Stocking up?

Matt is getting ready for his big bachelor party tomorrow. I'm thinking these may make for a great game of 'Sink the Biz'! Well, at least for about 30 minutes, right? : )

Since no girls are allowed at this man-party (at least not the ones that want to leave their clothes on!), I'm crashing at my sister's house for the weekend. I may not want to see what kind of shape the condo is in after the party or what kind of shape Matt is in Sunday morning! He told me I could come back home around dinner time on Sunday night. Wow!

My only request besides that Matt make it through the night without a visit to the hospital or the clink, is that there are no strippers in our house. That would wig me out to know that some stripper was taking her clothes off in my living room and God knows what else! Ick! Luckily, I think Matt feels the same way - or at least he tells me that to appease me. : )

Anyway... Matt - have fun, babe! And happy hangover on Sunday!

Wedding bands

Today, Matt and I went over to the jeweler at lunchtime to check out wedding bands.

Matt was really hoping for an invisible band, but he found a nice white gold one that he decided was wearable. I like it and I think it looks really nice on him! : )

The wedding band I picked out is going to match up with the side diamonds on my engagement ring. So, I had to leave my engagement ring with the jeweler to design the band. It feels weird not having it on. Like I put it down somewhere and forgot where.

We get the rings next Thursday and I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Decade of Dedication

That was the theme of the Sammy Fund event this year = 10 years! I think I missed just one of them when I was working in the Netherlands. I'm sure my golfing skills were not missed! ; )

Weekend recap...

Friday afternoon, Matt, Brett and I loaded up my dirty old car and drove to Quincy. It was a long drive, but we made good time. My uncle Chuck's friend hosts a party at his house on Friday night every year, so we checked into our hotel and headed over there. We had a few drinks, watched June on the local news and visited with everyone. I tried to find a video of her from the news, but I could only find audio from the radio program that she had done earlier. You can check that out here!

On Saturday morning, we got up bright and early for the 5k run/walk. It was a chilly morning, but the sun was shining and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Ready to run


I decided to do the run this year instead of walking. I did ok, but I have no idea what my time was. I forgot to check that out when I finished. I ran the first mile way too fast, but finished up at a better pace.

As is tradition, we all went to Jed's Brewhouse after the run for some chili dogs and beer. This year, Jed's donated the chili dogs and asked for food donations that they gave to the Sammy Fund... awesome!

Jed's Brewhouse


Yum... chili dogs!


Me and Gramma


After that, the girls went wedding dress shopping for Erin for a little bit, while the guys went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch football. Matt went golfing with Chuck and his friends... he had to practice up so he could carry our team on Sunday!

Saturday night, we all got together at my aunt Pat's house.

Chuck models his birthday presents from my mom... all at the same time. I think he looks ready for the Bahamas!


The Ottes threw Matt and me a couples shower and got us a nifty new set of luggage - such a nice gift!!!



My gramma gave us a guest book to use for my wedding and signed it from her and my grampa since they won't be able to make it to the wedding - very sweet!



We also got to practice our cake cutting/feeding skills. Matt failed miserably... he smashed the cake in my face! What a brat!!!





Since the whole fam was together, we took some pictures.

Gramma and Grampa with the grandkids


Me and Matt with Gramma and Grampa


Gramma and Grampa with their kiddos


Chuck "borrows" my camera


Some people went to the boat to lose their money, but I crashed! Too much wine, beer, food and good times for one day!

The big golf tournament was Sunday morning - tee off at 10:30am. We went over to my aunt's house to help the boys prepare their costumes. Every year, my cousins and brother dress up and this year was no different! They went back to the crowd favorite - the golfing Elvises. The masks were actually "tiny Elvis", but worked out fine. Vicky dressed up as Priscilla and Colin had some cool shades with side-burns.

The Golfing Elvises


Ready to tee-off


Elvis on board


Our golf team was my Dad, Ross, Matt and then my sister and I switch off - she plays the first 9 holes and I play the second 9. We ended up even par for the day, which is better than some years where we were in the plus range and "won" the prize for highest score. Now that we have Matt on the team, we don't have to worry about that anymore! : )

It got colder as the day went on, but the beer and chili dogs helped keep us warm!

After the golf, we went to the K of C for a pork-chop dinner and silent auction.

Yum... pork-chops!


Ross is not amused!


More cutouts... gotta love photoshop!


The real Chuck is the one with legs!


Matt was really hoping he'd win the 50-50 raffle this year... but, Erin actually won it! Funny! He won a fishing bag and we also bid on and got a set of 6 bottles of really nice wine. I can't wait to break into that!

This is the last year that they are going to do the big dinner and silent auction. They are going to scale back the weekend events next year, so that it is just the run/walk and the golf tournament. So, my uncle made a very nice speech thanking everyone for their dedication to the event. It takes a lot of people to make something like this run so smoothly every year!

We drove back to Rochester on Sunday night and crashed at my parents house. Matt and I got up before the sun on Monday morning and drove back to Chicago.

