Wedding Weekend Extravaganza!

This past weekend Collin and I headed up to a tiny town in The Poconos called Jim Thorpe, PA. My friend Rachael from college was getting married and she had asked me to sing with 5 other friends from college in the ceremony! So early Saturday morning Collin and I packed up the car and began our 5 hour journey north!

Comfy clothes for traveling


A road trip wouldn't be complete without a trip to Cracker Barrel!

For the first time ever I beat this dumb game! I've gotten down to 2 pegs before but this time I actually beat it!!
And then it started snowing. While the sun was out. And there was already some snow on the ground from a storm they'd had on Thursday.
This was the coolest thing! Icicles hanging from the rocks on the side of the road. Oh it was so neat to see all over the place!

The wedding took place on Sunday afternoon so Saturday evening was the rehearsal and dinner. Afterwards a bunch of us met up in my and Collin's hotel room for some rousing rounds of Pictionary Down the Lane which caused so much laughter we thought we would disturb the neighbors! We had a blast playing and it was great to spend time together with my college friends!

The wedding was above a museum in an auditorium type room and the ceremony was very nice! Our group sang "You Are the New Day" which is sung by The King's Singers. I think one of my favorite things about the day was that the recessional song was "Married Life" from the movie Up. It's the one that's played when it goes through their love story at the beginning. It was so special and they had the exact instrumentation for it live. =D Anyway, the reception was filled with lots of fun and dancing! And it was great to be seated with my awesome Messiah friends. We had a blast. I can't wait until the next wedding for when we all get to see each other again. ; ) Hopefully we'll get together before then though! I love those friends!

Jon with the fun shaped pineapple

That was a yummy cake!
The cake toppers were handmade treble and bass clefs!


Alicia, me, and Mary Lee

This about sums up Jon, David, and Andy. =)

A "normal" picture of the three guys.

Collin and Jackie, the two non-Messiah grads in our group
The sextet (singers) and Messiah friends!
The Messiah crew with the addition of Collin and Jackie (Andy's girlfriend)
All of the Messiah group in one picture!

The beautiful bride, Rachael!

The back of her dress was so pretty, too!
Jackie and me. I wish she lived closer because I think we would hang out all the time. I love her!

The girls I hung out with all weekend. Alicia, Mary Lee, Jackie, me

On the way home on Monday the icicles hanging off the rocks on the sides of the road had grown because it snowed a little more on Saturday night. And it was SO cold the whole time we were there. I don't think it got above 25 degrees while we were there. Much, much too cold for my liking! But we still had a great time!

I hope you had a great holiday weekend like we did! And I hope that whereever you were it was not nearly as cold for you as it was for us!

Cindy

Fill in the Blank Friday

You guys, yesterday was my blog anniversary! I started my little blog one year ago on December 1st! I totally forgot until late last night. =) This has been a great year of blogging. I've so enjoyed meeting lots of people and getting better at photography and sharing lots of joy with you guys this past year! I've had so much fun with my little blog this past year! And I am sure it will continue to be lots of fun. =D

Anyway... I took a break from filling in any blanks during November because of The Gratitude Challenge (you can view those posts by clicking on the button).

But now I'm back to the blanks! Lauren has created them to be about Christmas/winter today! You can play along or see other's posts over at Lauren's blog the little things we do.

Photo courtesy of Lauren

1. The holiday season is so full of excitement and love. It's a time for celebrating the greatest gift of all (Jesus!) and spending time with your family.

2. Snow makes me excited for about 5 minutes. lol I like it at first but if it's put me in a dangerous spot (having to drive in it) or it lasts for more than like a day or so I get really annoyed with it.

3. The best comfort food to eat when it's cold out is soup and chili. Especially delicious cheesy, creamy potato soup!

4. Winter is the best time for finding inside hobbies. It's much too cold during winter (well most of the time anyway) to be outside (I'm such a wimp when it comes to the cold).

5. I can hardly wait for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I just love them both so much!

6. When it comes to holiday gifts I prefer to give them! I love giving presents. Sure I enjoy getting them too, but it's so much better to give them. I love making someone happy and I love for them to feel special.

