Nikki's Last Fling before the Ring!

*****Phew...it's been an insane couple of days. I'm not quiet ready to talk about it on here yet...still a bit shaken up but thank you to everybody who has been praying for or sending positive thoughts to Derrick and I over the last couple of days. We have gotten so much love and it's been wonderful.*****

Immediately following Nikki's bridal shower  it was time for the bachelorette party. Everybody involved in the wedding has had a crazy summer...tons of weddings across the board. It made sense to combine Nikki's shower and bachelorette party into one weekend so no one had to plan for multiple weekends. I think it worked out perfectly!  For a while we were planning a girl's weekend in Charlotte. Fancy restaurants and bar hopping in cute little party dresses. Once Nikki and I started to plan it though she realized she really preferred something more low-key. Since she recently left Raleigh and moved to Hickory she wanted an atmosphere that catered towards conversation, fun, and a good old fashioned slumber party. I think she had a blast!

Nikki's new house has a pool which is amazing. Justin strung twinkle lights over the pool before the party and they had pool floats, music, and drinks. We had a great time by the pool for most of the afternoon until dinner.

 

 

After some pool time everybody started getting cleaned up for dinner. There is a Mexican restaurant right down the street from Nikki's house that is one of the best in Hickory and serves $2 margaritas. It was an easy choice :)

 

The rest of the night we showered Nikki in gifts and played a fun game that was perfect for a bachelorette party. I hope Nikki felt loved after this weekend. She is amazing and has awesome friends. I loved hanging out with everybody and can't wait until the wedding!

Nikki's Hickory Bridal Shower

What a weekend! I've finally just recovered from the biggest mad-dash of a bridal weekend. I had three bridal events and hosted two of them! After showing four houses on Friday morning I jumped in the car and drove to Hickory to start preparing for Nikki's bridal shower. My mom and I hosted it at my parent's house and we had a lot to prepare for. Friday night Mom and I stayed up late starting food and house prep. I also ran to Nikki's house for a bit to do some set up for the bachelorette party that was taking place immediately after the shower in the morning.

Friday morning I was up bright and early and made my first ever trip to the Farmer's market. I am hooked! It was so fun, the prices were great, and I treated myself to a freshly squeeze lemonade. I don't think I'll ever go anywhere else for flowers. There is one in Morrisville that I am definitely checking out this weekend!

Mom and I were rushing the morning of! We thought we had prepared enough the night before but we were still running around long after the first guest arrived. I think it turned out great though! The food was delicious, the guests were so nice, and Nikki seemed happy!

I did a horrible job taking pictures of the shower but luckily one of Nikki's bridesmaids Megan took some fantastic photos! All credit goes to her for these photos.

Nikki looked gorgeous!

 We had a delicious spread concocted by my Mom. I'm more of a sous chef ...she's the brain behind everything and I do chopping, and mixing, and whatever she tells me to do.

After we ate everybody gathered around for games and presents. The first game involved me asking Nikki questions that I had gotten Justin's responses to earlier in the week. It was fun to hear Nikki match a lot of Justin's answers and to see what she said when they didn't match on an answer. After that I handed out a "Who Has The Groom" envelope to each guest. This was a really fun game that I found online. 

We went around the room and everybody opened up their envelope to reveal if they had the groom or not. Here's Britt with Ryan Reynolds...not the groom. Justin was found near the end by his Aunt and she got a prize.

Then it was present time! Nikki got some beautiful gifts!

Mom and I with the beautiful bride to be! I hope she felt loved because she truly is!

Nikki with all of her "Moms" growing up.

And the actual, beautiful Mother of the Bride.

Oh my gosh. Look at this face! Our friend Mary just had this sweet girl, Eden, in May. We were all so happy to have her. She is one gorgeous little baby!

All the bridesmaids that are on this side of the globe!

Vet school friends. I was happy to have these two come to the bachelorette party too. They were both super fun.

Megan and Nikki. Thanks to Megan for the amazing pictures!!!

The shower was from 11:30-1:30 and then the bachelorette party started around 2:00. More to come on that! 

Bark in the Park

Last night the local minor league baseball team, the Durham Bulls, had Bark in the Park night where you could bring your dog to the game. Derrick and I hadn't been to a game yet this summer so we skipped trivia and took Crosby with Holly and Alexander. It was awesome!! There were so many dogs!!!

I have no idea what happened with the game. Crosby was in charge of keeping track of the score so I could focus on all the other dogs.

Alexander and Holly. I'm working on making them realize how much they want a dog. I think I could convince Holly with a really cute little one. Alexander is harder to convince. Crosby loves him though so she's working on it too.

Isn't this awesome? So many dogs just chilling in the stands.

 

Best picture of the night caught by Holly :)

This was super fun and I can't wait to go again next summer!

Ups and Downs

Our life is finally slowing down a bit. My Monday night frisbee league is over and Derrick's is wrapping up as I type this. If we wins we'll both be champions! Soccer is over..Thank goodness!! I tried really hard to be OK with soccer but after 3 season I could not wait for it to be over.  I really liked the people on my team but it was far to intense for my liking and I learned I'm scared of the ball. Give me a sport where I can use my hands to shield my face from a broken nose....I prefer that.

