Music City Recap

Touring Nashville this weekend was tons of fun. Although we visited nearly every apartment complex in Bellevue (the suburb 8 miles south of Vandy where we’ll actually be living), it didn’t take as long as we expected and the weekend turned into more of a mini-vacation. Aside from my mandatory weekly Panera bagel and Mike’s request for P.F. Chang’s (which they have ON campus!) we ate at lots of local places and discovered that the famous Pancake Pantry really might be worth the mile long line and BBQ does exist outside of Sonny’s. I was also pleasantly surprised by the discovery of Moes and “some new store called Publix”. I tried to take pictures everywhere we went so that you can all get a sneak peek of our weekend and what you’ll see when (yes, when) you come visit.

We walked around campus two afternoons and were amazed that people actually go to school in these very old and very beautiful buildings. There are lots of big lawns in between them with the prettiest trees full of white flowers. Tulips are also EVERYWHERE in Nashville. As some of you know, this is my favorite flower so seeing these all over the place was very exciting to me. I couldn’t take too many pics because people were going to class and might have thought it was a little creepy, but here are a few I managed to capture!

A picture of the white flowered trees that are everywhere:

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to accept this as a football stadium:

And finally, my section of campus:Up next: Music row and sightseeing

Destination: Nashville

As most of you know by now, I have officially accepted the offer to attend Vanderbilt for graduate school! Despite desperately wanting to go to Texas because of my family, it turned out it wasn't the best program for my interests so, come August, Mike and I will be relocating to Nashville, Tennessee. I'll be working on a Master's degree (possibly Doctorate in the future) in Medical Physics. When interviewing, I fell in love with the faculty and gorgeous campus and I am definitely excited to start school there. This afternoon Mike and I are headed up there to check out "Music City" and try to find a place to live. Our days will be spent apartment hunting and touring campus but we hope to indulge in some good food and country music at night. I'm also crossing my fingers that we'll run into Kenny Chesney. (A girl can dream right?) I'll be sure to take tons of pictures this weekend and hope to have lots to share when we return late Sunday night. Now let's just hope my suitcase fits in our sub-compact rental car...

Be Our Guest!

Forget tan-lines and daiquiris, this year my spring break had an entirely different feel...
According to etiquette, wedding invitations are to be mailed 2 months prior to the wedding date and fate would have it that March 16th marks the end of my spring break. I really shouldn't be complaining as without this week to cut, tape, address, and seal, we would have been saying our vows to an empty church.
As with many details of our big day, I decided to be a Do-It-Yourself Bride and design and create the invitations on my own. {Advice to future brides: do not take this route unless you have endless patience and no future need for the use of your fingers} I researched the seemingly infinite invite possibilities before falling in love with pocketfolds. This fixation required some interesting layouts, complex measuring and far too many hours harassing the nice copy boys at Kinkos. Leading up to the assembly, I cut out nearly 500 inserts (yes, this number would have been 400 had I not discovered too late the wrong phone number on one of the cards) and created 200 seals and vellum pieces. My office looked like this at the start of the week:
After 4 days of assembly and 11 rolls of double-sided tape, I am officially done with the whole process. Seeing these addressed, stamped, and ready to go is a huge relief:I took the box of completed invites to the post office on my way to work this morning and gratefully handed them over.
I'm so excited that we will officially have guests now! I cannot wait for everyone to see the finished products and can't bear to spoil the surprise by posting any details on here. I hope you all love them and cherish them (okay, I know you won't go that far) as much as I do. One final remark: no tearing is necessary to open these invites! Simply slide them open and if you do tear them, please don't tell me! Oh, and bridesmaids, be thankful none of you live any closer. :)

Monster Trucks

Last Friday night I decided to bust out the cowboy boots for a little redneck action in Ocala. I'll admit when Mike mentioned the "Thunder Slam" monster truck rally I was a little skeptical; however, my reluctance was easily swayed by the promise of funnel cakes. I mean, really, who can resist that?

The night kicked off with 3 BMX guys jumping dirt bikes over crazy distances and doing tricks in the air. Despite my terror, this was my favorite part. They also had 4 MONSTER (no really!) trucks that drove over cars like they were nothing. Pretty entertaining. Definitely pay attention to the flattened cars in the pictures! If people cheer loud enough the trucks do do-nuts at high speeds which is really quite funny. Another bit of fun from the night was counting the number of belts proclaiming the wearers favorite automobile maker.

All in all, if you don't mind a little 'twang' and a whole lot of dust then you should definitely check it out!

Beginning.

I’m officially taking the plunge and starting a blog of my very own. It’s an idea I’ve toyed with for awhile now due to my obsession with reading them and my ever-full GoogleReader. It probably would have been wise to start with the onset of wedding planning but, better late than never, right? With two months to go till the big day I obviously have tons of extra time for things like this… ;)

Nevertheless, as my friends and family get more and more spread out I figured it’d be my little way of keeping you all updated on the happenings in my life. So, read, comment, and don’t forget to keep me informed about yourselves! Going back to the beginning, a few of my favorite engagement pictures by our brilliant photographer, Dale Harness….