A Day in the Life...

I cannot believe it's already Sunday night!??  Wow, the weekend flew by once again!  I had a good weekend even though parts of it were very hard :(

I got off work around 9 on Friday night and Ben, the dogs, and I headed to Columbia.  My older brother flew in from Colorado to see Grabby - his wife Lea could not come because she is TOO pregnant to fly :(    Grabby has declined a lot recently and his doctor told us mid-week last week that he would probably only live a few more days.  I was so worried that Jonathan would not be able to see him and tell him goodbye, but -thank God!- Grabby is still here with us! :)  I just continue to pray for peace and comfort for him from the Lord and that he is not in pain or scared.  Jon flew in Friday night around 7 and we spent most of the day at Grabby's house on Saturday.  I thought Grabby was more "out of it" this time than the last time I saw him.  We were all sitting in the living room and he was very quiet and kept falling asleep so we took him back to his room and tried to get him comfortable in his bed.  He has been having a really hard time sleeping so we were very thankful that he finally got some rest.  Our cousins Will and Christopher surprised us by coming by to visit as well.  It was good to see them since we really only see them during holidays because Chris is living in Charleston now in culinary school.. 

After a while we went to eat at Chipotle (I had never been there before but they had AMAZING guacomole) and then the guys (my dad, Michael, Jonathan, and Ben) went back to Grabby's and my mom and I went to fit in a little wedding shopping while Grabby was napping.. :)

We got some supplies from Michael's for some wedding favors.  We are going to have a few different favors (koozies, etc) but we also decided to get some pretty small white pouches, some coral ribbon, and heart-shaped charms to make little candy bags that we will put white personalized M&M's in for guests - we will either put our faces on them or 'Ben & Elizabeth' and the wedding date - or both.  We thought it would be a cute idea, and a little different..

We went by a few more places but didn't find too much more for the wedding.  We went by an invitation store that we were really excited about but it was closed :(  After we went shopping we went back to Grabby's for awhile longer, then my mom, Ben, and I stopped by our wedding photographer's house to go over a few things.  Our photographer is actually a very good family friend who happens to have an amzing talent!  We are very excited about him shooting the wedding and so is he! :) He has already been up to the venue twice and is going again at night so that he knows how the lighting will be, ect.  He had a TON of questions for us (What type of theme for the photography? Formal? Journalistic? When is this? When is that?  What is the wedding coordinator's email address? Can we do a test shoot? What are your must-have shots? and on and on and on!)  It was kind of overwhelming but I am glad that he is so excited about it, and I know he will do an excellent job :)

Afterwards we went back home and ate pizza that the boys had ordered (I ate soooo bad this weekend - back on the Wedding Diet hard core tomorrow), and played Risk until late.  FYI: our family is REALLY big on board games.  We get really really into it lol.  Ben has a lot to learn....

Jon had to be at the airport at 5am! so we said our good-byes that night.  It was really good to see him! I miss my big brother :(  Ben and I are super excited about Jon marrying us at our wedding :)  I think it will be so special and will mean so much!

We got a very late start leaving Columbia today.  We were planning on leaving around 8 or 8:30 because Ben was supposed to help his mom paint her porch, but THAT didn't happen!  We didn't leave Cola until 12 something and didn't get to his parent until around 4 or so..... Oops.  He didn't get any work done - we just hung out.  Mrs. Chappell and I (she wants me to start calling her 'Jane' or 'Mom' but it's hard for me lol...) discussed guests lists, bridesmaid/groomsmen gifts, rehearsal dinner details, etc. We had fun :) 

She has been doing a lot of researching/calling around about the venue for the rehearsal dinner but some places she wanted are already booked..  Some of the places she is thinking now are Cazbah's in Greer (on the rooftop, Soby's (they rent out a place for events - also rooftop), Bin 112 in Greer, or The Green Room (also has an events venue).  I'm so excited - I know she'll do a good job :)  We had to work on finalizing a list for the rehearsal dinner.  We were also talking about bridesmaid gifts.  I think I will do some cute black earrings and also a coral pashmina that I'll get monogrammed for everyone with coral thread (tone-on-tone):

I think it will be cute in some of the pictures and it may be nice for the reception if it gets a little cool when the sun goes down. I found a cool website (Marley Lilly) that does cute monogrammed stuff at a reasonable price.  I am going to go ahead and order one for myself first and see how it turns out before I make the decision to order nine more.. I hope they are cute - and the right color.

We were thinking for the groomsmen maybe some personalized croakies or possibly some Tervis Tumblers... We'll see.

Some more things I'm excited about:

- some cute 'Bride' things from my mom:


- my cute new shoes:

- the lanterns I got from World Market (best store ever) to hang near the "aisle" outside at the ceremony:

- AND our FIRST wedding present! From Megan - so sweet:

:)  Thanks Megs!

Here are some pics from when Ben and I, my mom, and Jessica and Gary went to the Duncan Estate.  I took a few pics of different areas so I could look back and see what all I need to decorate :)









I think the place will be perfect for what we want: small, simple, and elegant.  I love it! :)

Blog ya lateeeeeeee. Bye.