A Day in the Life...

Ben and I are sooooo excited.  We booked our Honeymoon tonight!  I have been researching different places online pretty much all week but nothing has stood out to me as being just right for us.  Ben Googles things (houses, honeymoon, HIDEOUS shows that he wants to wear to our wedding lol, etc.) about as much as I do - A LOT - and he found a place today that he really liked.  Antigua in the West Indies :)  I didn't/don't know much about it at all but it looks AMAZING and exactly what I have been picturing in my head as an ideal Honeymoon destination......

Cocos Hotel where we will be staying:



I can't WAIT to wake up to this view....... Incredible!

It's Easter Sunday and it was such a beautiful day!  Ben and I, Lacy, Flex, AND the last two kitties (Piston and Mary) went down to Columbia last night so that we could be with my family for Easter (Ben's family has been at the beach visiting his grandmother and we weren't able to go). We didn't get to Cola until late because we were at my friend Lauren's bridal shower at Jessica and Gary's house until around 11 or so....
We had a good (and sometimes hard) time in Columbia - even though it was very brief.  The family loved the kittens :)  We went to my parent's new church this morning (great Easter message!), then went to visit Grandmuddy.  It was hard for me to see her because I was not expecting her to look as unhealthy as she did.  She was VERY thin (down to 109 pounds), very tired looking, and had a lot of built up fluid in her abdominal area so it almost looked like she was pregnant.  She did not have very much energy at all - she was not her normal lively self that's for sure :(  This was very hard but we just have to keep praying and hope that she was just having a bad day, and will feel a lot better after her surgery on May 2nd.  After we left Grandmuddy's, we went to Grabby's to visit.  He has been doing miraculoulsy well these days! :)  The doctor had originally only given him a couple of days to live, but that was weeks ago and he seems to be doing better and better instead of declining.  This was very encouraging after seeing Grandmuddy in her state.  I think our constant prayers are helping him a lot :)  We only stayed at Grabby's briefly.  Uncle Bryan went with us out to eat and we got to ride in Grabby's 76 (I think?) Caddy convertible.  Mikey got to drive it and he was super nervous at first bc that car is HUGE - it didn't even seem like it was going to fit inside the lanes!  Ben LOVES this car so he asked Grabby if we could use it to drive off in for the wedding. So Uncle Bryan will be chauffering us away in it - him and Ben are very excited about this, lol - I guess it's a guy thing......


After lunch we headed back to Gville, drove by a couple of houses that Ben has been looking at online, then went out to eat at Mimi's (one of my absolute favorite restaurants here), and then went to see an Easter movie Hop, which was cute :)  I dared Ben to hop up to the movie ticket place..  I didn't think he would do it but when it came time for us the pay for tickets, he said "Hi, 2 adults for..." <and then he hopped in place>  I was hiding behind him laughing at him bc he looked so stupid..I couldn't stop laughing.  The girl was just like, "I can't hear you. What?"  and he said "2 for Hop please".  It was a total bust.  Lol.  He is so silly......I'm about to fall asleep typing this - off to bed!  More later!!!

I ordered my wedding shoes!  I'm really excited about them - I think they are so pretty :)
Here are a few pics.......
LOVE THEM!

Also very excited about my invitations coming in today.  They turned out really pretty!

 AND my pashmina came in - test for the bridesmaids' - I wanted to see how they turned out.  I like the way it looks, so I MAY order more for gifts but we'll seeeeeee.....


Well, I'm going to go shop more online LOL.....
See ya.

Monday again :(  But I had a fabulous weekend - until the very end..

When Shelly, Linsey, and I started our weight-loss challenge a while back, we had set April 15th as our 'half-way point' to reach our goals.  We said that if we stayed on track with our weight-loss that we should treat ourselves to a girls' trip to the beach. So we did :) - but Lins was not able to come because she had plans with her family... :( 

We had a blast though - AND we got to take Lacy and Zsa Zsa :) !!!!

Even though I had the whole day off on Friday (amazing), Shelly didn't get off till midnight!  So we definitely didn't pull into Charleston until around 3:45 or 4 am!  We stayed with Shell's brother, Adam.  It was so much fun to hang out with him and his fiancee Kelley (who is SUPER sweet :) AND their beautiful black lab puppy Rudy!

Saturday we slept in (obviously, lol) and then took showers, ran some errands, and finally made it out to the beach.  We went to Folly Beach.  I had never been there before but the little town seemed really cool and Bohemian-esque :)  We didn't spend much time there.  By the time we set our chairs up, realized that I left my phone @ Wal-Mart, went and got it, and THEN came back to lay out, everybody was kind of miserable.  It was EXTREMELY windy and sand was blowing all over the place and all over us and it was just uncomfortable.  I was fine to stay at the beach but the overall consensus was to go lay out at the pool in Adam's neighborhood.  It felt a ton better there :)

After we laid out, we took showers/got ready, went to Kelley's (BEAUTIFUL) house for a while, and then went downtown to Wet Willie's - which was pretty fun but pretty much the only place I have ever been out at in Charleston, so I was kind of wanting to go somewhere else....... BUT we had a good time :) 

Sunday we went to Adam and Kelley's church - a cool little church downtown that I really liked.  It was Palm Sunday and I found the sermon to be very moving.  I really enjoyed it :)  It can sometimes be hard to comprehend exactly HOW MUCH Jesus sacrificed for us and the price that he paid - and we don't deserve one bit of it!  I never want to take for granted the amazing gift of eternal life that the Lord has so generously given me..

