FINALLY: Mr and Mrs Wassinger!

So it happened. Two weeks ago- Erica got married!!! As you saw from a previous post, 561 days had passed since her engagement and I know they were both READY to pull the trigger aka tie the knot :) Jimmy and I headed to the airport early Friday morning

and we were off to Dallas to start the celebration! When we arrived we met some of the groomsmen and then went off to eat....duh. We love to eat.

Then it was off to get our nails did :)

THEN it was time for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Which was FUN! THE food was amazing (Mexican- yum!) and the company was even better. Thanks to Ruth and Dick for a fantastic party celebrating Erica and Andrew!! Had so much fun with all these girls, as always. And of course my fabulous husband enjoyed himself a lot. With a trip to the Gingerman afterwords and meeting the rest of the wedding guests there (and our friends!), we were ready to get to bed!

Next day = wedding day. Up early for a breakfast with all the girls and then time to get pretty. We all got our hair done and did our make up in Erica's suite and had a fun time munching on snacks, etc. You know, chatting like usual and having a good trip watching the bride get pretty.

Twins. And classy cats. AKA I'm a Heather wanna be.

The bride- with her gorgeous hair!!!

Then it was off to Arlington Hall. After a few beers- we got the dress on and we were ready to go. Let's walk down the aisle!!!!

Pictures were first though---group shot!

The bride--ready to go :)

After a nice ceremony performed by Pastor Luke, it was time for cocktail hour and then the PARTY.

The cake....

The husband (well my husband, not Erica's obviously!)...

Me with the groom....

Me with the bride....

Vanessa and I's maid of honor speech!! We let Andrew and Erica know what their lucky numbers were and exactly why they were---even bought them a lottery ticket. Don't think they won :( Bummer!!

Giving our speech!

Pi Phi for life. No more words needed.

Bride having a blast on the party bus!!!

Watch out Dallas- they are about to hit the town :)

After that, they were headed off with Della to their new cabin that they now own as a married couple! Long Pine Nebraska/Hidden Paradise didn't know what hit them with this new family!! Congrats you two!!

Check out THIS video to see the awesome karaoke we did at the wedding too!!

Preview: A Party in the USA: E's wedding

And now presenting....a preview to Miss Erica's incredibly talented bridesmaid and the bride herself in their own version of "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus.

Whomever said on facebook those microphones were not on...you were unfortunately mistaken. Let's just say while we had a good time, it is a good thing we all have day jobs :) More to come with pics from that day.....but wanted to try out this new online video stuff too because Blogger takes forever to load my videos!!

And here you have it....

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Photo of the day

Saw this at a stop sign in KCMO. Now really---would anyone actually go there to claim their free gift?

Chris- do you think Vanessa would even stoop this low to claim her "free" gift? Haha. You did say she'd even accept a snake if it was free...

Carnival stomach

Have you ever in your life heard that term?

Well, until I met Jimmy...I had never heard it. Now I feel like it is a regular phrase used in our house. Whenever one of us have a stomach ache (including one of our 3 hairy kids), the explanation to it is always carnival stomach. What is that you might ask? Well, let me explain, based on Jimmy's fabulous definition.

Carnival Stomach (noun):

(1) An upset stomach caused by a person eating lots of random things during the day- including a mix of sweets, salt, or a lot of one particular thing

(2) Going to a carnival and eating a bunch of stuff (i.e. hot dogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, etc)

So take it as you will. I guess it was a common phrase used in their house growing up. So was a different definition for the acronym TCBY. The first two initials stood for Tim Carter...the rest you will have to wait until the end of this post as it's just too funny to reveal right now and there (of course) is a good story to go with it.

Anyways, yesterday Jimmy and I went on our first surprise date. We have just started doing this to make sure we do make at least some time to ourselves. This is thanks to a wonderful idea from a friend from work!! Once a month, we pick a date and one of us picks what to do and doesn't tell the other. I will post something (hopefully tonight) about our surprise date this weekend....but really, this has nothing to do with the title of this post....I digress.

