Weekend Recap

I haven't stayed in Chicago for the past 6 weeekends. For the past 6 weekends I have had something to do. In Wisconsin. This has been fun (weddings) and exhausting (drill!) at the same time. It has kept me busy since LC's been gone (we're almost at the 2 month mark!) but I have not had a moment to myself or a day to just breathe. So this weekend, I finally got to stay in my favorite city and my favorite lady came down to visit me (my mom).

She arrived on Saturday morning, via train, and we spent the day searching for a fabulous MOB dress, lunching, and discovered my new love...Sprinkles Cupcakes. We started out on Michigan Ave and searched every department store, high and low, and could not find anything that she LOVED but, she got some ideas of what she was looking for. I told her not to buy anything unless she loved it because the wedding is still 9-ish months away and I wouldn't want her to have buyer's remorse. After our failed shopping trip, we stopped and ate at Food Life in Water Tower place. About 6 weeks ago, my mom was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Long story short, she can't have anything with gluten in it or she gets very sick, and gluten is in EVERYTHING! So I was so happy that Food Life offered a list of gluten free foods that she was able to eat. After lunch, we walked around the Gold Coast area, looking for more stores that had MOB dresses. We didn't find anything, but instead stumbled upon Sprinkles. I've heard a lot about this place but wasn't sure where it was located. I came across it on accident so it was a MUST that we try it. I tried the banana cupcake...AMAZINGNESS. And my mom had the Red Velvet cupcake, gluten free of course.

Later that night, we enjoyed some sangria & mexi food at Zapatista. Although they didn't have a gluten free menu, the waiter was very knowledgable in what my mom could and couldn't eat.

Sunday morning, I got up and went for a run. Sunday was my "long day" in my 1/2 marathon training. Despite the windy conditions running north, I completed 7 miles in an hour and 10 minutes. Running back (with the wind) was a piece of cake. After my run, we went to Whole Foods to get things that we needed to make Chili for dinner. My mom had never been to a WF before and she was in heaven. They had tons of stuff that she could eat. It's too bad that the closest one is about 45 minutes away. I told her that she should franchise one, it would be really popular where they live. I spent the rest of the night studying, while my mom cooked me dinner and took care of Ollie. It was nice to have someone there to take care of me for a change! Next weekend, I will be heading back to Milwaukee for drill...bleh!

Here I go again!

A good friend of mine from high school, M, is getting married about a month before me. To get in shape for her wedding, she's been running. A lot. The other she posted on facebook that she was about to run 10 miles after work. Ugh!

After I ran my first 1/2 marathon, I've been lacking some serious motivation to go out and just run. It's easier for me to run when I have a goal or something to train for. You would think my wedding dress would be motivation enough. Not so much. So, last night I signed up for another 1/2 marathon that M talked me into running with her. Yes, even though I felt my body had been hit by a truck the following day, I am running another 1/2. I'm officially addicted.

The race is at the end of October, which gives me 6 1/2 weeks to train. I started running again this week and doing cross training. I WILL stick to a training plan and make it my top priority for the next 6 1/2 weeks. I made the mistake of not training properly the first time around and I have learned from my mistakes.

So here I go again, 1/2 marathon #2!

10 months to go-Our Reception Venue

Happy Friday! Today officially marks the 10 month mark until the big day. Every month, on the third, I will be blogging about some part of our wedding planning process. I love weddings, but I can only write so much about them before it starts to get mundane.

Wedding planning, so far, has been a rollercoaster of emotion. I can sum it up as this: "Wedding planning is the most fun I'll never want to have again." I was really excited at first. I think I bought every wedding magazine out there the day after we got engaged. From excited, I became really overwhelmed with all the decisions that had to be made. Then came frustration. I found a great venue in IL, and my mom threw a fit because I wasn't getting married in WI-where I'm from. Long story short, she won that war-but I picked out the best venue in Milwaukee. Now I'm content and everything is falling right into place. Before LC left, I wanted to make sure that we got all of the imporant stuff decided together and that I wasn't the only one making the decisions. The first thing we did together was look for the reception and ceremony site.