Anyways, just as our schedule was winding down Derrick and I had to say goodbye to some dear friends Travis and Claire. Derrick introduced us just over a year ago. He set up a dinner date so I could talk shop with them. I ended up selling them a house last May and I just had to sell their house again. Claire got a job at Tufts University up in Massachusetts. It's bitter sweet because they have become very close friends over the last year and we typically would hang out 2-3 times a week. It's sweet though because this is Claire's dream job. She's been trying to crack into veterinary pharmacy and she got her break! Here's a picture at our goodbye dinner (even though we saw them every day for the three days after up to them leaving :)

You notice the title of this post was Ups and Downs. The down is Claire and Travis moving away. The UP is my key fob randomly started working!!!! Remember when I was sure my life had ended? Well! My key fob just randomly started working! I was convinced for a while that Derrick switched his key with mine without me knowing....he's sweet like that. But he swears he didn't. I don't know what happened. Maybe it needed time to charge? Maybe the battery just needed to rattle into the right position? Maybe I had suffered enough?! Either way, my life has vastly improved. Derrick thinks I may be happier then I was on our wedding day. No.......

Derrick=Firebolt Laurie=Cleansweep 0.0

If you don't get that reference you need to get your Harry Potter read on. Derrick and I re-started the books for probably the millionth time a couple weeks ago. I started Book 1 when he started Book 2.  I am now on chapter 10 of Book one.  Derrick just started Book 5.....

That's all. We both find this hilarious and wanted to remember it :)

Frisbee, Friends, and Puppies!

This past weekend Derrick and I headed to Asheville for Hodown, an ultimate frisbee tournament. We pit-stopped in Hickory on Friday night to visit with my parents and make sure Jack got to the fields on time :) We were expecting major rain all weekend so were pleasantly surprised when we didn't have any rain during the games...just some rain at night. Since the fields were turf it didn't affect our ability to play at all.

We didn't play our best but we did have fun. We had 4 games on Saturday and then went to dinner with Derrick's dad. It was in downtown Asheville and it was delicious!! I've only been to Asheville a handful of times and it's either been for Hodown or to go to the Biltmore. Derrick and I will definitely be going back as tourists once our weekends free up a bit.

When we got back to Blue's house the dogs had a party! Crosby is not a dog lover but she does love Alison's dog Maebe and Blue's dog Jake. They've been hanging out since Maebe was a baby so they've all learned to love each other. We were missing Shannon but it was really good to spend some time with Alison and Blue.

This picture was really difficult to get.

Sunday we had three more games. We ended up winning the first, losing the second, and winning the last game. It was kind of a weird tournament....everybody had fun but nobody really played their best and definitely didn't place where we could have. I do love the multi-colored green jerseys though. I think I would design them all to be different shades of a green again even if they were the same jerseys...I just really like the look :)

First World Problem to the Max!

Alright guys, I expected to have a very encouraging post today about how you too can overcome that big first world problem in your life! However, my fix failed miserably and I'm still having said first world problem.

My first world problem is my key-fob to my car. My button stopped working! For a while it was on and off and you just had to give it a good shake. Then it got worse and I would have to drop my keys on the ground for it to work. Then it completely stopped working. It's making my life so much harder!!!! (I told you...first world problem. Let's take a moment to remember I am actually really blessed and this is not a real problem) Ugh!! So hard! My life, my life!!

So, I thought I was doomed forever until Derrick and I were in Lowes recently :) I love Lowes right now BTW :) We were near the checkout line and this battery stand near the checkout desk had a "Test Your Car Key Battery" thing. You just press the unlock/lock button next to this little sensor and it will tell you if your key battery is working. I tested mine and, no surprise, my battery was dead. It's OK though! Under the battery tester was a whole rack of car key batteries! My life was officially improving in front of my eyes! Derrick did a quick Google search only to realize that the kind I needed was not available in the store. Amazon to the rescue!!

5 brand new batteries arrived in my mailbox yesterday and I rushed upstairs to try them out. I unscrewed the tiniest little screw, pried the key open, and switched out the battery. Ran downstairs and........ nothing.  It's OK I thought! I didn't put the screw back in! Maybe it needs more pressure! So I ran upstairs, tightened the screw into place and ran back downstairs...... nothing. This is where I started to doubt but I still had a beacon of hope. Maybe this battery was dead. It was freshly packaged but maybe, just maybe, it was the battery.  So, back upstairs I went, I re-unscrewed the tiny screw, pried the key apart, and tried another one. Then I ran back downstairs........nothing. So I ran back upstairs and re-screwed the little screw and ran back downstairs.......nothing.

So, here I sit, still having to actually insert my key into the door to get into my car and also having to remember to hit the lock button when I leave my car.

Life is so hard.

Paper Flowers

Remember when I was gushing about Holly's bouquet on her wedding day? How her mom made all of the paper flower and they were gorgeous??

Holly's sweet mom sent me a whole package full of templates, instructions, and even a website to get the best paper for these flowers. I'm probably not going to make mine this big. I want a brightly colored bouquet for my desk that is super pretty but no care required. It may mean I get no work done and just sit there like this all day though...

I need to order the paper and they don't re-stock til October so my progress might be slow unless I can find the paper somewhere else. I'll definitely post the results....even if it's a fail...which the odds are good.