She's got a NEW 'DO!

Yes, I have a brand new hairdo :) And I LOVE IT! I finally took the plunge and made an appointment to get rid of the LONG mop.  I wanted to cut it a long time ago, but with the wedding I wanted long, pretty hair. Now that that is over, I needed a new married woman look :) AND I found a great back-up reason- I had plenty of length to donate my locks to locks of love.  They require a 10 inch minimum, and I had about 14. 
There was only one problem, I felt really bad because my absolute favorite hair dresser is 150 miles away and I had to let a previous hair dresser chop away at the locks.  I felt like I was betraying my amazing stylist.  The girl who cut it is actually the only hairdresser I have ever used in Auburn, so I was not very reluctant to give her a call; however, it has been about 3 years since I had seen her.  I knew I had to decide on someone local to cut my hair because I can't just run home in the middle of the week anymore and spend 4 or 5 days with mom and dad just to have my hair cut. So, I called up the ex-stylist (This sounds like a crazy break up story, I know, but hair dresser relationships become very important!) and she cut away. 
Since I had decided on locks of love, you have to cut the hair in a ponytail or braid.... Here is what my 10 inches looks like.... And, for some strange reason it grosses me out every time I touch it.

And, for every person who is jealous of thick hair, don't be! The picture isn't great but here is a cross-section view of that  mop...

It had to be razored before it could even be cut because it is so thick and tough!

I have no regrets and am so glad that hair is finally gone. Best diet ever, I probably lost five pounds and have decreased the load on my neck dramatically.  What does it look like now? Well, here goes...

I love it, Lance loves it, and Maximus loves it.  Hope you like it, too.

Jamaica, Mon :)

Yes, for our honeymoon we went to Jamaica, the loveliest place in the world.  If we could leave right now and go back we would not hesitate for a second. We stayed at the Sandals Grande in Ocho Rios and would recommend it everyone.  It was fantastic!!!
After the wedding, we left for Birmingham and stayed Friday night at the Tutwiler hotel.  We had a beautiful room and a fantastic time there.  We had a bag of food packed for us from the wedding and devoured fruit, hummus, shrimp, and cake, of course :) We had to leave at 6 am Saturday morning to get to the Birmingham airport and begin our journey to Jamaica.  We left out of Birmingham at 8 am and arrived in Charlotte, NC an hour later, then boarded our flight that would land in Montego Bay, Jamaica :) We were so excited and enjoying every second as husband and wife.  We finally arrived in Jamaica around 2:30 local time Saturday afternoon.  We had to deal with immigration and customs, neither of which were too difficult, then board a bus that would take us to the resort.  The drive to our resort was about 2 hours from the airport. By the time we arrived in Ocho Rios, it was about 5pm and we were very graciously welcomed and began our check-in process. We were taken into the concierge lounge because we had been given an upgrade to our room.  We were expecting a beach side room (The resort has a mountain side and a beach side), however we were taken to a very nice suite type room on the mountain side.  We were a little confused since our previous room was a beach side room.  I am a beach BUM, and my sweet husband was going to do everything in his power to make me happy.  We decided we would rather just have the beach room. After A LOT of back and forth rides around the resort we arrived at our beach room....we were tired and very sleep deprived and arrived in a room that was slightly less than our expectations. We decided just to go to dinner, and hopefully it would be better when we returned (we were also STARVING!). We picked a restaurant nearby and were so ready for food. I didn't understand this 5-star dining operation, apparently.  I just wanted a salad, so I ordered a salad...I recieved ONE piece of lettuce with some toppings over it. The menus are designed for you to order an item from each selection... an appetizer, salad, soup, entree, and dessert and that makes a normal size meal.  We got back to the room and the news had reached our AMAZING  travel agent, she called and talked to Lance. She told us we weren't upgraded on the beach side because no rooms were open that day, but she would call and have our room changed the next day... and she did because like I said she is amazing! The next morning we got a call that our room would be changed at noon.  This is Sunday now, so that morning we spent the morning at the beach then changed rooms, to the most amazing, beautiful room ever!! The rest of the honeymoon was much less eventful, which is just like we wanted. 
I am not an adventurous person and after all the excitement and eventfulness of wedding week, I wanted to be lazy. Lance wanted to be Mr. Explorer and adventurous. I compromised some days and left my beach chair to kayak with him.... until we almost kayaked into a SHARK...,aqua cycle which was fun, and visit Dunn's River Falls which was incredible.  This was me everyday:

We ate A LOT. I had ice cream at least once, most days twice along with dessert with every dinner.  We had a favorite waiter, his name was Courtney. I can remember this because he looked just like Courtney Taylor, an old Auburn football wide reciever.  Lance would visit him about 9:00 every night and he would sneak us ice cream. Here is what he sent one night:

Oh, he was a doll.  We wanted a picture with him, but his restaurant was closed our last night :(  We also had a spa day. When we made our reservation we recieved a spa credit, and using it was one of the best parts of the honeymoon. 

