Rehearsal Dinner

I have very little pictures from the rehearsal dinner for some reason. I don't even have one of myself or Jason there! But it was a wonderful night. We all made it through a HORRIBLE thunderstorm to the few blocks to Steve's Cafe American. I guess maybe I'm glad that there are no pictures of me - I looked like a drowned rat! The food was delicious and we all had a great time. The highlight of the night was my mom, Rachel, and Susan doing Super Trooper for me (from Mamma Mia!) with Sami, Jaime, and Cassidy as their back up singers. It made me laugh until I was crying. Here are some pictures from the concert, as well as some of the guests.

Our good friends of the family, Steve and Teri:

Andy and Steve. Steve will be Andy's best man in his wedding in January.

Some of Jason's family. His cousin Susie, Aunt Audrey, his brother and best man Jeff, and his sister-in-law Lori.

Jason's brother Jeff and his wife Lori.

Jeff and Lori's children (our niece and nephew) Morgan and Austin.

A friend of Jason's family, Jessica, and Jason's dad, Larry.

Jason's mom, Norma, and a friend of their family, Barb.

Rehearsal

Our rehearsal went surprisingly smooth. I was expecting a train wreck - with 30 people in the wedding party and about 30 more people there to watch, I couldn't see how it was going to be a smooth evening. Our pastor did a really great job of keeping people on track and telling Jason and me exactly what we needed to know. Of course there were some minor issues, but I was so pleasantly shocked by how well it all went. Here are a few pictures of the whole event:

Jason waiting for me to walk down the aisle. I love how nervous he looks. He didn't look this nervous the next day so I guess he got it all out right now.

My mom about to give me away for practice. It was so nice to have my mom there by my side. I couldn't ask for a stronger and more amazing person to be right there with me. I love that we all (Jason, my mom, and me) held hands up there together.

Going through the whole ceremony itself. We didn't say our real vows at this time. He had us say things like, "I, Kelli, promise to put the ring on the right finger." He also gave us lots of good advice on what to do if the ring wouldn't fit (like that would ever happen, ha!) or if the rings were dropped (which they weren't!).

And practicing our recessional. We're happy right now because of the music that is being played - Widor's Toccata. Ahhhh...

But now, for the good stuff. There are so many reasons that we chose to have ALLLL of these people in our wedding. These pictures give you a pretty good explanation of some of those reasons.

First of all, we have these precious little girls spinning around with their flower baskets on their heads. I love how much fun they're having.

Next, we have Chase and Aiden having pillow fights with the ring pillows. These pictures sparked quite a controversy because we wanted the boys to carry our real rings instead of pretend ones. As you can probably imagine, some people didn't think this was the most brilliant move on our part, but we decided to trust these handsome boys, and they did a perfect job! I think it's because they got all the pillow fighting out of the way during the rehearsal!

My poor, dear, sweet flower girls stranded at the front of the church because no one told there where to go when it was over! I think they're quite amused with themselves in this one.

Oh silly kids, you say! Don't be fooled.

The following is a picture of MY BRIDESMAIDS - grown women - doing The Wave. I hear rumors that the handsome gentlemen were doing the same, and more, but no one managed to get their shenanigans on film.

(By the way, neither Jason or me had any idea that any of this was happening! Only later were we told about all of this naughtiness...)

Oh, how I love these people.

License to Divorce???

Before Jason and I could say "I do," one of our tasks was to go get a marriage license. It was the most interesting experience... not at all what I expected. First of all, we had my youngest sister Cassidy with us. Not a big deal, I always have some part of my family with me.

However, as we approached the building (which, by the way, was ORANGE, and I'm not sure why), I realized that we weren't the only ones around with a child. No, virtually every couple we saw going to get their licenses had a baby or toddler with them. I told Jason that we won with the oldest kid in possession at the marriage license office.

So off we go with our illegitimate 8-year-old in hand, and we enter the weirdest little room that has church pews to sit on while you wait. I told you, it was weird. We finally got up to get helped by one of the many women in there who were sort of sitting around chatting, and definitely NOT working. We were called up by a woman whose name we swore was "Bruschetta." Turns out we were wrong. Of course she wasn't named after a food! Silly us. It was Pashetta. Last name - Blu.