Such a great weekend! When we left, everyone kept saying "we'll see you in a few weeks in the Bahamas"... wow, I can't believe how close the wedding is getting!!!

Click here for more pics from the weekend. Enjoy!

TGIF

I'm really glad it's finally Friday. I could do without the rain, though.

Volleyball on Wednesday night was kind of a riot... our team was all over the place. I think we even got out of order when we rotated - seriously! We definitely have a few kinks to iron out after our summer off. We won one of the three games. It can only get better from here.

We are all heading back to Quincy this afternoon for the 10th annual Sammy Fund weekend... which includes a run/walk on Saturday morning (going to be chilly), a golf scramble on Sunday morning (again, burr), dinner and silent auction on Sunday night. It is always such a fun weekend - we get to spend time with lots of family and friends, eat chili dogs at 10am, golf, drink beer and raise money for a great cause! Most importantly, we remember my cousin Sam and how much we all loved her. She was only on this earth 10 years, but she had such a positive impact on everyone who knew her and she is dearly missed.

Tasting

Matt and I went last night for our tasting at the hotel we're having the New Year's Eve reception. We went through all sorts of details about the reception... I'm sure Matt's head was about to explode. Luckily, there was food and wine involved, so he survived. : )

Our wedding planner here in Chicago (Audrey) is awesome. She's been doing this a while and she has everything under control. Which is so nice - compared to the Bahamas, where I'm still not sure what is going to happen when we get there. I know I'm getting married (one month from today!!!), but I'm waiting to see how it all turns out!

They had a table set up for us to see all of the different ways they can fold a napkin. I originally looked at the table and didn't even notice that. I don't think Matt did either. Audrey asked us which one we liked and I could just see Matt's expression... he could not care less what the napkins look like. So, of course, I made him say what he liked first. ; ) Honestly, I'm not too particular about that either. People just pick them up and put them on their lap anyway. No one notices that stuff... except other brides planning their weddings, right???

On a completely different topic... I got my car back today ($800 later!). So much for that $500 I thought I was spending. A few more things were wrong than originally thought. Ugh! The car does drive better now that the steering has been fixed. And the annoying noises are gone. The mechanic told me my car was really dirty. Yep, dude, I know. Some random person in my parking garage wrote "wash me" on my car the other day. How rude is that! I crossed it out with my fingers... and then my fingers were all black. Awful. I should probably take the thing to a carwash before people mistake it for being gray and not black.

Tonight, volleyball starts back up. I'm excited to be back in the swing of the fall v-ball league, but it seems way too early. Where did the summer go??? Before we know it, bowling will be starting back up! Geesh!

Car = $$$

I dropped my car off this morning to get a tune-up and check out where that annoying rattling noise is coming from. Also, my car is pretty old, so I wanted to make sure that it's not dangerous for me to be driving the thing.

The mechanic called me and gave me the bad news that I would need about $500 worth of stuff done. Bummer. I had already told him I knew I needed a new fuel pump, but that wasn't happening. That would have jacked the cost up to over $1,500 and I'm not up for spending that right now.

The mechanic says to me "this car sits around a lot, doesn't it?" Ummm, not a big leap on his part considering the car is over 9 years old and only has about 40,000 miles on it. Plus, it's totally covered in dust. : )

Also, he was telling me that I might have a small oil leak, but nothing that would show up underneath my car or anything. I say to him "yeah, I would probably notice if I had a leak because I hardly ever get the oil changed, so I would expect the light to come on if I had a leak". He laughed at that statement... yep, I just said I never get the oil changed - oops. I meant it as a good thing that the leak can't possibly be that bad. : ) I realized the other day I hadn't taken my car in for an oil change for about a year - terrible! Mainly because I hadn't driven it even 2,000 miles yet since the last oil change.

I really hope my car holds out until at least next summer without any other major expenses... fingers crossed!

Bad blogger

I'm getting increasingly worse at keeping up with this blog lately. It's kind of like Facebook. I'm terrible at that as well.

I can't believe in about 30 days Matt and I will be on a plane to the Bahamas to get married! And on that plane will be about 10 of our relatives, too. We are all taking the same flight, so it will be like a big party! I'm so excited! : )

I've been trying to wrap everything up for the wedding in the Bahamas and also for the reception back here in Chicago by the end of October, so I'm not worrying about details on our honeymoon or have too much left to do when we get back.

This past week, my aunts on my Dad's side threw me a little bridal shower at my Aunt Amy's house in Arlington Heights. Erin and I drove out there after work on Thursday. Amy made a nice meal and we drank "p"imosas (as Sarah dubbed them; made with pomegranate juice instead of OJ) and caught up with each other. They got me some very nice gifts. An especially nice gift was something my aunt had been holding onto for a while. My grandmother had embroidered a table cloth for Matt and I just before she passed away and had given it to Amy to give to Matt and I when we got married. I was totally overwhelmed. I had no idea my grandma was working on anything for us. We weren't even engaged when she passed away... but, I guess she must have known.

She had these little tags she would sew to her work


The table cloth fits perfectly on our table. Matt said that if anyone spills on it, we might have to kill them. : )