Everyday, we had a new towel animal on our bed. This one was our favorite, we thought it looked like Maximus :)

Our honeymoon was wonderful. I loved everyday with my new, amazing husband.  At the end of the week, we hated to leave Jamaica but I was excited to start our REAL life together. 

Now, we are back in Auburn and enjoying every second together. We can't wait to see what all married life has in store. I still believe I am the luckiest girl in the world.  Hopefully we will see Jamaica again soon :)

Wedding Wedding Wedding

Since there is so much to catch up on, I decided to break the posts up for the wedding and honeymoon updates. So, here goes with the wedding review :) I could sum it all up into one word...PERFECT! But, I will elaborate :)

I guess the whole wedding day process kind of begins with rehearsal day. Thursday morning, Lance and I departed for the first time in a while. He went to stay with his family who had just arrived in town while I did some fun stuff with my bridemaids. That afternoon, my sweet MOH/best friend, Linnzie, stayed with me and we got ready for rehearsal. Of course, Lance and I had coordinating, wedding color themed attire :)

Rehearsal and dinner were great. It was so wonderful to have so many special people under one roof :) After rehearsal, Lance and I split ways not to see each other again until the big doors swung open and I was walking down the aisle :)

Now, on to the fun stuff! Wedding day finally arrived! It only seemed to take forever, and in an instant it was gone, but I promised myself I would enjoy every second of it....and that I did. My best friend, Linnzie, spent the night with me after rehearsal...no worries, no parties, we crashed about 10 pm :) We woke up the next morning to open my sweet wedding gift from Mr.Haney. A beautiful engraved jewelry box.  He had engraved the sweetest little love note on it and it plays "My Girl" when opened. I got Lance Newton running shoes, they are his own little piece of heaven.  
I had to check us in online for our flight the next morning to Jamaica, but ran into many complications and ended up in tears over the airlines.  Our wonderful travel agent, however worked everything out, and we were able to handle everything at the airport the next morning. After the stress from the airline, I went for a little treadmill run to calm my nerves.  My sweet, amazing, incredible bridesmaids arrived at my house early afternoon along with my hairstylist who did all of our hair, and an amazing job at that! We had the best time just hanging out and relaxing with each other.  I don't know how many people can say this, but I had the best bridal party ever. They are beautiful on the inside and outside. These 4 girls are truly my BEST friends,each one of them has stuck by my side through every good time and bad. I didn't ask any of them to be my bridesmaids out of fear for hurt feelings or to make sure everyone was included which is sadly what some brides must do to avoid hurt feelings, I asked my girls because I could not imagine such a special day without them.



 I was a very calm and excited bride. I had no need to worry or be frantic, I was about to marry my prince charming. We got to the church a little before 5, which we were a little late from my specific itinerary, but I tried not to be too bossy. I was so excited, but had a little anxiety... I had to fit in my dress! All the girls got ready because it took an army to get me in mine so I had to wait! They looked beautiful, the dresses were all perfect. Finally, I couldn't take the wait any longer and had to get in my dress. It went on perfectly.  Everything came together more perfect than I could have ever imagined. Our photographer was incredible, Candace and Tyler Hilley. Tyler shot the guys and Candace took the girls for pre wedding pictures. They were so fast and awesome. We were ahead of schedule. So, we had some time to sit and wait...thankfully we had the sweetest ring bearer and flower girls to entertain us.

Finally, it was wedding time.  My bridal party and I left the brides room and went upstairs to wait on our ques to walk. We had some time to wait around while the video played and parents walked.  Again, thank goodness for those sweethearts in the picture above. I have never laughed so hard at such a needed time. They were so sweet and giggly. Madison and McKenzie, the flower girls kept saying, "I am just SO EXCITED!" Asher, the ring bearer, was flirting with the girls and giggling the whole time....it was precious.  I was fine and very held together UNTIL it was time for Linnzie to leave me and get in line to walk. We have been BEST friend since we were 2 years old and been through EVERYTHING together. I told her I loved her and thanked her for everything, we burst into tears....I  pulled it together and met my daddy. He did so well.  It was finally time to see my sweetheart.  The doors burst open while the wedding march was playing. I couldn't look at anyone standing, my eyes were focused on the most handsome man I had ever seen standing at the end of the aisle, Lance.
The service was perfect. We had two officiants, both who are very dear. Rev.Wayne Shelton who was my pastor  growing up and like another daddy to me, and Rev. Chris Wilson who is the current pastor at our church in Corner. When Chris and his family came to New Temple, and Lance and I met them we just fell in love with them. Our ring bearer is actually their son :) So it meant so much to have both of them performing our ceremony. Bro. Wayne began with the marriage sermon. I have a FAVORITE bible verse and have always said it would be displayed at my wedding, and you bet it was. It is Song of Songs 8:6-7 and says:
       Place me like a seal over your heart,
       like a seal on your arm;
       for love is as strong as death,
       its jealousy unyielding as the grave. 
       It burns like blazing fire,
       like a mighty flame.
  Many waters cannot quench love;
       rivers cannot wash it away.
       If one were to give
       all the wealth of his house for love,
       it would be utterly scorned.

