The Wedding: The day before

Saturday morning I was supposed to go to the gym again with Matt but I was just way too tired to leave at 7am. Matt came back from the gym and got me up and left to go pick up our friend Sedge. Once Sedge got here we packed up and got into the car. Matt has a Garmin and we were on our way! We accidentally got on the turnpike but I think it ended up for the better. It was a fun trip up. We listened to good music, laughed and it definitely didn't feel like a two hour drive. We left at about 9:30 and got there just before 11:30.

We met Adam and Nicole at the wedding location, Stroudsmoor Country Inn, before we headed out for lunch. The Stroudsmoor Country Inn is beautiful and was rated number 3 for wedding locations in Pennsylvania. Definitely very pretty! Matt parked and Nicole was already walking up the hill so of course I jumped out of it to run and hug her. Not sure if the car was even stopped...oh well! After seeing Nicole we walked down to see Phil and Adam. It was awesome! Just like old times. Hannah and her mom were also there and it was great getting to know them better.

Nicole had arranged us for to eat at a Thai Restaurant. It was bit pricier then I expected but it was very good. It was just us though...no one else in the restaurant. They did mess up splitting the checks so I owe Matt for lunch

Phil and Adam

Sedge and Matt

Nicole, Hannah, Hannah's Mom Tammy

Me

Tammy, Phil, Adam

After lunch we drove back to the hotel and looked at the wedding spot

Hannah and Nicole

After that it was time for Nails. While we were getting our nails done the boys played football/catch

Phil

Sedge and Adam

Sedge, Matt, Adam, Hannah, Phil

Where we got our Nails and Hair done

Nicole and Hannah

Then we checked out the Bridal Suite where we would hang out a lot. Quite large, Quite nice though I do not agree with the placement of the bathroom. There was a step going into the landing where their suite (pronounced su-weet no su-t, sorry pet peeve people don't know how to properly pronounce that word and call the hotel rooms men's work clothing ALL the time!) is and Nicole didn't see it and tripped and fell. When we were leaving I proceeded to try and help Hannah by warning her about to watch her step but instead of saying "watch your step" I said "no step" which stuck the rest of the weekend.

Nicole

Another tv???

Supposed to be peach

Ended up working okay

Nicole and Hannah being silly

We had the rehearsal dinner at a place called Willow Tree Inn. It was a few miles from the wedding spot which worked great. There was 20 of us all together and the food was great. The service was a little slow even for a party of 20 but it was a lot of fun. The coolest part? It was fully decorated for Halloween!

Adam, Phil, Matt

Matt, Sedge, Jim

Hannah, Nicole, Adam

 After the reception the boys went to go gambling. We expected them to be gone until 3am but they came back at about 1am. Matt had one $195, Adam had lost the money the guys gave him, Phil lost all but .5 cents, Sedge didnt play and I think Jim one $10 dollars. Something like that. While the guys gambled, Nicole, Hannah and I chatted in her room to keep her company. SO much fun and just what we needed. Adam dropped the boys minus Sedge off at their hotel and drove Sedge to us. Sedge was our roommate for the weekend and Sedge was put in charge of Bills Garmin to get us girls to our hotel.

Sunday was the wedding so that post will have to come tomorrow :)

The Wedding: The first day back in PA

This may need to be multiple posts because again I volunteered myself to be unofficial photographer (the real one is great and I am so excited to see the photos!).

I am going to try and take day by day so I dont leave anything out.

Friday:

So as I said, I had to get up at 3:00am to catch my 5:30 flight. Getting up was fine but the cab driver read his instruction list wrong so didn't show up at 3:30 like he was supposed to (he read it as pm not am...I can understand his mistake). I wasn't too stressed because my flight was the first one out that morning and I really didn't see the airport being THAT busy. As I thought, it wasn't a problem. I had to wait 45 minutes for security to even open up.  I had an hour layover in Charlotte before I arrived in Philly. The plane trip to Charlotte went well except TSA chose me for a random screening before boarding.

We arrived in Charlotte just fine but the gate agent took a half hour to get to the gate and get the ramp to the plane so we could get out. Charlotte airport is just big enough that even by running I barely made it. It also didn't help that they changed gates on me. I hadn't eaten anything, gone to the bathroom or bought my book as nothing was open in Myrtle Beach. I barely had time to go potty and Sbarro was the only restaurant that had no line. At this point I had 4 minutes to get to the plane. I got a slice of cheese pizza, wanted to bite the head off of the foreigner who was trying to pay exact change even before I got into the restaurant, and ran to the gate. I was, again, last on the plane with the doors about to close. Meanwhile people have been staring at me all morning as I am booking it from one end of Charlotte airport to the other. It is now 7:30am.