So Pashetta Blu takes our information and asks us to go sit down and review the Florida Marriage Handbook while she processes our information. I'm actually looking forward to this because I think, foolishly, that it might contain some good tips. Instead, we end up reading a primer on how to get divorced. Including what to do with your children who are involved (I guess that makes sense, considering all the children who were in the room). Oh and there were also some tidbits on abusive relationships. Just what Jason and I wanted to read about as we are preparing for our marriage. How about, state of Florida, we focus on preventing divorce and abuse by offering some helpful tips on how to have a healthy and happy marriage?! (By the way, I'm not picking on Florida - I'm pretty sure all states have books exactly like this.)

Anyway, after giving us more than enough time to read this handy book, Pashetta Blu calls us back up so we can swear that we are single and not siblings or cousins, before she signs our marriage license. Oh and yes, that does mean that, for all eternity, our marriage license is signed with the name "Pashetta Blu." I can't wait to show our children one day.

One thing that we kept hearing about getting a marriage license was that you have to get blood taken before you're allowed to get married. Although that's not true anymore in most places, be warned that there might be a bloodbank sitting outside of the courthouse once you're finished. The guy in that bloodback probably won't let you leave without giving blood. Trust me, I know. I guess you have to anyway.

And some pictures for your enjoyment, taken by the 8-year-old herself...

Snapfish Fun!

Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry is giving away gift certificates to snapfish.com.

Go read her blog (she's funny!) and enter her giveaway!!!!

Girls' Weekend!

I want to spend the next few posts going back over the last few months and post some of the great things that have been happening lately!

A few weeks before the wedding, some of my favorite girls planned a pretty amazing weekend for me at the beach. We had such a great time, and I wanted to post some pictures on here to remember that fun time!

This weekend was full of SO many great times...

The first thing everyone should know is that this weekend was a total surprise to me. They told me to leave the weekend open, and that was it. SO here am I being surprised:

The whole house was decorated and looked great!

We wore cute shoes...

We had fun and girly drinks....

We went dancing...

We drank barbeque sauce? No, just Erin did that...

We spent a little time at the beach and pool...

We spent time laughing, talking, and just being girls!

Summer, Loryn, Erin, Rachel, and Kelly, I had the BEST time during this weekend, and I miss all of you so much! I hope you enjoy these pictures as much I do!

Here We Go...

Hey everyone,

Well Jason and I have been married for about 3 1/2 wonderful weeks now, and during that time, I have to say that I have made some excellent food for him to eat. It's weird because I wasn't sure how I was going to do with the whole cooking thing, but I have really gotten into it! I love planning ahead what we're going to eat for the next week, going shopping to get all the ingredients, and making a really great meal each night. It's one of my most favorite things I've ever done before, and I had no idea that it would be! I have to give credit to the place where I've found most of these recipes - Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine, as well as this wonderful blog my friend Kelly told me about - The Pioneer Woman.

So speaking of blogs, I've gotten hooked on reading lots and lots of them. You can see the list on my profile on here. As I'm reading them, Jason has been asking me, "So when are you going to start yours?" My first reaction was that I was never going to have a blog - I didn't think anyone would be interested in reading what I had to write. But the more I read and thought about it, I realized it would be an excellent way to keep our family and friends up to date with what's going on in our new life together. And, if anyone else gets enjoyment out of reading it, that's great too!

So I have a blog now. And yes, the title of this blog is supposed to be clever - we love the famous actor Jimmy Stewart. One of Mr. Stewart's most famous movies is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Jason and I happen to live on Washington Street. I thought it was funny, but I'm not sure if anything that requires that much explanation actually is funny... Anyway, I'm sticking with it because I like it!

Now to end this post, I'm going to leave you with a few pictures from our honeymoon... I don't think anyone has seen any of these yet, so enjoy! By the way, it's a lot more difficult to have pictures as a couple taken on your honeymoon than I realized it would be. This is one of only a few pictures we have of the two of us, and most of the rest are taken by me... and other people never quite take them the way you were hoping!

But anyway, this is our hotel, The Athenaeum in the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. It is big and beautiful and old, and it was the first hotel to have electric lights in it. It was also very wobbly and the floors looked like roller coasters because they were so warped. BUT we loved every inch of it!

This is the massive, unbelievable, outdoor pipe organ. We heard some amazing things played on this organ, and later I'll try to upload some of the videos we took of it.

This is where we ate breakfast every morning - so beautiful and peaceful!

Well that's it for now! Much more to come soon. Now I'm off to meet my lovely husband for lunch!