Apple Picking With Our Married Friends

We decided to go on a fall adventure (October 13, 2012) with Sara and +Cory McConnell. Jackie and Sara had always wanted to go apple picking. So Cory and I decided to be good husbands and take them apple picking. 

It was an extremely fun adventure roaming the hills searching for fresh fruit. At first it was very hard to catch the apples with the long pole that was given to us. Cory decided it was easier to climb the tree, because most apples were near the trunk. Sara and Jackie started to scream and cover up when the apples began falling from the sky. It was quite a sight.

After we had picked all of the apples we could, we needed to relax and drink some wine! It was a great way to end a fantastic day. 

Vintage Ridge Vineyard had amazing views. It had a long gravel road (about 1 mile) that had amazing views of the surrounding hills and mountains. 

More pictures from Apple picking. 

Sara cheering on Jackie

It was a fun day and we had lots of apples. When we got home we made a bunch of apple sauce! 

Guest room headboard!

Checkout the headboard we made via Pinterest! It was a fun project that we build with only $80 worth of wood. The ideas and instruction can be found here: Ana White Homemaker Page. We did not add the "rustic" finish. Instead we simply stained it to match the other furniture. 

This project was completed February 2012. We are going through some old pictures and thought it would be a cool project to post. 

As seen in our house today! 

Owen Harshbarger

On October 5, 2012 (two days before our wedding) +Lydia Harshbarger, my sister, gave birth to a wonderful baby boy named Owen! I was able to visit Owen in the hospital the day he was born. It was so exciting to hold my first nephew. Such a great addition to our family!  

Aunt Jackie and I (Uncle Will) were able to go down a few days following our wedding to visit Owen, Lydia, and +James Harshbarger. Jackie and I had a great time holding Owen. I can't wait until he can run around and play! 

More Than 2 Months After...

We have had a busy few months following the wedding. However, we are both enjoying a much needed day off work thanks to a giant snow storm.

So now a quick recap (in pictures) of the days leading up to our wedding...

1.

+Jacqueline Wheeler and +Esther Walker went on a hunt for baby white pumpkins for the table center pieces. We went to several pumpkin patches within a 10 mile radius and could only get our hands on one baby white pumpkin. When we were just about to give up hope, we stopped at a stand on the side of the road that we had passed in the beginning of our adventure. Lo and behold, it had the biggest selection of baby white pumpkins! Problem solved!

2.

Seating guests at tables is much harder than anyone of us had initially thought. We had all of our sticky notes, color coded, moving them from paper to paper trying to find just the right spot. Just about all of the sticky notes lost their stickiness.We couldn't have done it without the help of +Joey Walker, Gary Bashaw, and +Esther Walker.

3.

Picking up flower center pieces. When going to get flowers for a wedding make sure you have at least 2 SUV's, plastic drop cloths, and a spray bottle full of water. We couldn't have been more happy with the way the flowers turned out! Mom's friends did an AMAZING job! I don't think we have ever driven through Clifton that slow before. We all held our breath hoping not to much water would spill out.

4.

Packing up every little thing that we had put together over the past year and a half. Wow! We don't think we have ever seen the basement bedroom so messy. It was very hard for Mom to deal with the clutter. :-) Ella even assisted with packing up the room...can you spot her in the picture?

5.

Jackie had a slight meltdown leading up to the wedding. The day before our wedding rehearsal Jackie was getting her nails done with her Mom. I called and told her some news that started with "are you sitting down". This is never a good way to start a phone conversation... I told her that we needed a new officiant, because our original officiant was not able to do the ceremony because of a health related issue (Warren is now doing fine and has fully recovered from an emergency surgery). After lots of phone calls, Esther and Bonnie, the wedding coordinator, were able to find a new officiant, Norm. Norm was a great officiant, even though he showed up in scrubs for the rehearsal (he did let us know that he would be coming from work). Everything worked out really well and we were so happy with the ceremony.

In the end, the wedding was wonderful and everything was perfect! Even the little bit of rain waited until we were done with our pictures before it started to fall. 

Thanks to all of our family and friends for their support and love. We will always remember October 7, 2012 as a special day! 

Please enjoy the wedding videos below. 

Videos by: +Grant Bell and +Jessica Schmitt 

Less Than 2 Weeks Away!!!

So it is crunch time! And yes I may seem calm to most but I am truly stressing.  I know I should relax but I have learned that planning a wedding is much more stressful then I imaged.  I can't believe we are only 13 days away from the big day.  It feels like just yesterday that we had 430 days to go.  I know I promised more house pictures but those are coming soon because Will and I just ordered our living room set.  Once that is here I will post pictures of the upstairs too...until then it's wedding, wedding, wedding.  This past month has been nothing but the small little details. Not to mention that we are now on our fourth wedding coordinator since our venue has yet made another change in their staffing.  However, this time I think we are set and things are starting to fall into place. 

It has been nothing but crafting for the past few weekends and here are a few photos to get you up to date on our Martha Stewart adventures.

At Deleplane Cellars counting corks for our place cards

Wedding Favors

Festive Lanterns for the outdoor tables

The mantel decorations that my Mom and I have been working on. The pumpkin will soon have a monogrammed 'W' on it

Will and Gary busy at work on our table seating.  Thank you pinterest for the idea of putting every ones name on a sticky note so they are easy to arrange over and over again! 

That's it for now.  We are currently in the stage where we are constantly sending emails to bridesmaids, vendors, guest, etc. so there isn't too much to post about that.  We are having a phone conference with our photographer this Thursday to go over details.

On another note-Thank goodness for my Mom!!! Today was her first official day of no work now that she is retired and she was busy shopping while I am at work.  She has been such a big help!

This Place We Call Home :)

The house is almost complete! Getting our floors done was a mess....we picked the worst contractor possible and it was a headache working with them but after all is said and done it finally came out the way we wanted.  We have been living here for over a month now and we are starting to settle in.  Pictures are finally going on the wall and I love going shopping for nick-nacks (when I am not shopping for wedding things).  So here are a few before and after pictures of the first two floors finally! The third floor pictures are coming soon, I just need to hang a few pictures in our guest bedroom tomorrow morning and then I will post the upstairs pictures. 

 



Before and After in the Basement

Its amazing how different furniture placement can change a space!

Before and After entry way with our new wood floors

One more take in the basement :)

Before and After in the living room...we still need a couch in this room so for now all you get to see is the fireplace.

Before and After dinning room. I love our dinning table, thanks Heather ;)

Our new kitchen with our new lighting and tile back splash

Before and After breakfast nook (ignore the white & symbol on the wall, I still need to paint it black)

The floors make such a big difference!

No more carpet on the entry way stairs!

So that is all the pictures for now. More to come soon.  

Besides working on the house, my Mom and I have been super busy wedding crafting and I have lots of pictures to post soon. 

I can't believe we are three weeks away from the wedding!  Tonight I was spending time with Will and my parents and I realized that even though I have been stressing myself out with all the details, planning the wedding has been an exciting time and my family has made a lot of fun memories together.  We have defiantly had some great laughs along the way and at the end of the day I am so grateful for my family and our love for each other!