We will be getting married in a church just outside of Milwaukee and our reception is going to be at Pier Wisconsin in the Discovery World Museum. I fell in love with this space instantly and I knew that I would. It was new, it is on Lake Michigan, it would be perfect for a summer wedding, it was out of our budget. LC and I found a place within our budget that we liked a lot and that we thought would be just fine for our wedding. But when my mom got wind of us getting married in IL and not in WI, she thew a fit. She wouldn't talk to me and she was really beside herself. (Can we say momzilla?) So to make her happy, I decided to look at venues in Milwaukee. I found two others that I really liked but were in the suburbs. LC and I decided to try to keep it in Milwaukee because that would make it easier for our guests traveling from Chicago. And that's how we came to decide on Pier Wisconsin. We're getting married on a Sunday so that brought down the cost some. I'm so happy that we were able to find a place that EVERYONE could agree upon. Our wedding date coinsides with Milwaukee Lakefront's big bang fire works display and we will have an awesome view of it! I can't wait for our big party.

The Leading Man in my Life (for now)

This is Oliver. No middle name, I felt Oliver was strong enough to stand on its own. He is our 7 month old yorkiepoo. LC and I got him when we moved into our new "dog-friendly" apartment. We both knew that he was getting ready to leave and I thought it would be a great idea to get a little puppy to keep me company while he is gone. ha!

For the most part, Oliver is a good dog. He loves to go for walks, play fetch, he licks away my tears when I am crying at movies like The Last Song, and most importantly he hasn't chewed up any of my shoes. He loves everyone and every dog. Even the mean ones. He also loves to start crying at 5am on a Saturday morning because he has to go to the bathroom or simply because he just wants to play. At 5am. On a Saturday morning. And sometimes he forgets that he is potty trained and that our floor is not the grass. Dogs, especially puppies, are a lot of work. My mother tried warning me about this, but like good daughters usually do, I didn't listen.

There are some mornings when I actually look forward to work (like when he makes me chase him outside for 15 before coming in) and other mornings when I could simply snuggle up with all day.He's good practice for what's to come and overall, he's a pretty sweet dog.

Decisions, Decisions

Yesterday, 3 of my bridesmaids and I set off to look for the PERFECT bridesmaid's dress. I have 7 girls in my party and not one of them is shaped like the next. I brought my sister with me, who's got more curves, my cousin who's just tall muscular (she runs track for UW-Whitewater) and one of LC's sisters who's shape resembles my sister's but just a bit smaller and shorter. I was worried that it was going to be stressful having 3 different opinions, but we had a lot of fun! I enjoyed playing dress up with my girls.

The first store we went to was Miss Ruby. It was the first time I had ever gone into a little boutique type store like this. When we got there the sales associate explained how the store was set up and we were left to sift through the dresses and find ones that we all liked. We found a good amount to try on and even a few of the dresses were in the running.

Allison in Jim Hjelm Style JH5051

After our appointment at Miss Ruby, we went and got lunch. Our next appointment was at Bella Bridesmaid. Before I got engaged, I had never heard of Bella Bridesmaid and didn't realize that it was a franchise until a few weeks ago when I realized they had one in Chicago too. I went on their website and saw the different designers they had at their store. I was love but I knew that if we went there and I found something I loved, chances were that it would be more than I wanted my girls to spend on dresses. I had actually thought of canceling the appointment because of the price point, but I didn't and I'm so happy that we went there.

First of all, I want to say that customer service was PHENOMENAL!! This is really important to me because I deal with clients all day at work and I know how that can make or break a sale. From the moment we walked in there and were greeted by Kathleen, I knew we were in good hands. She asked if I had been to their website and asked if there were any designers that stuck out to me. There was one in particular, LulaKate. I had first discovered LulaKate from Nina over at According to Nina. She was looking for bridesmaid dresses for her own wedding. I went onto Lulakate's website and immediately fell in love. These dresses would be perfect for what I was looking for. And what I love most about them is that they don't look too "bridesmaidsy". I could easily pick a dress out of the collection and wear it to a shower or rehearsal dinner. So, I picked out the dresses that I liked. A few from LulaKate and a few from Jenny Yoo. Here are a few of my faves.

