Most people go some place cool for spring break...Colorado, Florida, California, Mexico....well, not me! For the past 7 years I have left Colorado (one of the most popular spring break destination might I remind you) and made the trip back to Iowa over Spring Break. This year was no different! Scott, my Mom and I packed our cars full and headed East on I-80. Here's a recap of our vacation in the 515:
Tuesday, March 23
Scott, my Mom, Cooper (my Mom's dog) and I were our cars and on the highway by 6:00 am! We made a stop at Starbucks for a little coffee and breakfast before we headed out of town...thanks goodness for Starbucks opening at 5:00 in the morning! Tuesday's drive was relatively uneventful. We made our regular stops along I-80...North Platte, Karney and Lincoln...for gas and food. The nice thing about traveling in the middle of the week is no traffic. The sun was out, which also made for a nice drive across Nebraska. Scott and I rolled in to Des Moines around 6:00 that evening. We unloaded our bags at John and Vicki's in Clive and headed out to dinner with them. We went to Biaggis for dinner, so that Scott could get his Chicken Parmesan meal for the week! :-) We had a wonderful time at dinner getting all caught up with John and Vicki! But after a long day in the car, Scott and I were exhausted! We went to be early and slept great!!!!
Wednesday, March 24
Wednesday was our only day to sleep in while on our trip...so we took advantage of it. We slept in until 9:00 and took our time getting ready. We went to Boone to meet my cousin Danielle, her kids Hunter and Kate, my Grandma and my Mom for lunch at the Dutch Oven Bakery. It was good to be "home." After lunch Scott and I headed to Ames where we met up with my Dad. We were able to spend that afternoon with my Dad. We had dinner at Hickory Park....yum...with him before we headed back down to Des Moines.
Wednesday night Scott and I stayed at Scott's Mom's house. That night we spent our time in the basement looking through hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures and albums! Scott wanted to go through old picture albums so that we could pull some pictures of him as a little kid for the slide show we are putting together for the wedding. Well....I think we got more then we were expecting! :-) It was fun going through all the old pictures! I really enjoyed seeing pictures of Scott as a baby and little kid. He's cute now, but I think he might have been a little cuter when he was little! ;-) By midnight we managed to get through a good portion of the albums so we decided to call it a night and come back to it on Friday!
Thursday, March 25
Thursday morning we enjoyed a nice family breakfast with Jane, Dan, Scott, Stephanie and myself. Jane made eggs, cheese sausages, cinnamon rolls, fruit and coffee for us! It was wonderful! I really enjoyed our breakfast and look forward to having many more of them with the family! Thursday afternoon, while Scott went to his dentist appointment, I went shopping with Danielle, Kate, my Aunt Clare and my Mom. Went went to Davids Bridal in West Des Moines so that Kate could try on flower girl dresses. We finally picked on and got it ordered! She is going to be soooo cute, I can't wait! :-) Afterwards we went to Valley West Mall to find shoes and make-up. Danielle helped me pick out make-up for the wedding! What a great girl's shopping day!
That evening Scott and I headed downtown to meet some of Scott's co-workers from ING Des Moines and some of our friends for happy hour. Scott's friend, and groomsmen, Chris drove from Colorado to Iowa on Thursday so that he could attend Scott's bachelor party (what a friend!) so he was there and able to meet some people as well. Our rather large group went out to dinner and then to another bar for a few more drinks before we ended the night. I know Scott had a great time seeing all of his old friends! I'm glad they were all able to come out and join us!
Friday, March 26
After my dentist appointment at 8:00 am Scott and I went to my friend Erin's cafe for coffee and cheesecake. If you are in the Des Moines area you need to stop by Flarah's (2815 Beaver Ave) for lunch and try her cheesecake...tell her Heather sent you! :-) After our mid-morning snack, Scott took me to Hy-Vee in West Des Moines for lunch. He has been raving about Hy-Vee Chinese food ever since he moved out here, so he was so happy to finally be able to take me there for lunch. I have to admit that it was really good! Nice job babe! After lunch we went back to Jane's house to go through more pictures. This time Stephanie was able to join us! We made our way through the other half of the stack before we had to leave to head to Boone. I can't wait for everyone at the wedding to see how cute Scott was when he was a kiddo!!!! :-)
Friday night we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate my Grandma's birthday. We had Godfather's pizza and cake. It was a great night! I miss having birthday celebrations with the family, so I really enjoyed myself that night. Scott definatly fits in well with the family, which is nice to know! :-) Kate seems to like Scott...in fact, I think Scott is Kate's best friend! She had to be sitting right between us and wouldn't leave Scott alone! They are too cute together!!!
