun!

Happy New Year!

About 8 days late...Happy New Year everyone!

We hope everyone had a fun night and managed to make their way home safe and sound. We decided to stick around in Brookings and went out with some friends. Brett & Meghan were back from Chicago, Ashley (Casey's wife) was up from Omaha, and other friends from Brookings met us at Skinners - downtown Brookings.

Here are a few pictures from the evening...enjoy

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. If we would have been on the ball, we would have had our engagement photos done a month ago and you all would have received Christmas cards in the mail...well that did not happen so a picture by the tree will have to work for now.

Our plans for Christmas consists of meeting up with most everyone in the immediate family. Christmas eve we will be spending with mom, Luke & Amy and Christmas day we will meet up with dad, grandma & grandpa Decker, Patty & Ken, and it sounds like Paulette & the kids are going to try and make it home. After the festivities we will head back to Brookings and then onto Wanda, MN to visit Randy's family on Friday. Saturday and Sunday we will be staying in the cities and heading to the Vikings game on Sunday. They need a win to keep their playoff hopes alive. Go Vikes!

I did contact the photographer to get our engagement session set up. Haven't hear back from her yet, but understandable as it is so close to Christmas. I will keep everyone update when we get a day scheduled.

Lately we have been thinking a little more about getting a dj booked. Art & Bridget have a friend we are looking into. He does weddings as a side job and I tentitively booked him this year for my "imaginary wedding." Who knew it would come sooner than later.

Since we are getting married in the Catholic church we also need to get signed up for marriage classes....Randy is on that, aren't you dear?

Catching Up…

I thought I should have the blog reflect some of the colors we have chosen for the wedding. I spent a good chunck of Sunday trying to get it just right...enjoy! Oh and I have added a new bridesmaid to the wedding party.

Nothing much new to report from B-town this week. I haven't seen my new island light yet. So, I will be emailing that guy today. I had to work at the bank Saturday morning and my dear Randy lost his mind and decided to go tailgating. From 9 am until about 4 he and some friends stood outside like popsicles to cheer on SDSU for their last home game. After a meal at Cubby’s and a few beers, I think he was feeling better. This week Randy is packing up to leave town. Tomorrow bright and early at 5am he heads out. Crazy enough he hasn’t been too upset about it. He does get to spend 4 days in California, so I guess I wouldn’t be complaining much about it either!

We, well I hit up downtown Brookings on Halloween night. I love Halloween!! From a young age, mom always wanted Luke and I to dress up in different “themes” with her. The Wizard of Oz is probably the one that I remember best. Mom was Dorothy, I was good witch Glenda, and Luke was Toto. So, I can blame my love of dressing up as someone else once a year on her! Thanks Mom!

As you can see I have updated our picture. Randy dressed up, but just to go over to a friend’s house for the evening. All of my Halloween excitement must have rubbed off on him! We had a blast and I am glad that Halloween was 2 weeks ago, as the weather was much nicer to walk home in than it would have been this last week.

That leads me to my next point. I am NOT ready for winter yet. We were spoiled for the last couple of weeks with the 60 and 70 degree weather and now every other day they are predicting snow. I don’t like it one bit. This weather does however reassure me that I am going to be happy that my wedding day won’t be freezing cold!

Have a good week everyone!

MIA Cell Phone

I had a great week…

Monday we had to get tires put on the Monte Carlo, a nice $150 bill.
Monday, I lost my cell phone.
Tuesday night I broke a light in the house.

So much for trying to save money for the wedding. I think this week we have spent more than we have made. We knew the tires on the Monte we getting a little rough. Randy was having to put air in the 2 back ones about once a week. Then it was about every 3 days, and then they needed to be filled everyday. Not wanting to go into winter with bad tires, we bit the bullet and had some new ones put on.