It was framed by my bride's cake and on the spread of our programs. Bro. Wayne begins the marriage sermon and he has based in on this verse. I found out later he had no idea how precious this verse is to me. When he was waiting with Chris and Lance before the wedding began, he opened the program and was surprised to see it listed... Amazing, just another perfect component. Then, Chris took over and being the funny man he is, cracked a joke that we were about to become Lancey :) It was PERFECT!  He did the rings and vows in which Lance being so precious shed tears. Again, it just made it PERFECT.  Lance kissed his bride and paraded me back down the aisle. We were MARRIED!   We had to run downstairs and cut the cake before returning for more pictures.... This is what we found:

Michelle McLaughlin did our cakes and we can't say enough great things about her.  That girl is talented! We could not imagine more perfect cakes! She also did these to complete our Auburn table:

We finished our pictures together, again with our amazing photographers and headed down to our reception. We were so blessed with all our wonderful friends and family who came to celebrate this exciting occasion with us. My mom has amazing friends who spent the week decorating, and it was truly breathtaking. Our sweet friends from Auburn who introduced us, Blake and Traci, made the journey to Corner, AL for our wedding along with many sweet friends of ours who we are so glad we got to spend this time with.  We left in a beautiful antique car, then spent the night at the Tutwiler hotel in dowtown Birmingham.  The most exciting part was tearing into the reception food that had been packed for us. We had hummus, shrimp, fruit, cheese. veggies, crackers, cookie dough from my sweet mother :), and CAKE!! It was heavenly.

Marriage is such a blessing and we can't wait for the rest of our lives together. We watched our wedding dvd last night upon returning to Auburn and I told Lance I never want to lose that look I had for him at our wedding. That is my prayer and desire. I love my husband more than words can describe and am so proud to be his wife :)

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding.  You can view them all on facebook, here is the link to the albym.

Also, we had a dvd that played at the beginning of the ceremony and have posted it to youtube, here is the link:

One more thing, we HIGHLY recommend our wonderful photographers! Their website is www.hilleyfotos.com and our pictures will be posted soon under the 'proofs' section.  They were such a blessing to have with us on our special day! Their packages are incredible and they are the sweetest couple.  From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Candace and Tyler!!!
And of course, if you live in the Corner/Dora area and haven't already heard about her, Michelle McLaughlin, our cake maker is FANTASTIC if you can't tell from the pictures above. Thank you, thank you, thank you sweet girl! We were blessed with great vendors!

Ok, here are pictures:

Countdown

We are finally on the final stretch of the wedding countdown! We can not believe it is finally here.  Lance and I arrived in Corner Saturday evening and I had a dinner with my bridesmaids that evening.  Since we have been home, it has been a very busy and eventful trip.  My sweet memaw has been in the hospital once again, and she has been very sick. Sunday morning Lance and I got up to go visit her with mom, but before we left we got one of those dreaded phone calls from her nurse. When the nurse made her rounds first thing Sunday morning, she found memaw unresponsive. We spent the entire day at the hospital, it was a long, hard, and very emotional day.  I would definitely say it has been one of the worst days I have ever experienced, this is how our wedding week began.  Since then, she has started to improve some but we never know what the next second will hold for her. Even in her worst times when we were visiting, she still managed to repeatedly ask about the wedding.  She is such a precious memaw. Lance and I are hoping to visit her tomorrow, and if she is up for it, we are going to take our wedding dvd and play for her. 
Also, we spent ALL day today at the church decorating for the reception, it was very exhausting but everything is coming together beautifully. Mom and I are going to pick up my wedding dress tomorrow, then Lance and I are going shopping  for some final items to take to Jamaica with us! I began packing tonight and was rather impressed with myself... only 3 pairs of shoes :)
It is definitely a time of mixed emotions. Part of me is ecstatic and so excited while the other part is grieving and hurting. I know memaw would just want us to be happy and celebrate this special time together, it is just hard when I see her in so much discomfort. One thing I have been consistently reminded of, though, is what an amazing man I am about to marry. He stands right by my side through every good day and bad. He is more than I could have ever asked for, and I am so lucky to be marrying him. 
I will definitely give a dress update tomorrow :) YAY!! I can't believe it's almost here!