After dinner Scott and I headed back to Des Moines to watch the UNI basketball game at a friends house.
Saturday, March 27
Saturday was a big day for both Scott and I. Scott went golfing that morning with John, Chris and Matt. It was his 2nd time golfing, and from what I hear he doesn't suck too bad! My day was wonderful! My Aunt Clare and Danielle threw me a wedding shower that afternoon in Boone. It was sooooo wonderful! The room looked beautiful, so many of my friends and family came (some who I hadn't seen in years) and the food was amazing! My Aunt and cousin did such a wonderful job and it really made me feel special! After the shower was over Scott stopped in to say hi to everyone. He was also impressed with everything and I know it made him feel just as special to know that there are so many people who care so much about us!
After my shower, I made the rounds and said my good-byes to everyone. Then my Dad and I went to dinner. I really enjoyed the father-daughter time I had with him that night. It was a nice way to spend my last night in town.
Saturday night was also Scott's bachelor party! I can't give you too many details because, well, Scott doesn't remember too many details! :-P The boys started out the evening with dinner at Granit City. After dinner they went downtown and bar hopped the rest of the night. It sounds like everyone had a great time and Scott really enjoyed the night! He kept telling me how awesome his friends are....so I'm guessing that means that they took care of him and treated him well that night! No one ended up in jail, with a tiger in their hotel room or a baby in their closet (see the movie the Hangover for these references), so I guess I can't complain too much about it!
Sunday, March 28
Scott's bachelor party ran into the early hours of Sunday. Poor guy only got an hour of sleep before I had to wake him up so we could leave. We, once again, left at 6:00 am and headed West. I drove while Scott sat in the seat next to me hating life! :-) I tried to make him as comfortable as I could, but I really didn't feel that bad for him....! The drive home was uneventful as well. Scott and I got home around 5:30 that evening and crashed!
We had a great time on our trip. It was so nice seeing all of our family and friends! We love living in Colorado, however, we wish Iowa was just a little bit closer!
Since we've been back, we've been busy getting ready for Scott's dad to come to visit tomorrow. We've put things away that we got for the shower and have cleaned the apartment for our guest. We are both looking forward to having Steve in town. Scott is especially excited since this is the first time Steve has come to visit since Scott moved here. They have a full weekend planned that includes a lot of airplanes and airports! I'm sure I will tag along, however, I have long list of things that need to get done this weekend too....thank-you notes, sleep, relaxing and getting caught up on Gossip Girl!
That is all for now! I hope everyone is doing well! I'll write soon...
Love,
Heather
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Pictures From Our Trip To Iowa
Since I don't have a lot of time to write all about our trip back to Iowa last week, I thought I would post a few pictures of our time back in the Midwest. I promise, in the next day or so I will take time to sit down and tell you all about our the wonderful time we had back home! Till then...here's our week through pictures. ENJOY!
Hickory Park in Ames...Yummy!
Scott and I eating at Hickory Park in Ames
Scott, his mom Jane and sister Stephanie
Scott and I at his Mom's house
Scott with his Mom, Sister and Step-Sister Hillary at my wedding shower
Scott and I at my wedding shower...he didn't attend, just stopped by to say hi to everyone
My cousin Danielle (my Maid-of-Honor), me, my Mom, Aunt Clare (who hosted my shower) and Danielle's daughter Kate (our Flower Girl) at my wedding shower
Opening gifts at my wedding shower
Well, there you go! Just a few pictures of our great week! Like I said, I will write all about it in the next day or so! I hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Love,
Heather
Hickory Park in Ames...Yummy!
Scott and I eating at Hickory Park in Ames
Scott, his mom Jane and sister Stephanie
Scott and I at his Mom's house
Scott with his Mom, Sister and Step-Sister Hillary at my wedding shower
Scott and I at my wedding shower...he didn't attend, just stopped by to say hi to everyone
My cousin Danielle (my Maid-of-Honor), me, my Mom, Aunt Clare (who hosted my shower) and Danielle's daughter Kate (our Flower Girl) at my wedding shower
Opening gifts at my wedding showerWell, there you go! Just a few pictures of our great week! Like I said, I will write all about it in the next day or so! I hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Love,
Heather
Friday, March 12, 2010
Who decided that the days should only be 24 hours long???
