Nick's cake

Yesterday we went to visit our cake lady in Moulton. Her name is Clara Kloesel if anyone is looking for a baker. She was very sweet and does a heck of a job. I haven't tasted any of her cakes, that I know of anyway, but I've heard lots of great things from people that have used her. She can make the cake I want for $1.10 a slice! The luxury of living and getting married in a small town....things like wedding cakes are cheap rather than $5-7 a slice! She really impressed me! Nick couldn't really decide on how he wanted his cake to look....his only requirement was that it have a tractor on it. BIG SURPRISE! I knew that I wanted Nick to have a big cake too. It would only be fair that way. I think Mom came up with the idea of having a barn with a tractor going into it a long time ago. So, that's all we ever really came up with. Boy are we having a barn! He's going to have a barn to feed 300 people and the barn is going to be on top of two other cakes so that the tractor can sit on a cake. I think it's going to be awesome. Mine will be white with strawberry filling. Nick's barn is going to be chocolate and the bottom is going to be italian cream. Yummmmmm!

I emailed Clara this morning, thanking her for her time and took care of a few other minor details. I also asked if I could buy a sample of a few cakes. She quickly responded with great news. She will make us samples on October 20th for no charge! She's already going to be making some cakes so it wouldn't be a problem to make a sample. Small town people rock! We'll be sampling the white with strawberry, chocolate, italian cream, and red velvet.

The 3rd Bad Dream!

I forgot to mention my 2nd nightmare that happened while we were at the engaged encounter. I guess I was stressing about not having a photographer and only 6 months til the wedding. So, my dream was that we FORGOT to hire someone. How do you FORGET to hire a photographer? We were frantically calling the photographers in and around Shiner to see if they were available...I was desperate! We sent off our deposit today for our photographers so no more stressing about that.

Last nights dream was just as bad, if not worse. I dreamt about the entire wedding...from my dad walking me down to the altar down to us leaving for the honeymoon! I was at the wedding but it flew by so fast that I didn't get to talk to anyone. I know that day will be fast and it kinda makes me sad, especially since we are putting so much time and money into it. They should last a couple of days! Anyways, the worst part was we were in Houston at a hotel by the airport. Nick was in charge of the alarm so that we would wake up on time. He turned the alarm off and was just going to lay there a few extra minutes which turned into a few hours. We missed our flight! I finally woke up because I was crying in my sleep! Now we will be setting at least two alarms so we don't miss our flight.

We are up in the air on what we are doing the night of our wedding...we will probably leave the wedding at 11:00 or midnight. We don't know what to do next. It will be at least a 2 hour drive to the George Bush airport and we are supposed to be there 2 hours before our flight. Our flight is at 6am. This was probably a mistake on our part, but I don't think there were any flights later than 6am on that day. We have a few options.
1) Stay at the bed and breakfast in Shiner for a few hours that night and drive to Houston or have someone drive us there at 2am.
2) Rent a limo to take us to the airport.
3) Get to Houston and stay at a hotel for a few hours at the airport.

Needless to say, we are confused!

I'm in love!

Heather really saved my life! She found Serendipity Photography in Austin and I finally chose them as our wedding photographers. I'm VERY VERY VERY excited about meeting Alice and her gang and having them capture our memories to tell our story. She is such a sweet lady....she's been very patient and friendly to me through our numerous phone calls and emails. I'm mailing off their deposit today...especially after our last conversation.

Here are our last emails....

Alice,
I am SO pumped about having you guys at my wedding. I love ya'll already! Thank you so much for being so friendly and easy to work with. I fully trust you in capturing all the special moments on our special day. Can't wait to meet you and the gang!

Jenny


From Alice:

Haha, me too! I'm so excited about your wedding! I already feel like I'm going to a friend's wedding :) How nice is that! We're gonna get a lot of great pictures. I'm going to ask our other photographers to join if they can.

Can't wait to see you and work with your big familiesss! (gotta add more ses for the 1200 people)

See you soon!
Alice

Another weekend here...

The time is FLYING by. Thank God we didn't decide to have the quick 6 month engagement. I would have been a huge ball of STRESS! Nick and I will be on our way to Shiner tonight...headed for another busy weekend. This weekend we are going to start paying things off, which is exciting to me, but probably not so much for our parents. Did I mention how expensive weddings are? I think I'm being frugal, but it's still so dang much. Saturday we are planning to go to Warrenton to look for a few little odds and ends. If we get home early enough we will go to pay off the videographer and DJ. Hopefully, I'll get more invitations done in the down time. Saturday evening we will be headed to the Spann's for the annual "Dove Hunt." We won't participate in the hunting, but we'll definitely partake in the drinking and eating after the hunting. Sunday I want to go and visit with the cake lady and Father Bob. I guess I need to see if they are free before I get ahead of myself. Off to another weekend full of excitement. After all of that's done I'd really like to take a swim, but for some reason I doubt that will be happening. What happened to our summer break anyways?

Photographer!