ANYWAYS (pt 2), yesterday I ate the following:

- Eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast with Chris and Vanessa and Jimmy. And horrible coffee. That I still drank, even though it was horrible. Jimmy is never making coffee again in our house.

- Whole appetizer of spinach and artichoke dip from Johnny's (jimmy said he would eat some, he didn't, so I compensated for him)

- A bite of Jimmy's sheboygian at Royal's stadium. Gross and greasy.

- Lots of DC (diet coke)

- One bloody mary

- One french fry

- 4 graham crackers with frosting

At that point in the afternoon- I was doomed. My stomach was rumbling and I was not feeling well. But I dinner with Katie and Lauren that I was not about to pass up at Jose Peppers. So I went, had some chips and salsa and queso---and made a quick run to the bathroom. I ordered Chicken Tortilla Soup and couldn't eat any of it because I felt horrible. Needed TUMS bad. Stomach was rolling.

I got home and told Jimmy. His response- Carnival stomach. Of course it was. What a nice mix that my body liked so much.

So that is what happened to me yesterday. Next time you do the same thing, feel free to use that term :)

Also, the story about TCBY. Jimmy and I go get TCBY one night after dinner. We stop by his friend's house near by to see them. They are not home. His 3 friends are at dinner together and he's depressed because he's with me.

His response:

"Great, my friends are all together eating as a family at Johnny's and I'm stuck with you eating Tim Carter's Butt Yogurt....awesome......"

New 'do

Today at 6PM....I'm getting my haircut. Not just a normal haircut, but quick the "chop", if you will. I have not been happy with my hair for awhile because I like wearing it curly most days due to the ease of it (about 10 min getting ready)---but pretty much hate the way it looks. Not enough volume. My hair looks like I just got out of the shower. Just gross and sick. I know, very positive self image. Haha.

However, this past weekend at Erica's wedding in Dallas (oh don't you worry- there will be a post on that soon!), I ran into one of her friend's who had a really cute short bob type cut with the same curly hair I have. But it looked SOOOO cute. With the short bob and layers and all. It had the perfect amount of volume and I loved the way it looked all around. I spotted her on Friday night at the after party, after the rehearsal dinner. Didn't have my camera, but pretty much dragged her around to show Jimmy and Vanessa to get their feedback. They said "go for it". That was step 1. Step 2 was snapping some actual pictures so Lacie would have something to work off of. I conveniently already had an appointment set up for today already- which I realized, it had to be fate and I must move forward with my changed hair cut immediately. It was like someone from above was speaking to me saying "you see this cut, it's "you", and it's not just a coincidence you have an appointment already". Call me superstitious, weird, or really just nuts, but because I didn't have to go to the extra work to set an appointment up or wait....I knew I had to.

Then on Saturday, I saw the "hair" that I want at the wedding (aka Julie). So as I was snapping pictures of the lovely bride and groom cutting their fabulous cake....I snapped a few pictures of her hair. From the front. From the side. From the back. All angles covered :) I got them developed yesterday- along with some wedding pictures- don't worry, I realized if I just got pictures of someone else's hair printed off and then the person realized it wasn't me as I was checking out--that might be odd. I had fillers, that were actually needed fillers.

In merely hours now, I'll be stepping into the salon to get a nice little cut, maybe some color, and hopefully emerge with a cute and more efficient haircut. As Jimmy would say, I love efficiently. And yes, it's true. I will update tonight after the hair cut with a picture. If you can't tell...I'm very excited. So hopefully, I will be feeling the same way walking out of the salon.

*****************************************************************************
And yes, I was still very excited and still am!!

Before: Picture from Erica and Andrew's rehearsal dinner

After #1: Weird lighting and fan blowing my hair in my face. I woke Jimmy up to take this.

