Life Tour - Show Us Your Wedding Dress!

One of my fav blogs is hosting a tour where you link to her with a post about your wedding dress! Since we just celebrated 3 years I decided to play along!

My dress was from David's Bridal. It was Oleg Cassini. One thing I thought was really cool is that Oleg Cassini designed lots of dresses for Jacki Kennedy. My dress was ivory with a lace overlay of beads. It looked vintage and I loved it from the moment I tried it on! I loved that the neckline dipped slightly in the center. I also bought a ivory satin ribbon that I tied at the waist in a bow.

Thanks for looking! :)

Smithsonian

The gypsy (that's me) has landed. This week: my office in Washington DC for some training. Is it weird that I've only been to my "office" twice in the past 10 months? I guess that's the global world we live in. I seem to go everywhere besides the "office"! I'm actually glad to be here though because I *love* DC. Last time I was here stuff (WORK) got in the way of my dreams of strolling through all the museums, but this time... I'm making time! In fact, my plane landed today and I drove straight to the Smithsonian. I'm determined, you see. Then I realized I forgot to pack my camera. Crap. I hate self-photos (holding your arm out and trying to take a pic of yourself - you know you've done it too!), but I especially hate doing it with a cell phone. But.. that's all I had. So here are the pictures I got on the Smithsonian - Natural History Museum (yes, the one from Night at the Museum).

Self portrait of the lobby

This was awesome: it's like a 15ft coral. I would love to borrow this as decor for my "sea" bathroom... hmm...
The best for last. THE HOPE DIAMOND. It's the size of my palm practically. My birthday is coming up, dear.

A-B-C!

I saw this idea on another Brittany's blog (we have so much in common!) and thought it would be fun. I'm tagging two of my favorite blogs at the end of this :)



A-Age: I'm 25 but I always forget how old I am and accidentally say "22"! Haha!
B-Birth date: November 14th. Exactly 9 months to the day after Valentine's Day. Thanks, Mom.
C-Chore you hate: That would be vacuuming. I hate how loud it is and the cord is always in the way and you have to lug it up/down stairs. Ughh.
D-Dog's name: "Boomer". From the chant at the University of Oklahoma "BOOMER SOONER!".
E-Enter or Exit: Odd question, but I'll say Enter. I like to make an entrance!
F-Favorite color: Turquoise and green. There's probably turquoise in every room of my house.
G-Gold or silver: White gold, or better yet, Platinum! *lol*
H-Hair color: dark dark dark brown.
I-Instrument: I got nothin'. My favorite instrument to use is my voice, but I prefer talking to singing. Ha!
J-Job Title: Engineer/Travel Extraordinaire.
K-Kids: Bring 'em on!
L-Living arrangements: Our little family of three in Kansas (me+the hubs+the pooch).
M-Monkey or Moose: Monkey. They're so intelligent it's almost creepy.
N-Nicknames:Brit
O-Odd thing about you: I wish I lived in the 1950s and I'm obsessed with I Love Lucy.
P-Pet Peeve: When people drive slow in the passing lane.
Q-Quote from a movie: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. " – When Harry Met Sally
R-Right/Left Handed: Right.
S-Siblings: One sister who is 11 months older. We're the same age for about a month every year!
T-Time you wake up: 5am when I'm traveling for work. 9am when I'm home for the day.
U-Underwear: I've got quite the assortment. I love buying underwear.
V-Veggie you dislike: I just can't get on board with bell peppers.
W-What makes you run late: Incorrectly estimating how long it will take to tame the mop on my head.
X-X-Rays: Several on the hip after I broke it last year.
Y-Yummy food you make: Everyone begs for my cheese dip. I make a wickid Monster Cookie and Fruit Pizza too.
Z-Zoo Animal: Anything from the Africa exhibit. I love the elephants.

I'm tagging: Shawna and Kristin :)

Show n' Tell

I've got some new stuff around the house I want to show you!