Time has flown by and once again I failed to write last week like I had promised. It is my life goal now to someday live a normal-boring life because right now, my life is INSANE!!!! I thought that once I was done with grad school my life would calm down and I would have time to relax. Boy, was I wrong! I honestly think I'm more busy now then I was when I was in school, seriously! Maybe I just have more time on my hands and I'm able to fill it up quickly? I don't know. Whatever it is, it really needs to stop!!! I wish I could say that I see the end in the future, however, I'm really not sure if this busy period of my life will ever end. I'm sure I will find something else to keep me busy after the wedding is over. BUT someday, I promise you, this blog is going to be so boring (because my life has slowed down and I have nothing to write about) that you will stop reading it. Believe me? Yeah, I don't either!!! ;-)
I'm really not sure where March has gone, I can't believe it's already the middle of the month! Our wedding countdown is at 79 days!!! YIKES!!! We are busy busy busy trying to get everything ready for our big day! On the First day of March Scott, my Mom, my Aunt Clare and I went to Estes Park to do our final wedding walk through at Della Terra. We now know: how many tables there are going to be, where they will be located, what our bartender will be serving, the schedule for our whole wedding day, what color of table linens we will have (probably one of the hardest decisions I have had to make for our wedding...no joke), when we will be doing our first day, where the cake will be displayed, how the cake will be cut and served, where the food will be located, what time we need to get there on Sunday, what time pictures will be and finally what color of napkins we will be using. I think I made more decisions on that Monday then I have this whole time we've been engaged! It was a long day, but we got so much done that now I'm finally not stressing about the day of the wedding...it's just everything else that is still stressing me out! :-)
Another big task we've crossed off our list is the invitations! Who knew DIY (do it yourself) invitations would cause so much stress! (Please stop laughing at me, I honestly thought this was going to be easy and in theory it should have been!) Picking them out and buying them was the easy part!!! We had planned on printing them with our own printer, HA! We were wrong! For whatever reason our printer just didn't like the paper so we were unable to print them at home. We thought that the next best thing would be to take them to Kinkos and have them print them. It wasn't going to cost us much and it sounded like a good idea on Tuesday. Wellll.....Kinkos didn't like our paper either. For whatever reason their printed decided not to print our invitations either. After I got the call yesterday, saying that "You're paper killed our printer" (yeah, friendly people they have working at our local Kinkos) I didn't know if I should cry or laugh...so I just sat silently at my desk until I thought of a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to take them one last place to see if we could get them printed somewhere else. Plan B was to take them back to Iowa with us in a week and print them at my Aunt's work...this plan would put us about 2 weeks behind of when we wanted to send them out. Not bad, but still if you know me you know how I like my plans to all work out! So after work last night Scott and I went to Kinkos, picked up our blank invitations and headed to Staples. After taking the wrong exit (my fault) we found no Staples store in sight, but we did see an Office Max! Let's just say, Office Max will get my business from now on. The guy at the printing counter was great and got our invitations and RSVP cards printed in 10 minutes and it ended up costing us less then what Kinkos had quoted us!!!! Now, I wish I could say our invitations are ready to be put in the mail, but they're not! We still need to tie the ribbons on them, put them in the envelopes, put the RSVP cards in the envelopes, lick and stick the envelopes and put stamps on them! But that's the fun part! Sunday I am having a Invitation DIY party at my house. A couple of my girl friends are coming over to help. :-) We are hoping to have them in the mail by next Wednesday!!!
So besides all of our fun wedding stuff, Scott, my Mom and I are getting ready to head back to Iowa in a week. We'll be home March 23 - 28! We are so excited to go back and see our family and friends. It's been a full year since we've been back so it's time for a visit. As always our trip is already packed full of plans and we haven't even begun driving east! We are planning on spending time with Scott's Mom, Step-Dad and Sister, my Mom's family and my Dad and his family, John and Vicki and as many of our friends as time will allow! My Aunt and Cousin are hosting a wedding shower for me while we are home and Scott's partaking in his bachelor party Saturday night. We will barely have time to sleep while we're back, but since we have a limited time with our loved ones we want to spend every minute with them that we can get. It's going to be a lot of fun! When we get back from Iowa Scott's Dad is coming to visit the first weekend in April. After that weekend we have one awards event to go to for the AIA and that's it until the wedding!!!! I am going to make it a priority to relax and slow down in the month of April. It's going to be hard, but I think it will be much needed!!! Wish me luck with that! :-)
Well, that's what's been happening in our lives. Besides being way too busy, Scott and I are doing great! I think we are finally over being sick! The weather is starting to warm up so we have been spending time outside trying to enjoy it! I'm still job hunting and hope I will be able to give you all an update soon! Scott had his annual review at work this week and got excellent scores! I am so proud of him! I hope you all are doing well! We miss you and hope to see some of you while we are back in Iowa!!!