Again, not sure about this light either.

And the back. After I saw this picture, I decided I need to learn how to style the back. Only day 1 though!

Loving it already though! My hair stylist was awesome and even when I kept saying, maybe a little shorter layers...she said "if I go any shorter, it might look like a mullet". Very nice of her because she's the expert and no, I don't want a mullet!!

As Jimmy said: "One step closer to the "mom" haircut". I guess Jimmy.

$500 richer

So, while this happened a while back---and it was REALLY exciting at the time---I just forgot to ever mention it. Then my dear friend Lauren, forwarded me an email from her boyfriend telling her to check out what he found on this link on Nebraska Furniture Mart's website.....it was a picture of Jimmy and I with the $500 gift card we won from NFM! So funny :)

Check it out here---we are famous!

(have to scroll down 1/2 way to see it)

Apparently when we started our registry there, they had a competition going on and they ended up drawing our name out of the hat/bucket/system. So I get a voicemail on my cell phone from a lady in the Marketing department at NFM saying to call back and she has exciting news for me. When I called her back and she told me we won the gift card- she was RIGHT. Now we had more $$ to spend at our favorite store for free. Lucky us!

561

What does that number symbolize? I don't think you'll ever guess it. So I will just tell you.

It has been 561 days (or 1 year, 6 months, and 14 days) exactly since my friend Erica and her soon to be husband, Andrew, got engaged. Can you believe it? I remember the day that got engaged like it was yesterday! I can't believe it has been that long! It was December 6, 2008. The night before, Vanessa called me to tell me "OMG Erica is getting engaged tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!", which then followed with a session of OMG's and so exciting and can't wait to see how excited she is. Heather spilled the beans to Vanessa because Andrew had to get Heather (then Erica's roommate) out of the house. Us girls, don't tell us anything, we can't keep our mouths shut. But I mean, who can when something that big is happening??!?!

The next day (aka E-day aka Erica's Engagement day) my dad, Jimmy and I were volunteering with our church at a local women's shelter. I was VERY thankful that I knew what was happening in Dallas that morning because I was able to keep my phone in my back pocket, awaiting her phone call to tell me the good news. Otherwise, I would have just left it in my purse. So good call on spilling the beans, Heather :) Well the phone call finally came and she couldn't believe it and was so excited, as was I! While he was still going to be in Ohio for awhile, she was very excited and anxious to get wedding plans started. Here are few pictures of the couple, newly engaged!!



And if you know Erica, it won't surprise you if I tell you that her wedding was essentially planned in like 3 months. Because by the time March rolled around, she had all the big stuff nailed down and had her vision. While I was so excited for her, since I wasn't in "bride" mode at all, it was hard for me to completely grasp all the things she was doing, planning, sending me to look at as one of the MOH's. Well when the other MOH (Vanessa) got engaged in March, she was able to share in wedding excitement also...and then we got engaged in April....well you couldn't stop this threesome of bride friends. It was all we could talk about and Erica was there to guide me along the way and answer my questions about what she did with this, this and this. Very nice!

So now that she has probably attended 10+ weddings as an engaged bride-to-be...I'm very happy to announce that as of this Saturday, she will no longer be a bride-to-be, but she will be THE bride and then a wife!! It will be a wonderful weekend in Dallas celebrating two fabulous people. She has wonderful things planned at a gorgeous venue that everyone will drool over (trust me, when I saw it I did). She has had time to think of all these wonderful details that will pull the whole day together. And best of all----she has been patient for 561 days of her engagement, that she can celebrate her little heart out during the biggest party she has ever planned with the people closest to her and Andrew celebrating with them!!!!! Wahoo!!! I know she can't wait and neither can we!

So get ready to "cheers" to Erica and Andrew on Saturday---lucky number 561? :) Love you both!

Here is one of their amazing engagement pictures- can't wait to see wedding pics!

Mom: Happy birthday!!