Major things that are done:
-Church and hall are booked
-Videographer
-Caterer
-Florist
-Have my dress
-Have bridesmaid dresses
-Bought gifts for attendants
-Cakes (partially done)
-DJ
-Decorations

Need to be done:
-Guest list..........YUCKO!
-Photograher
-Finish invitations

I think we've decided on a photographer, thanks to my cousin Heather. We just need to present it to our parents. The photographers we are looking at are out of Austin and Houston. Their website is www.serendipity-photography.com if you want to check them out. This was the hardest decision to make so far because I am so picky about photos. First of all, I want the photos to be really good and tell our story. Second, I want someone that will include the CD of pictures in the cost. It's hard to find good photographers who are willing to give you the CD so you can make pictures for your own personal use. These photographers do! I'm really excited and ready to book them. We're going to Shiner this weekend so I'll tell Mom and Dad about them then and we'll go from there! Check out the website...especially their blog. Thanks, Heather for sharing your great find!

Funny story

I thought that this was a funny story from our EE weekend. As we were sitting and waiting for everything to kick off on Friday night we were watching the people walk in. One guy has on a John Deere cap and t-shirt and really doesn't want to be there. He starts walking towards us, and I told Nick, "Here comes your type of person." As I looked at him, I thought he looked familiar. I looked at his nametag and it said Steven Chumchal....a 2nd cousin of mine. No wonder he was Nick's type of person, he was one of me!

Drained

I'm physically and emotionally pooped from this weekend. But it was all good. Usually when I have a negative attitude towards something, it turns out to be really good. This past weekend we attended the Catholic Engagement Encounter. This was one of those instances where I was negative and it turned out wonderfully. Lots of people told me that it wasn't so bad and then there were others that said it was a waste. As we pulled into the Spiritual Renewal Center we caravaned behind several other cars that were creeping along. No one was in a rush to get there. We both wanted to turn around and go back home. However, we already forked over the $200 and definitely want to get married, so we stayed. We walked into the check-in room where we immediately had a huge sigh of relief. There were only a handful of couples that had already checked in so there were lots of nametags laying out on a table. Just glancing through them I knew lots of couples. Nick only knew one other couple from Wharton. We both were glad that we knew someone there. We both went to the car to get our bags so we could claim our beds. My dorm was Jerusalem. Another sigh of relief when I walked in and found one set of bunk beds, one double bed, and no one in the room! Thank goodness it was not one cabin full of bunks. I claimed the big bed since I was there first. The next nerve-racking thing was to see who my roomies would be. All I can say is poor Nick. He had the two biggest thugs there as his roomies. I only had one roomie, one of the thugs fiances. Neither one of them would talk to us. You hate to be judgmental at a church camp, but we were! (The other couples that we were around agreed with us, so we didn't feel so bad!) The first evening there we did 3 dialogue sessions. Basically, the whole weekend consists of these host couples telling of their experiences with each topic. They would talk for a while, the couples would split up, we'd write about the topic, join back together and discuss the topic with each other, and then go back to the meeting room and start on another topic. We did 3 of these topics the first night. Nick and I were a little emotional the first night. Most of the time you tell each other the things you love about them and things you want to work on. We always tell each other this stuff and we always give each other cards or love letters saying these things, but we got to expand on it on a different level. Saturday morning was the worst part. It drug on, mainly because we didn't know when we would have a break or lunch or how many of these dialogues we'd have to do. We had lunch and a two hour break so that really made us happy! You're not supposed to bring alcoholic beverages to this "sacred" place and you're not supposed to leave. Well, lots of people left and we did too. We went to the nearest gas station and bought an 18 pack of Bud Light for the evening! We got back and had a few more sessions. For supper, the host people made the dining hall into a more romantic setting. It was really nice...candlelight, wine, sharing of banana splits! We went back and had a few more sessions. When we got back the last time the chairs were set up facing your fiance and the lights were off. Each couple had a candle and they played some sappy music. We were to hold hands while a lady read us stuff about marriage. It was very sweet and EMOTIONAL! All you could hear was sniffling! It really made me think of being up at the altar with Nick and saying our vows as we peer into each others eyes. I always knew that I'd be a basketcase at the altar and this made me see it even more. I'm sure I'll look pitiful with make-up running all over my face. After all of that, we went to our vehicles and had a little pasture party. It was sooooo much fun! It was like we were in high school all over again. Sneaking around and breaking a few rules. (Not that I broke rules when I was in high school!) So, we're at Troy's truck and someone comes up in a golf cart. We immediately freak out...throwing our styrofoam cups of beer down and walking away. (I didn't) The lady comes up and says that we need to be quieter or go down the road a piece....where they drank when they came to the EE! She said that they (all of the host couples) are doing the same thing but on the opposite end of where we were and they could hear us. She didn't want one of the couples that were sleeping to come complain to them. WHAT? They were totally OK with our little party. We continued until about 12:30 and decided to go to bed since it would be another early morning. Sunday came and we finished up a few sessions. Another emotional day! We had to write a Betrothal, love letter/pledge to your fiance. Tears again. Then when we came back we had to pick someone to write a letter to, alive or deceased. They read an example that one couple wrote to their deceased mother/motherin-law. More tears! We started writing our letters and MORE TEARS! Finally it was lunch time. After lunch we got our certificates and a crucifix. It ended up being really great! Of course there were some low points where we just wanted to go home, but all-in-all it was awesome. Nick and I never thought we would be closer to each other, but we are and we're so glad we went!