First of all, my parents came to visit Joe and I last week after they had been on vacation in Arkansas. While they were in AK they were browsing some antique stores and found this vintage chest and they said "it had your name written all over it". They surprised me with it when they got here. I have no idea how, but they rode with this thing in the back of their truck all the way to Kansas! Thank God it didn't rain! Two things I love most about it: it has the original skeleton key for the lock and it's cedar. You knoooow how good cedar smells! So here it is...
Can you see in that picture that I finally finished the curtains I MADE for the Living Room? Yes, you read that right, I bought the fabric months ago, had it shipped here and sewed them right up yesterday afternoon. I'm a regular Martha. Oh... you can see the new throw pillows here too. I'm huge into throw pillows and so is Boomer, the dog. He manages to molest each one until it's without any corners left and there is stuffing poking out. I buy a lot of throw pillows. So, there's no way I'm willing to spend any more than $10 on any one pillow (because I know the pillow's fate! Ha!).

Boomer is waiting until I leave the room to cause havoc

Have you noticed that I'm trying to decorate this house on the cheap? Joe says I spend money like he's printing it in the basement. Now that we've got a mortgage looming over our heads I'm trying to economize! Here's my $14.99 doormat...

I'm a sucker for anything with an "H" on it

I also finally managed to get something hung on the walls in the Living Room. I'm going for earthy-casual-rustic so I found these vintage textbook prints of trees for ONE DOLLAR each! I had them matted and framed at Hobby Lobby (during the 50% off frames sale no less!). I think they work, don't you?

Haunted Weekend

I just got home from a spooky weekend and it's not even Halloween. For a couple months, Joe and I had been planning a weekend to Atchison, Kansas with some of our best friends Jill and Michael. Do you know about this town? It's considered one of the most haunted towns in the country. No joke, this place has been all over the Discovery Channel and there are many, many books written about the haunted happenings here. You totally couldn't plan something more fun to me - I LOVE all things haunted, scary, ghosts, etc! Unfortunately, Joe ended up being on call all weekend, so I ended up driving up to Jill & Michael's alone. Bummer, but they're not the kind of friends that would make me feel like the 3rd wheel.

One cool thing about Atchison is that it is the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. They actually made her home a historical site.

Amelia's house - she had it alright didn't she?!

Sitting on Amelia's front porch. You know how much I love cute porches!

The Missouri River runs right through town so we took some pictures on the bank.

I call this our Lesbian Engagement Picture. ;-)

Ain't this cute?

During the trolley tour we visited about 10 houses that have a history of paranormal activity.
By the way, our shirts say "Have you seen the ghost of Sallie?" Sallie is probably one of their most favorite poltergeists. She died during an appendix surgery and haunts her childhood home to. this. day. *evil laugh*
This was one of my favorite houses. 18 people have died here. One was an old lady who died and wasn't discovered for weeks. When they did find her they discovered her pets had started to eat her. Yikes... I don't get why she would want to "linger".
At the end of the night, we ended up meeting some really cool people and crashed their room at a bed and breakfast in town. We're smooth talkers, I tell you.

The B&B

Anniversary

Whew! What a weekend!

First of all, I must say that Friday was our 3 YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! It sounds so sappy but I truly love this man more now than I did three years ago. We have grown so much and done and seen so many things together, I can't imagine life without Joe.

Joe looked up the traditional gifts and we found out that the 3-year gift is supposed to be leather. I got him a new belt and some other things and he brought home flowers and ordered me a new wallet (Louis Vuitton no less! Yahoo!). On Friday I went to the Ronald McDonald house to spend a few hours volunteering because I didn't have to work. Joe finally got home from work at about 6pm and we got dressed up and got in the car to find somewhere to eat that was fancy. We drove around and drove around. Nothing sounded good. So we ended up at Pei Wei. Not so fancy but tasty anyway! We came home, hung out and went to bed early.

Then, on the 4th Joe had to get up early to do rounds on his patients but we did hang out all afternoon. We actually worked on more unpacking in our master bedroom. Then, we grabbed dinner out and came back home hoping to see fireworks. Well.. we were lucky because we sat on our front porch and could see TEN firework shows. I guess they're big into the 4th here in Wichita! Haha! It is my FAVORITE holiday so I loved just sitting out there and hearing the crickets and seeing the lightning bugs and watching the huge fireworks show.