Love,
Heather
I'm really not sure where March has gone, I can't believe it's already the middle of the month! Our wedding countdown is at 79 days!!! YIKES!!! We are busy busy busy trying to get everything ready for our big day! On the First day of March Scott, my Mom, my Aunt Clare and I went to Estes Park to do our final wedding walk through at Della Terra. We now know: how many tables there are going to be, where they will be located, what our bartender will be serving, the schedule for our whole wedding day, what color of table linens we will have (probably one of the hardest decisions I have had to make for our wedding...no joke), when we will be doing our first day, where the cake will be displayed, how the cake will be cut and served, where the food will be located, what time we need to get there on Sunday, what time pictures will be and finally what color of napkins we will be using. I think I made more decisions on that Monday then I have this whole time we've been engaged! It was a long day, but we got so much done that now I'm finally not stressing about the day of the wedding...it's just everything else that is still stressing me out! :-)
Another big task we've crossed off our list is the invitations! Who knew DIY (do it yourself) invitations would cause so much stress! (Please stop laughing at me, I honestly thought this was going to be easy and in theory it should have been!) Picking them out and buying them was the easy part!!! We had planned on printing them with our own printer, HA! We were wrong! For whatever reason our printer just didn't like the paper so we were unable to print them at home. We thought that the next best thing would be to take them to Kinkos and have them print them. It wasn't going to cost us much and it sounded like a good idea on Tuesday. Wellll.....Kinkos didn't like our paper either. For whatever reason their printed decided not to print our invitations either. After I got the call yesterday, saying that "You're paper killed our printer" (yeah, friendly people they have working at our local Kinkos) I didn't know if I should cry or laugh...so I just sat silently at my desk until I thought of a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to take them one last place to see if we could get them printed somewhere else. Plan B was to take them back to Iowa with us in a week and print them at my Aunt's work...this plan would put us about 2 weeks behind of when we wanted to send them out. Not bad, but still if you know me you know how I like my plans to all work out! So after work last night Scott and I went to Kinkos, picked up our blank invitations and headed to Staples. After taking the wrong exit (my fault) we found no Staples store in sight, but we did see an Office Max! Let's just say, Office Max will get my business from now on. The guy at the printing counter was great and got our invitations and RSVP cards printed in 10 minutes and it ended up costing us less then what Kinkos had quoted us!!!! Now, I wish I could say our invitations are ready to be put in the mail, but they're not! We still need to tie the ribbons on them, put them in the envelopes, put the RSVP cards in the envelopes, lick and stick the envelopes and put stamps on them! But that's the fun part! Sunday I am having a Invitation DIY party at my house. A couple of my girl friends are coming over to help. :-) We are hoping to have them in the mail by next Wednesday!!!
So besides all of our fun wedding stuff, Scott, my Mom and I are getting ready to head back to Iowa in a week. We'll be home March 23 - 28! We are so excited to go back and see our family and friends. It's been a full year since we've been back so it's time for a visit. As always our trip is already packed full of plans and we haven't even begun driving east! We are planning on spending time with Scott's Mom, Step-Dad and Sister, my Mom's family and my Dad and his family, John and Vicki and as many of our friends as time will allow! My Aunt and Cousin are hosting a wedding shower for me while we are home and Scott's partaking in his bachelor party Saturday night. We will barely have time to sleep while we're back, but since we have a limited time with our loved ones we want to spend every minute with them that we can get. It's going to be a lot of fun! When we get back from Iowa Scott's Dad is coming to visit the first weekend in April. After that weekend we have one awards event to go to for the AIA and that's it until the wedding!!!! I am going to make it a priority to relax and slow down in the month of April. It's going to be hard, but I think it will be much needed!!! Wish me luck with that! :-)
Well, that's what's been happening in our lives. Besides being way too busy, Scott and I are doing great! I think we are finally over being sick! The weather is starting to warm up so we have been spending time outside trying to enjoy it! I'm still job hunting and hope I will be able to give you all an update soon! Scott had his annual review at work this week and got excellent scores! I am so proud of him! I hope you all are doing well! We miss you and hope to see some of you while we are back in Iowa!!!
Love,
Heather
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