7. If I were to rate my excitement about the holiday season on a scale from 1-10, I would say I am at about a 9. Definitely! I am super duper excited! I just wish I had my decorations up. It would intensify the excitment and definitely put me over a 10!

This weekend Collin and I are heading up to PA to visit my best friend Tiff and her husband and son! I'm so looking forward to visiting with them for a couple days. I hate living so far away from them. It's only about a 3 hour drive but with life being so busy for both of us we hardly get to see each other and sometimes chatting is hard to come by.

I hope you have a simply fabulous weekend! Enjoy this first December weekend and may it be filled with things to get you excited for Christmas!

Cindy

Wedding Week - The Honeymoon

Collin and I had a wonderful honeymoon! It was completely relaxing and a great way to spend the first few days of married life! We had originally planned a big week-long trip to an all-inclusive resort in the Mexican Riviera but I lost my job a month before the wedding and we decided to cancel that trip and take a shorter, less expensive one to save in case I didn't find a new job quickly. I ended up being offered a job two weeks into my unemployment but because we had our wedding and honeymoon coming up so soon I didn't start until after we got back. So, all that to say we took a nice 4 day trip to Atlantic Beach, NC. Collin grew up (mostly) in Havelock which is maybe 30 minutes from the beach and he had been wanting to go back for years. All I really wanted was to go to a beach I'd never been to before! So, this worked out perfectly. Collin could show me around his hometown (and see it for himself again) and we got to relax and enjoy our time at the beach! Since we got married at the end of April it was not necessarily very warm. And it was very windy the whole time we were there! But it was really nice. It was warmer than home but not necessarily warm enough to spend a day at the water. But we had a blast. We explored the area, went mini golfing, went to the aquarium, went shopping, and just relaxed and enjoyed being together! We stayed at a Hampton Inn and Suites that was across the street from the beach and close to things but far enough away you felt secluded! All in all it was a great trip and we definitely did not want to come home when it was over!



The view from our hotel room was a lovely golf course.  It was fun to watch people out there chipping away!

I love Hampton Inn beds.  They are super comfy.

Our first full day in town we started off the day with mini golf and go-karts!







The waterfall on the golf course was really nice!  And it was so windy out that we could feel the spray from the waterfall no matter where we were on the course!


After we were done at the Golf Raceway we headed to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores (really close to our hotel).  It was an awesome aquarium and I wish I'd gotten more pictures of it.


In this tank they had divers who would talk to you from inside using special microphones in their mouthpieces about the creatures and sharks and what not that were in the water there.  This tank was a replica of what a ship wreck would be like in the waters off the coast of North Carolina.

The shark looks like it's coming for Collin's head!


We ate at this pizzeria place called Michaelangelo's and they had New York style pizza.  It was HUMONGOUS.  But oh so very, very delicious!

On the day we went to explore Havelock we stopped at Sonic for lunch because we don't have one in our area.  It was a nice treat.  I think we look like we're in a Sonic commercial in this picture.  =)

Walking on the path that leads to the beach from our hotel.




While we were at the beach (a total of like 45 minutes) it would go from being extremely dark and looking like it was going to pour to being so bright it would hurt my eyes with my sunglasses on.  And the whole time it was ridiculously windy and a bit chilly!


Collin's goal was to dig a hole until water seeped into it.





The water was chilly but surprisingly not as cold as I thought it would be.


We made a trip (or more like 3) to Wal-Mart one day and we bought these sand toys and I decided to build a sandcastle while Collin was digging his hole!


It was a pretty deep hole but he never did find water...










My sister gave us these bracelets as a fun gift to wear on our honeymoon only she didn't realize they were attached.  I thought it was cute and I loved that it said "Perfect Pair" on both of them!

Just to show you how much I over pack... The black duffel is Collin's bag.  The rest of the bags are mine...with the exception of the white plastic bag on the right that has stuff from our wedding and the brown paper bag above it that has my souvenirs in it.

We had a wonderful time and I can't wait to go back and spend some more time at Atlantic Beach! It's definitely a place I will return to, hopefully many times!

Cindy