The flight to Philly was uneventful. Matt picked me up and we went to his gym where he was supposed to meet a client. I was going to workout while he trained. His client ended up canceling so Matt and I played racket ball for a while and he did some workouts with me. I also showed him so gymnastics moves and gave myself some shin splints due to the wrong flooring. Afterward we ran some errands and hung out at his house. He bought me a hot dog wrapped in a pretzel SO good. That night was poker night so we went to dinner early. He took me to Phil's Tavern where I had my first real Philly Cheesesteak. It was a little fancier then traditional but VERY good. Matt had two favorites, The Don and Jaws, so we each got one and split them. I started with The Don and he started with Jaws. Both were very good but I definitely preferred the Jaws better.

After dinner we went to his brother's apartment where we hung out a bit before the rest of the guys came over. His brothers girlfriend Sara and I bonded a bit and discussed their new paint color. They were impressed that I noticed after not being there for 3-4 years and Matt hadn't even noticed. Katie (Matt's sister), Josh (Katie's boyfriend), Matt's dad and two of his friends were the poker players. We were also watching the Phillies game. I was lying on the couch most of the time and fell asleep half way threw waking up every few hours. The guys were shocked I was sleeping through all the hootin and hollaring (apparently it was a tough game). After everything I went through and being up since 3am I wasnt surprised. Everyone was very nice and sweet, I always enjoy spending time with them. It was nice seeing them and just hanging with friends even if I did sleep through most of it.

Tomorrow I will post Saturday/Sunday/Monday. More then likely in seperate posts. Those will have pictures

The newest wedding :)

My best friend Nicole and Adam from college are getting married Sunday, 10.10.10. They met at college and are one of the few people that are allowed to get married before me without me being jealous ;).

I have to be up at 3:30am tomorrow morning to catch a 5:30am flight to Philly with a layover in Charlotte. When booking the tickets I was only focused on getting as much time as possible in PA at the cheapest level so when I saw I would get in at 8am I was like SOLD! Completely forgetting until a week ago about what that meant. My friend Van from Beach Boys Taxi company is coming to pick me up. He picked me up and dropped me off at the airport at the last wedding I went too and saved me as my alarm didnt go off and Brian wasnt home to wake me. Anyway, Matt, a groomsmen and friend from college, is picking me up from the airport. We are going to hang out a bit, eat some Philly Cheesesteaks and then go to his work as he has a client (he is a personal trainer). I hope I can use the treadmill/elliptical while he is working. I am also going to show him some of my gymnastics tricks. After work, I am not sure what we are going to do.

Saturday morning we have to be up early because Matt has another appointment (maybe another work out session for me?) and after that go back to his house to pick up Sedge (another friend from college and Adam's old roomie) and then drive to Stroudsburg. Nicole and Hanna (Nicole's friend from home) are going shopping at the outlets but I A) cant make it due to my ride and B) dont have any money :). Haha, Matt would cancel his appointment so I could make it but I wont let him. We are all, Nicole, Hanna, me, Matt, Sedge and Phil (another friend from college) are all going to meet at a Thai place for lunch. After that I am not sure, but I know it will be fun!

Sunday is the wedding. I am staying over in a hotel with Hanna, Sedge and Hanna's mom Saturday night. (Sedge is bringing an air mattress so he can crash on the floor since all the rooms are booked). Sunday morning the girls (the bridesmaids) are getting their hair done and make up done and anything else that is needed to be done for the wedding.

Sunday night we are staying over at the hotel again and Matt is driving Sedge and myself back to Philly Monday morning. I have a 3pmish flight so that it would give us plenty of time to leave and drive the 2 hours back to Philly without rushing. We may even be able to grab lunch depending on when we leave. I arrive back at home Monday evening 7:30 after another layover in Charlotte.

I work 7-3pm on Tuesday and I should have Wednesday off to fully relax as Wednesday is a start of a new week.

I am just about all packed . My phone is charging and then the charger will get packed. I am going to switch purses to go better with the occasion. And I think I am all set!

Show us your life!

One of the blogs I read has a segment called "Show us your Life Fridays". It looked fun so I thought I would join in. I will be in Philly on Friday and more then likely wont be able to tag this over to her post but wanted to do it anyway. This section is on our homes and Friday's showcase  is on Kitchens. Mine isnt that fun but none the less, here it is!

We live in an apartment so it is very tiny though big for an apartment. This is is the view from the Living Room

 This is the view from our Dining Room such as it is. The red towels were a Christmas present from my Mommy! We love them and use them all the time!

 Alton Brown, Foodnetwork Chef and renowned geek, says you should use every appliance twice a year to make it worth keeping. He says lots of other things but that is one of our favorite. We use every appliance at least twice, this is a picture of most of our gadgets the rest are in cupboards.

Yes we have two microwaves. The black one is Brian's which he will tell you I ruined making it a yellow color since I cooked popcorn WAY to long. The white one came with the apartment. We even use that one! We use it to keep food warm while something else is finishing cooking!