Monday was my mom's birthday---and yes, I missed a blog post for her, oh and didn't give her even 1 of the 2 cards I bought for her. What a slacker daughter I am!! My sister and I even tried to buy her a present--- how is it not possible to succeed at that? Well the present we wanted to get her was on sale, but by the time I went to buy it online it was not available. So big fail on that one. However, we were able to celebrate her as a family with a Sunday brunch at Nick & Jake's. If you have never been to brunch there- you are missing out. It's probably one of my favorite brunch places in KC!! And brunch is my favorite meal---behind breakfast. So I was thrilled when she said she wanted to meet us there after church. We had a wedding the night before (and I had a bachlelorette party), so Jimmy could barely drag himself out of bed---but he ended up making it. And just mocked me the whole meal because I'm a "weird" brunch eater and I take advantage of all the different foods offered. Sorry my stomach wasn't too weak to handle shrimp, chicken wings, AND an omelet. Delicious.

Anyway--onto the star of this blog post:

Barb!

Her birthday happened to fall on Flag Day, so if you can remember that---you will never forget her birthday. On flag day her actual birthday…she and I hit up boot camp where we did some intense weightlifting. Great birthday right? What can I say, she’s committed to being fit J But then my dad “cooked” for her, which meant he went and got Chipotle. I got to join the fun, while my husband was left at home. Oops- sorry Jim! We had an old school Bruns family dinner with our tasty dinner and caught up with one another. But hopefully she had a fun day!!!


She’s a wonderful mom, friend, wife, counselor, sister, aunt, and amazing in every other role she plays in life. I’m VERY thankful to have her as a mom and can’t wait to help her celebrate many more birthdays. Maybe next year we’ll get our act together and do something really cool. Until then, I’ll remember to treat her to Chipotle every year ;)

Love you mom!

Want more of Barb??

Click HERE to see her birthday post from last year or HERE to see her recent anniversay post

See has a blog too--- but I don't think she has updated it in a while, so I won't share that (you're welcome mom)

Fun in the kitchen

This was what the road looked like while we were on our way to Nebraska Furniture Mart on Saturday morning. Yes, apparently we are incredibly dedicated homeowners...or just plain stupid.But after we finally made it there (after some other quite interesting events, that will most likely bore you, so I won't go into them), we finally got to talk to a salesperson with a decent amount of customer service and he showed us what we liked in terms of new kitchen appliances.

Now I know what you must be thinking....

"Whoa....what? Hold on a second...you are getting new kitchen appliances? Why wasn't this research and decision making effort documented on the blog? "

I know I know. However, here's the quick and dirty decision making process. We have a fridge in the garage. We really like having that extra fridge in the garage to store pop, beer, yogurt, left overs, etc. Mainly we just like the extra space and convenience of it. And I just really like it. That's really all you need to know. SOOOO---the fridge there now, we were storing for my grandparents because they moved apartments last year and didn't need this one. Well, the just bought a new townhouse and now they need it. So next week, we'll be without a beer/pop/garage fridge.

That means, we needed a new fridge in our kitchen so we can move the fridge that is there now in the garage. We got that fridge when we moved in our house for about $150 from a friend...very standard fridge and it has worked great. However, I have become to hate ice trays..with a passion. And would love an ice maker. Jimmy has never ever in his life apparently lived somewhere with an ice maker. So he doesn't know what he is missing...which means I have convinced him it's an absolute necessity in life. And we NEED one to keep living. That didn't take much convincing.