Kelly, Allison and Melissa all in Jenny Yoo dresses

The rest of the pictures, the girls are in LulaKate, you can see which one I favored

Kathleen said not to make any decisions until the dresses were clipped and fitted to each girl. She also took the time to add sashes to the dress and add some broaches for some added bling. If I had to rate them on my experience I would give Kathleen an A for wonderful customer service. I even left with a little personalized card, that she hand wrote, thanking me for coming in. She also wrote down the dresses that I liked along with their cost and the name of the color I am looking for. And since I have 7 bridesmaids, I have decided to do 2 types of dresses with each girl alternating styles. One dress will be strapless and the other dress with have one strap.

After leaving the third ward, we traveled west to Brookfield and shopped at Savvy Bride. This was our last stop for the day. I love this store. I've been here before to look for dresses and this is where I got my bridesmaid's dress for Becky's wedding. However, I was a little disappointed in their customer service and their selection of dresses. The woman who was supposed to be "helping" us was no where to be found. And when I did find her she was watching a bride try on dresses. It was annoying. Needless to say, we did find some that we liked and that were in a good price range.

I just love the look of the two dresses together!

Allison in Bill Levkoff Style 527

So, now I have to make the final decision to pick one of these or to keep looking. Honestly, the only thing holding me back from the LulaKate dresses is the price that each girl would have to pay. I know that they would never say anything to me about it, but 3 of my girls are in college and one just had a little baby so I have to keep their financial situations in mind. Any kind of advice would be really helpful right now!

Reality Check

Last week Wednesday, my BFF Rach and I went to go and pick up our bridesmaid dresses for our friend's wedding. Becky's getting married in one month from today. Well, we got the bridal store and the girl asked us if we wanted to try them on. Rachel didn't want to (she had just had a baby) and I said that I would, so into the dressing room we went. I took the plastic off of the dress, looked at it, and thought "Wow, this dress looks really big I will probably have to get it taken in". WRONG! I put the dress on, Rachel attempted to zip it and it would not zip all the way up! I got it to the middle of my back and it was a no go. Crap! I made her try hers on, we got it zipped but it was tight. We both shared a good laugh about it and then headed off to Cheesecake Factory. Don't worry, we were both thinking of our friend and her wedding. I had salmon she had a soup and salad.

I got back to my sister's house (where I was staying for the week) and I told her about my problem. I tried it on again, maybe Melissa would be able to zip it. Nope. Reality set in. I have a month to fit into this bridesmaid dress. I month to fit into this dress that I thought I would have to get taken in. Sure I could have just let it out, but my wedding dress is the same size and if I go and try on my wedding dress and it doesn't zip? I would be having a bigger mental break down. Hard core motivation set in. I worked out everyday before working at the base, I didn't consumer more than 1200 calories a day, and I drank a shit ton of water. I was feeling great by Sunday. I had scheduled an appointment for that day to see a seamstress to have her look at the dress and see what could be done. Before I left, I told my sister that I wanted to try on the dress and see how far apart the zipper was. And guess what!? IT ZIPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never been so excited in my life about fitting into something. It's still a little tight and there's still more work that needs to be done, but I'm definitely back on track. I weighed myself yesterday and I've lost 5lbs since last week. I'm sure some of it is water weight, but I will take it!

Please, Come Home Soon

Here we go again, another 6 month deployment to the Middle East. LC left on Tuesday to go overseas. Another 6 months. We've done it before, and I've learned that it doesn't get easier with each deployment. This time was different though. Unlike the last deployment where I was sad before he even left, it really didn't hit me until the day of that he was leaving for that amount of time. On the morning that he left, we just kept telling each other "no tears" followed by a kiss. And surprisingly I didn't cry...in front of him. As soon as he got on the plane, the water works came. But all in all, I held it together pretty well.
Tonight, I finally got around to watching this youtube/facebook video that's been going around. I've been putting it off for obvious reasons. It's a compilation of military members reuniting with their families. It's wondering and amazing. The feeling you have when you see that person cannot even be put into words so I'm not even going to try. The video is 10 minutes long and I cried from start to finish. I couldn't help myself.

I have some candid pictures of our "reunion" from his last deployment. A friend of ours took them and I think it captures the emotion as best as possible.