Shower/Bachelorette Weekend!

     Well the wedding festivities have officially taken off with only 20 days left until the big day.   It started with a fabulous shower thrown by my sister, Rachel; Mary Beth; and my bridesmaids.  It was a great time, and I realized how lucky I am to have such great friends and family celebrating this special time with me.  Look at these adorable cupcakes!

       Here is a picture of me and my bridesmaids, minus one... We missed you Charissa!

      After the shower was over, it was time to get ready for the bachelorette party festivities.  It started at a great dinner at Mosaic on Washington, and then it was party bus time.  Things definitely got a little wild and crazy, but it was such a great time! 

My beautiful bridesmaids again

Truman Girls

      The next morning we finished off the fun weekend with some time at the Cardinals game.  It was definitely hot, but fun.  We almost had a home run come right to us!  Since the shower and bachelorette was girls only, we allowed Jay to come to the game.  Plus, I think that he would have killed me if I went to a baseball game without him.

        It was a fun and an eventful weekend,so I had a relaxing day at the pool today... it doesn't get much better than that!  I am sure am a lucky girl.  Jay's bachelor party is next weekend, and he is going camping with a bunch of his friends, and then the wedding will be here before we know it!

  

Graduation!

    What a weekend we had!  On Friday night we hosted the first dinner of our Dinner Club that we are in with a couple of our friends.  Each couple takes turns hosting the Dinner Club once a month.  The person that hosts it decides on a theme and cooks the main dish; while, everyone else brings a side, appetizer, or desert that has to do with that theme.  This Friday, our theme was "Spring".  Jay made some fantastic lamb chops, and other people brought spring rolls, eggplant, sangria, and cheese and crackers.  It was delicious!  
     On Saturday morning, my younger sister, Erin, graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Webster University.  I am very proud of her, but it was quite a long ceremony, and there were 2 back to back!  I think this picture is an accurate representation of the Haberstroh/Meskill crew during the ceremony.  Bob is taking pictures and I am apparently being loud and annoying (at least that is what Jay claims, I beg to differ), Jay is playing with his phone, and I have no clue what Maggie is doing.  You can't see Rachel and Clayton, but they are definitely talking.

       Overall, it was great, and we all celebrated afterwards with lunch at Llywelyn's in the Central West End.  It was a beautiful day for a graduation and lunch outside on a patio.  Congratulations to Erin!

     On Sunday, we went to celebrate Mother's Day and Jay's mom's birthday with a relaxing afternoon and a delicious dinner.  It is weekends like this that remind me how lucky we are to have such great friends and family!

House Hunting

     So because we decided that wedding planning, working, etc wasn't stressful enough, we decided to add house hunting to the mix.  We originally wanted to stay in the city (I am truly a city girl at heart).  After looking in our current neighborhood, Holly Hills, Lindenwood Park, Shaw, Compton Heights, and Lafayette Square, we decided that we could not get a big enough house with a big enough yard for the dogs to run in our price range.  My dream of living in the city forever came crashing down.
     After pouting for a bit (something I may be known to do), I decided that broaden my horizons and starting looking in the county.  We started looking in U City, Olivette and Ballwin, but we started considering building.  We found some fantastic 3 acre lots in Wildwood that we loved.  It even had a creek in the backyard.  Needless to say, Jay loved it!

      We spent some time researching how much it would be for Jay's company to build the house for us, and realized that it was affordable for us, but we were still unsure.  That wouldn't be too big of a concern except that Wildwood is not convenient to any highway, and we were concerned about resale value.  Plus, it made it awfully far away from our friends and family.  We weren't really sure what to do because on the one hand, we loved the lot and the idea of building our house, but also it was far away, and the neighborhood didn't have the community feel I wanted.  Then, all of the sudden, a house in Town and Country popped up that was just perfect for us.  I (Carrie) had seen this house on Zillow before, but it didn't have a price listed yet.  When I showed it to Jay, his response was that it would be out of our price range.  When the price finally popped up a couple weeks later, we couldn't believe our luck... It was in our price range!  We immediately scheduled an appointment to look it at, and knew we loved it right away.  We put a contract down on a it a few weeks later  The house needs a lot of updating, but it was a fabulous deal and a beautiful house, so we are very excited!  Plus, it has a pool!  Here it is:

Another view from the front:

  

    We are planning on repainting the exterior (cream and brown), putting in wood floors in the 1st level, and doing some minor adjustments to the kitchen (we are planning on doing a complete gut in a few years) before we move in.  We have a couple of more hoops to jump through before closing in a couple of months (getting all the money and financing in order), but I am crossing my fingers that it works out, and all the stress of house hunting paid off!

Wedding Planning is a B**ch!

      Before you start planning your own wedding, you hear people talk about how stressful wedding planning is; that they wished they just eloped.  Before I became engaged and a bride-to-be, I always thought, "That will never happen to me.  I will love planning my wedding!"  Well, that is not exactly true, but I didn't think it would be as stressful as it is.  The little things really add up here at the end, and it is causing my head to almost explode!  I have to keep reminding myself that in a month I will be here celebrating my marriage to the love of my life with my friends and family, and I just can't wait!.  

     I just can't believe that soon Jay and I will be husband and wife, and this will be my monogram.  Thinking about that suddenly makes the stress all worth it. 

      The honeymoon planning is also helping me get through the wedding planning as well.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I will be in Ireland with a Guinness in my hand, in a month's time.  If Obama can do it in Ireland, so can I!

       Needless to say, I am so excited for our honeymoon... 2 whole weeks in Ireland!  We have our plane tickets and hotel accommodations set up.  We are flying into Dublin and renting a car and visiting the Southern portion of the country.  We will be staying in Dublin for a few days and then visiting Killkenny, Cork, Kilkarney, and Dingle before flying back home.  It really will be the trip of a life time!
        Another thing that gets my through the turmoils and stress of wedding planning is the most wonderful friends and family I have.  My coworkers threw a fantastic wedding shower/happy hour for me this past Friday, and it was a fabulous time.  I am really blessed to have not only all of these great things in my life, but such wonderful people to celebrate it with!  Thank you!

Spring has Sprung!

    Ahh, the weather outside is starting to look beautiful... Well, actually, this year it has been beautiful since March!  Either way, spring has definitely sprung here in St. Louis.  I always know that it is spring when Onyx does this:

      She always seems to find great smells (by great, I mean really awful smelling... similar to poop or decaying animals) to roll in.  It is quite funny to watch though; she will go to town making sure every part of her body is immersed in that fabulous smell!
       Jay and I have also been working very diligently in our backyard trying to make it not look like a dogs playground.  This is especially important if we want to rent out our place when we move.  So we have decided to grow grass in our backyard.  That may not sound that impressive, but when you have 2 dogs that always tear it up, it is quite a feat.  We are also trying to improve our vegetable garden from last year because we didn't get one single tomato, but the squirrels sure got a feast everyday!  This year we decided that we would grow our garden in a raised bed; therefore, Jay built 3 fantastic beds and filled them with dirt.  I am so excited to see our our vegetables thrive in it!  Apparently Brindle the the word "bed" literally because she hopped on in, and made herself comfortable.  It did make a super cute picture!  

        I also decided to try a little project due to Pinterest inspiration.  I wanted a place for my herbs that enabled me to bring them in for the winter, and I came across this in Pinterest.

       I decided that this is something that I could totally do, so I rushed out to Home Depot to purchase pots, spray paint, and paint markers.  Let me just say, that just because it is on Pinterest, doesn't mean that I am capable of doing it.  It literally took me about 5 tries to figure out how to do this, but without further adieu, here is my version.  We decided that we would like to keep them on an old ladder during the spring and summer.  We are planning on stripping and staining the ladder to make it look better.