After church we ate lunch, laid out at the pool for a while, went BACK downtown for awhile to walk/shop around, and then went to the MOST AMAZING Mexican restaurant everrrrrrrrrr, Zia! Seriously.  It is amazing. We actually ended up eating there twice while we were there - which I was excited about lol :)

Shelly and I headed out after dinner :(  Of course the weekend went by TOO fast.  We didn't get back to Gville until around 12:15. I was so exhausted. ..There were some troubling things that came to my attention that night (hence the part of the weekend that was NOT fun) but there has been a lot of praying and there will continue to be......God has a plan.





I think they will be so cute to put in favor bags :)

Soooooo, on Monday I found 4 PRECIOUS little kittens on Ben's porch!  I didn't know what to do!  I went off to Wal-Mart and PetSmart and bought a bunch of supplies for the momma cat and her kittens.


Haven't seen much more of the momma.. but I didn't want her to take them anyway because 1) they are ADORABLE and I wanted to keep every single one lol, and 2) I didn't want them to be stray cats for the rest of their lives wandering around and searching for food and probably getting hit by a car...... :(

Here are the little angels:









Aren't they so cute?? I can't believe how different each of them look!  I am already growing attached to all of them - even though I know there is no way we can keep them :(  Ben has always told me how much he "hates cats".... That's funny seeing as when I came back from work the first day, he was sleeping on the couch with all 4 of them curled up on his stomach and he had named them all, AND he said it was ok for me to keep one :)  hmmmmm... He def loves them!  He named them: Nanner (yellowish-beige one - he is VERY vocal and the biggest pig when it comes to eating), Piston (grey one who gets very possesive of his food and hisses at the others when they come near), Moe (orange one - total cuddle bunny), and my favorite Mary (the little calico who is sooooooo sweet and playful).  All of them are boys except for Mary, the little girl :)  I love them all so much lol.  I had decided that as long as Flex was ok with her, that I would keep Mary, but Uncle Bryan called me yesterday and wants her very badly.  I agreed because he recently lost his cat, Scamp, of like 17 years and I know he will love her very much, AND I will still get to see her when I go to Columbia.....  So I am sad but also happy for him.




Haha. I think they are so cute :)  And don't worry - I researched it - M&M's stay good for 13 months so they will be fine by the time September rolls around...

- I ordered some koozies for the bar area:



Koozies will be black with white print.  I thought this quote would be kinda cute/unique but Ben HATES it! Lol.  He thinks it is making fun of his name..?  Oh well, I already ordered 100 of them ;) ....  I told him that if it would make him feel better he can order some that make fun of my name (i.e. 'What the BUCK did I just do? September 4, 2011'  lol)  What are everyone's thoughts?  Are the Chappell ones too cheesy? Or cute?

- I also ordered some water bottle lables for the guests that won't be drinking alcohol.  I don't have a picture of the end result of what they will look like but here is an idea:




I hope they turn out good :)

- I also ordered a coral monogrammed pashmina from marleylilly.com (really cute website).  I ordered one for myself to see what it looks like before I decide on those as a bridesmaid gift...

I had so much fun last night online shopping/ordering :)  I didn't end up going to bed until super late (like 4am!)  I don't know why but I just could NOT fall asleep - may have something to do with the Diet Coke I drank at dinner... Oops.

Well. Back to online shopping/getting ready for work (ugh).......

See ya <3

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.

So, I am officially realizing HOW MUCH goes into planning a wedding!  I love it though - it's so fun picking everything out :)  So far we have:

- set the date: September 4, 2011!!! :)
- set the venue: The Duncan Estate in Spartanburg:
- ordered my dress
- picked out the bridesmaid dresses:

**(this dress but in BLACK)
- reserved the caterer (Tim Holmes Catering), the bakery (Holly's Cakes), the music (Jumping Jukebox)...
- picked out the colors (black, white, and coral)
- picked out my rehearsal dinner dress:  Britt Ryan and I love it! :)

.......So anyway, we have a lot down, but still a lot to do....  I still have to figure out a florist and decor (fun stuff).  My FAVORITE flowers are peonies:

(and this is the coral color I want) BUT peonies are a spring flower and it is a pretty short season for them so, in late summer (i.e. Sept 4th) they will be either impossible to get OR extremely expensive..  So I'm currently looking for an alternative that has a similar look and that I can get in coral AND that I can get in late summer/early fall... So far I have heard cabbage roses, garden roses, or dalihas all can have a similar look, so we shall see.........I am having fun though!  I could do this for a living :)

More later.