And this is a picture from the kitchen to the dining room. The picture is one my Gramma painted from a picture of Arizona.

Our kitchen is not very fun. We cant do anything to it (although the previous tenant could paint one bathroom bright baby blue and the other pepto bismal pink and be fine). If I were a landlord I would never give us the countertops we have as they stain WAY too easily even for people who clean up after the cook and during cooking. I also wouldnt have the kitchen being white (well I would avoid having any part of the apartment being white but especially the kitchen) as that is a huge stain magnet as well. If we owned this place we would do it alot differently.

Lombardo's Restaurant

Tonight Brian and I ate at Lombardo's (photo courtesy of google as I forgot to take a picture). A month before one of their servers brought various people at my hotel $25 dollar gift cards to use. We decided to go out tonight because we hadn't in a while (well awhile for us) and I leave in 2 days for a wedding. This restaurant is about 30 minutes away but it had amazing reviews and the server was so sweet when he gave us the gift cards.

The food was very good. We had peppers stuffed with Mozzarella and ground beef for an appetizer. The presentation wasn't as expected and it was not a bell pepper as was told to us but it was very good. I had the Chicken Rollatini and Brian stuck with his favorite testing dish, chicken Parmesan.

They did not have any cream sauces on their menu and most dishes, with the exception of the Parmesans, were all white wine sauces which was weird. Anyone who knows me knows I am OBSESSED with Alfredo or any other cream based sauce. Also a bit off, though this is us being a bit picky, was while they had several veal dishes they did not have Veal Parmesan or Veal Marsala when they had other variations of those and other dishes that would have been SO easy for them to do as they already make those dishes. The menu was very limited, there were only a couple things Brian and I were interested in, but our choices were good ones. For a white wine sauce, mine was very good.

Chicken Rollatini is chicken rolled around mozzarella and spinach covered with mushrooms, capers and a white wine sauce. All of their entrees came with spaghetti with red sauce and soup or salad. I had the salad, Brian had the soup. The soup of the day was Pasta Fagioli and was very good but I don't think he got a very good serving as there was not as much pasta as we would think. My salad was good but it is a salad, hard to mess those up. We did like their red sauce. The last couple of italian restaurants we have been too have had really disappointing red sauces. For desert we had a chocolate truffle which was some very good vanilla ice cream covered in a hard chocolate shell. Very good, hit the spot.

Our waiter was great and the waiter who gave me the gift certificate also recognized me and came over to chat. The restaurant was almost empty when we were there but there was this really cute hostess. She is an older lady, very gramma like that kept coming over and chatting with us. She was so cute and we didn't mind the conversation as it sort of seemed at times that the service was a bit slow (I think being a Tuesday night they were a bit short staffed given the expectation of having a slow night).

Overall we liked it and thought it was pretty good. It is the best restaurant of that type near my hotel so definitely something I would recommend to them and I would recommend it to others in there area. We would go back if it weren't SO far away. It was good but good enough for us to drive up 30 minutes on a regular basis. If we were in the area it would definitely be one of our picks. After our gift certificate, tax and tip our bill came out to be about $45. Even without the gift certificate I thought the food was worth the money and the trip.

I have had so many ideas about posting opportunities but I haven't had the chance to write them out. I will get to it I promise!

Happy October!

Today went well. Work went by relatively easy and I even got to walk on the beach for shells. While I was out I got to talk to my mom but that didnt work out too well. One of our phones kept losing the call. After that I went over to Alyson's place and watched Letters to Juliet and hung out with the kids. The movie was very cute, different then what I expected, but very cute. Glad I didn't see it in theatres though.

Sunday I am going to Church at 8, working after till 5ish and then having dinner and meeting Walker, the Godfather to be, at Caroline's. Caroline is SO funny! She is repainting the dining room to make sure everything is perfect for the christening. She is so cute! (I got my bible mom, thanks!). This is the first step of the process of becoming a Godmommy.

I week from today I will be in Philly getting ready for my friend Nicole's wedding :) So excited! Got the dress from the tailors and it fits beautifully. Definitely my favorite bridesmaids dress and I am going to be able to BREATH at this wedding! I cant wait! The only bad thing about being a Bridesmaid is I cant take that many pictures so I am going to be relying on the people in the audience but I am so excited! Matt, from college, will be my chauffeur and we are going to be getting my first real philly cheesesteak! He swears there is a difference based on location...we shall see.

It is definitely fall here, I am in winter pjs (though I did pull out the quilt to sleep in and put away the comforter...Brian is still laughing at me) and wearing my Talbot button downs to work. The storm, Tropical Storm Nicole, just ended. We got LOTS and LOTS of rain but now it looks like nothing has really happened. With the storm came allergies so I am completely wiped.