      And up close:

            They aren't exactly like the Pinterest picture, but I can't help but be a little bit proud of my first Pinterest project!

What have we been up to the past year?

      I always wanted a blog, so I decided that I will start one that updates everyone on what Jay and I are doing!   We got engaged almost a year ago on May 20, 2011.  We had already designed the ring together back in February of 2011 and based the design around the diamond I (Carrie) inherited from her mom.  Since we custom designed it, it took a while to be finished, and it took even longer for Jay to give it to me... Well, that  is what it felt like to me!  I thought there was no way Jay would be able to surprise me with a proposal since I knew it was coming and was most definitely on the look out, but I was proved wrong because he did surprise me.   One a lazy Friday evening, I was preparing dinner (Sweet Ginger Shrimp, which I never ended up eating) and Jay, having just picked up the ring from the jewelers, felt it was the right time to "pop the question".  Jay knew about my undying love of my baby Onyx, so he put the ring box on Onyx's collar.  Since I was busy cooking dinner, and I am clearly not the most observant person, it took quite some time to notice the box hanging from her collar.  Getting nervous that Brindle would try and eat the box of Onyx (Onyx's head is in Brindle's mouth 90% of the day), Jay decided that he needed to draw my  attention to the box, so he picked Onyx up and said she wanted a bite of chicken.  At first I was very annoyed that he was trying to bug me when I was making him dinner, and I was just about to yell at him because I thought he was going to get dog hair in the food when I noticed the ring.  It was almost a foot in mouth situation!  After a big smile and a hug and a kiss, I said yes.  Because of the excitement, Jay finished cooking dinner, and we went out to my favorite bar, The Scottish Arms, to celebrate with our friends where we got our first engagement picture.

       It wasn't long before wedding planning was in full swing.  By the end of the summer, we had our venue, photographer, officiant, caterer, and my dress all picked out.  Luckily we threw in a trip to Fort Walton Beach, Florida for my good friend Casey's wedding, so we did fit in some relaxing time.  We spent a week on the beach and enjoyed a beautiful wedding with friends.  What more could you ask for?

    Before long, school for me had started back up, and it was October.  It was time for my 30th birthday.  Hitting the big 3-0 wasn't really all that bad.  My sister threw me a great 30th birthday party at the Chinese Pavilion in Tower grove park.  It was a fantastic time!  She even made pumpkin pie jello shots that were not fully jelloed, but they still tasted delicious.  Jay and his friend Tim even had a fun time chasing the kids that broke into Jay's car. 

    Soon it was the holiday season... again (it always seems like it comes so quickly!).  I enjoyed my FHC Holiday Happy hour.  We even had an ugly sweater day at school.  Here is my school roomie and I in our wonderful and stylish sweaters.  Christmas break rolled around the corner, and Jay and I had a great time over the holidays, and we definitely ate a lot of food.  We even took a trip up to Chicago to visit my friend from college, Marina, and her husband, Chris.  We had a great time.  We took the train up to Chicago which was a really nice ride.  Our train to Chicago was at the butt crack of dawn, and we couldn't find the Amtrak station (no matter how many times I have been there, I can never find it!) causing us to almost miss are train, but we barely made it, and I am sure glad that we did because we had a wonderful time!  

     After Chicago, it was back to the grind.  I had to go back to school, and it was the start of the competition season for the Dance team, and Jay's company started a new project.  Needless to say, we were both pretty busy.  I was pretty lucky though because my job took me to Disney World for nationals.  I haven't been to Disney World since I was in 6th grade, and even at 30, the magic was still there... and I got the cutest ornament for our Christmas tree!  It was a great way to end my last season as the JV dance coach, and I will most definitely miss my girls.  I am so proud that they all moved on up to the Varsity team!

    So that is what has been going on with us in the past year.  It definitely has been a very busy year, and has sped by.  Before we know it we will be Mr. and Mrs. Wille!