I have to give an unnecessary plug for Wal-Mart/Sam’s club tires though. A few years ago tires were my Christmas present. I needed some for my car, it was Christmas, it worked out. Mom picked them up at Sam’s. Sam’s has this road hazard program that basically says they will fix the tire for the life of it as long as it was driving related at any Wal-Mart or Sam’s location. Hole in it, screw/nail in it, etc. if they cannot fix it, they figure how much tread is left on the tire and give you credit towards a new one. Since we only needed to get 1 tire, the other was fixable, they gave us $50 credit towards the new tire. $50 is $50 people.

My cell phone…Agh.
While tires were begin put on the Monte, we went and had a nice romantic dinner at Arby’s. I called my mom, sent Art a picture message of Randy enjoying his Arby-Q, and then….
Your guess is as good as mine, when finishing that sentence. We went to Wal-Mart and picked up the car and I reached in my pocket for my phone when we were leaving, and it was gone. I figured I must have thrown it in my bag or something and would worry about it when I got home.

I checked everywhere. In the car, in the house, emptied my bag and called and called and called it. I called Arby’s to see if I had left it in the booth or on the table. They told me nope, nothing had been turned it. I called Wal-Mart and they told me the same thing.

I didn’t think I would be this upset over loosing my cell phone. I mean come on it is JUST A PHONE. But I am super pissed. I am mad that I have to get a different one, I lost my numbers, and I really liked my phone!!! I have never officially lost a cell phone. I ran over one with my car once, but I found it. I am afraid this one is officially gone. As I think about it more, I have to wonder if we possibly threw it away with our garbage at Arby’s. I though I was more responsible than that, but maybe not.

Speaking of being responsible…The broken island light.
I was on the couch the other night watching a little TV and looked over and saw my special-ed cat Steve just hanging out on the counter top. ABSOLUTELY NOT! Our cats are in no way allowed on the counter top and when they get up there, I pretty much freak out on them and chase them around the house. I knew he would see me before I could get a head start on him, so grabbed the first thing I could see and tossed it in his direction. Well, the island light got in the way, and broke all over the counter top.

This was the icing on the cake for the week and it was only Tuesday! I was able to find a light on e-bay and it should be here in a week or so. An easy fix, to something stupid I did.

Moral of this post…last week wasn't my week. This week has to be better!

Wedding Weekends

Wow! I have been pretty rotten keeping you all updated on wedding planning. No updates in almost a month. I think that is a blogging no, no.

I guess there really isn’t anything too exciting to report. Between Randy traveling and other weddings to go to our weekends have stayed busy heading into fall. Usually fall means things start to slow down and for sure wedding season is over.

Not exactly on our calendar. 2 weeks ago we had a wedding for some friends down in Sioux Falls, Ryan & Ashley. Randy missed it, as he was in San Diego for work. Yeah, don’t feel too bad for him! For October it was a beautiful day. Their colors were brown and cream and it was very fitting with fall in the air. The reception and dance followed and I think the best part of the evening, was the food. Instead of regular meat and potatoes…it was a taco bar! I loved it, different, unique, and it was really good. Sorry folks, don’t expect anything too unique and exciting for our meal!!

The dance was a blast and with open bar and my brother, mom, another friend Jane, and I bartending, well people were getting more than they paid for! By the end of the night, no one really needed another drink, so anyone reading this…sorry to say, you pretty much just got pop! Ha Ha, jokes on you!

Last weekend, another wedding. Again in Sioux Falls, and again the same colors. The church they were married in was gorgeous. It is pretty new on the west side of Sioux Falls. A lot of the design reminded me of St. Thomas Moore. Looking around at everything, I think I have decided that when it comes to church decorations, less is more. I like the idea of letting people enjoy the beauty of the church. Chances are you won’t be there again, so why not enjoy your time during the wedding, watching the wedding, not checking out the decorations.

