Flying Time

Ugh...almost a week since my last post! Granted, I did two-for-one that day, but still. Even in Florida summer is winding down, kids are back in school. And it's been the busiest summer for me - way busier than I expected. Not much beach time and usually I would hate that, but I'm having fun doing what I'm doing...getting the house ready, making wedding plans...there will be plenty of time for kiteboarding and wakeboading and surfing once the wedding is over.

A couple of exciting things happened this week wedding wise. First I got my awesome painted wine glasses!

I really like how these turned out! But the picture's probably kinda junky and doesn't do them justice. I came across these wine glasses on Etsy.com and just loved them. But, in black, they are too formal. So I contacted the seller who bent over backwards to find samples of colors she could do for me. Since these are wedding favors for my family, I wanted them to be fun but special. I decided on a few mauve, a few pewter, and then mostly turquoise to match my beach theme.

Paula was so helpful and so communicative that I'd definately recommend her store (pauladesigns.etsy.com). She thought of everything, even including extra tissue paper (knowing that these were wedding favors) and a cute black and white damask key chain that's really well made! Unfortunately, a few of the glasses broke somewhere in transit, despite her best efforts and packing, but I'm sure that'll be resolved. I've currently got a few other things purchased on Etsy but none of the other sellers have been nearly as timely or as pleasant to work with.

I didn't even know about Etsy until I started this whole wedding process...well, I think that may not be true now I've written it. My mom is involved in a knitting group and I think I remember the site being mentioned as kind of like eBay for crafts. I don't know if it's like eBay, but what cool stuff you can find there and it's all handmade! So, to anyone trying to DIY weddings...I'd head to Etsy first and see what you can find before taking on the challenges yourself.

And, of course speaking of taking on challenges myself, my maid of honor, Erin, was in town working this week. Though she lives in Connecticut she's in the Air Force Reserve and is stationed here at Eglin AFB so I get to see her once or twice a year without even trying :) We got a lot of planning done...did I mention she's in public affairs? That means we sit down and hash things out and get a lot accomplished! We had both been so focused on the wedding I guess we thought a little reception fairy was going to come down and plan out the reception for us. I mean, I know what I wanted, and we have the site...but as for logistics...oops. But we got it kicked out and we both feel a lot better. I've got some great friends who are going to act as hostesses...entertaining and getting things started while we're in the church taking pictures. We want people to go ahead and start eating and drinking so that when we get there we can do the cake and toasts and then set people free to enjoy the beach while we finish up pictures before joining them ourselves. It's a simple plan but took a little bit of coordination before either Erin or I felt comfortable with it.

We weathered the first tropical storm of the season (Claudette) and it's left me with an awful headache for the last 4 days. So enough of staring at a computer screen for now!