The reception and dance were at the all occasions event center in Tea. Hy-Vee got it right with this place. You write them 1 check and they pretty much do everything else. Cater, decorate, serve, tear down and clean up. The dance was fun, but seemed to fizzle out quickly and most of the guests were gone by 10 or 10:30. HEADS UP PEOPLE…I want a fun dance! I want everyone dancing and having fun. If you don’t dance, please stay and hang out. Have a drink, talk to my family, Randy’s family, friends, the wait staff, bartender, I don’t care, just PLEASE DON’T LEAVE EARLY!!! This was one of the main reasons we wanted to have the reception and dance at a hotel. People will have no excuse for leaving early to drive home. Get a hotel and stay the night!!

I won!

So, remember when I told everyone that I registered and every website imaginable the day after we got engaged? One of the sites I registered on was gonnagetwed.com. The give away great stuff each month. Wedding dress, dream honeymoon, flower gift certificate etc.

So you can imagine my excitement when I received a call the other day about winning thru this website. I’m thinking yes a photographer, cash, what did I win?!?! Ready for it…a Mary Kay makeover. Yep seriously.

I tried to get out of it I really did. But when I told the lady I was busy during the week she said that she could check back with me on Monday to look at the following week. I felt if I didn’t just do this thing I would have a stalker for sure for the next few months.

So Wednesday is the big day. 7:00 – 8:30 I have 2 or 3 people coming over to be completely freaked out by a crazy energetic Mary Kay lady. I’m sure everyone is just as excited as I am.

Comments

Alright -
I think I have figured this out. Everyone and anyone that is wanting to leave a comment about any of my posts should now be able to. There was a setting by default that would only let registered users leave comments. Dumb! So I have updated that to anyone. Comment away. Let me know what you think!

Why can’t everything just work out as planned?

I understand that no matter what day you pick for your wedding, isn’t going to work for everyone else. What can you do? You pick, hold your breath and hope that it works for as many people as possible. Well, what do you do when the date you pick is a problem for ½ of the groom’s family? Do you keep your original date and hope for rain or do you suck it up and try to change it? We are looking at plan B.

After a Labor Day weekend wedding we caught complete hell over the wedding date we picked, as it falls right in the middle of harvest. Quite a few people made it a point to let us know that unless it rained, they wouldn’t be attending. Now besides the fact that you can walk up and tell someone that is beyond me, but as soon becoming part of this family the last thing I want to do it make it impossible for them to attend.

So bright and early this am I started calling. Started with the Days Inn to see how booked September was looking and if there was a chance that a day early in the month would open up. September 12 is looking available, and how about August. Last I checked it looked like all the weekends in August were going to fill up just as quick. Nope the 22nd and the 29th are free. Checked with the church soon after that and those dates are free there as well.

Now we are juggling around the end of August. I worry that if we shoot for the 12th of September everyone will be able to get in the field early next year and will be ready to go by that time. Then I will look back and wish I wouldn’t have switched the date at all. I have already gone thru this once, picking a date calling back and fourth to my mother and asking what I should do. Now I find myself going thru it all again. word to the wise…if someone tells you their wedding date, congratulate them and move on with your life. If you can make it great, if you cant, that sucks and I am sure they will miss you.

"When are you getting married??"

That's the first question anybody asks when they find out you're engaged. Well, after "how did he do it?" :)

The funny thing is that it's not like you have an answer. I mean, people started asking me this less than 24 hours after the engagement as if we would already have set a date. So at first, the answer was really vague--"next spring or maybe next fall."

Then when we had started looking at reception places and contacted churches. In Brookings there isn’t a whole lot to choose from. There is only one reception hall that allows alcohol to be served and that same place also attached to a hotel. We thought it would be nice for our guests to be able to have their rooms and the dance in the same place. No one has to drive and being a catholic wedding, you can just go to your room for the time in between the wedding and the reception. Once we knew where we wanted everything, we narrowed it down to a few dates, May 16th, August 1 or sometime in October. May 16th – graduations – one especially we couldn’t avoid Big Case would be in Chicago. August 1 – HOT!! So October it is.

Now, we are about 99.9% sure it is October 3, 2009. We will hopefully be signing a contract with our reception venue Friday October 3, 2008, as you can only officially book the place a year in advance and the church already has us down.

And then the countdown officially begins.