So it was settled, we were going to get a new fridge, with an ice maker. Stainless steel, so start our appliance upgrade. Then we'd just get all the others one new later. Um, yeah. So I thought. Then we (I) thought about it and we could actually probably afford to buy ALL new ones, with a reasonable budget in hand. Especially since we had a large Nebraska Furniture Mart gift card that popped out of nowhere (YES, WE WON A $500 NFM GIFT CARD! APPARENTLY WHEN WE STARTED OUR REGISTRY THERE, WE ENTERED OURSELVES INTO THIS CONTEST. AND WON. DON'T HATE ME (US) BECAUSE WE ARE LUCKY) and I won an award at work for $250 that can translate into a NFM gift card and Jimmy won employee of the month and got $50. So right there, we have about $800 towards this purchase. So that was enough downpayment for me to rationalize this. I told Jimmy I thought it was fine. He believed me because he thinks I'm smart, so we started looking for everything.

The salesmen said GE had a special going on right now where you can pay the price for white appliances and get the upgrade to stainless steel for free---just happened to be the fridge Jimmy and I were inquiring about was part of the deal. So from there, we looked at a new dishwasher and he gave us a sweet deal on that...then an oven and then a microwave. We weren't buying then, as we needed to go home and measure what size of fridge could fit, but he locked in the prices and said to find him tomorrow (sunday).

We did just that. Headed back there after a nice brunch with my family to celebrate my mom's birthday (more on that later) and walked out 4 appliances "richer". Presenting the beauties that will grace our kitchen with their presence starting June 26!

Me: Most excited about the fridge and oven...fridge because of the ice maker/water dispenser and oven because apparently they now make ovens with the baking element underneath instead of in the oven. If that doesn't make sense to you, just leave it at that. The minute I found out they made ovens like that like...I had to have one. Like I mentioned before, GREAT salesmen we had.

Jimmy: Most excited for the dishwasher. With an adjustable to row, Jimmy is happy because apparently I really stink at loading the dishwasher in an orderly manner.

And this my friends, will finish off our kitchen "remodel". I will of course post pictures after they are installed. The day we get them is also Lyssa's wedding day- so we'll be celebrating that first and foremost!! To see other posts on the kitchen changes/remodel, check these out:

New tile #1

New tile #2/before and after

Organizing the cabinets #1

Organizing the cabinets #2

Mud: How I loathe thee

Last year, around this same time...we were in the process of ripping out our backyard walkway and our front walkway and we had a HUGE dumpster in our driveway to dispose of all the old and worn concrete. So there was mud everywhere when it rained because there was no concrete.

This year, we are running into the same issue..however, 1) this one was not our choice and 2) this time around it might be worse. The city put in new gas lines on our street, which means for the last month or 2 so they ripped up the area of grass in between the sidewalk and the street. It was like that on our wedding day (April 10), if that gives you any reference to how long this has been going on. So recently, they finished that and then put the dirt back into the correct place and put grass seed down to help the grass grow again. Well, that is still mud with little grass sprouts. These things take time people.

We kept getting these notices saying they are going to next rip up our driveway and we wouldn't be able to get in and out of it for 24-48 hours. Well that construction finally started last Thursday. So that means we now have to park across the street from our house and walk across the street to get to our house....where there is no curb or bottom portion of the driveway. And lots of dirt. Lots of dirt. And yesterday, they put a string up (I'm guessing to measure the concrete level??) that you have to hurdle over to get from one side of the dirt to the other side of the dirt. I kept thinking to myself, "this sucks, but at least it's not mud". Apparently that one thought brought me bad luck---because it POURED yesterday in KC and guess what? Mud, the kind you literally sink into when you foot hits it, is now the barrier between me and my house. I ruined my work shoes yesterday from it, and therefore refused to leave the house for the rest of the night. And you can't go to the grocery store or buy big things because you have to jump over the string hurdle and get through the mud to get in...and it makes it a bit more tricky with things in hand. However, there is nothing I can do about it. Awesome.

Our missing curb. And the MUD

The driveway drop off.


No sidewalk for us!

Loving the mud...

On a really really really happy note---our Air Conditioner was fixed on Monday and the two weeks without AC was abruptly halted. It felt so good on Monday night sleeping with it on....and I'm so glad we got it fixed when we did because it has been very humid this week because of the rain...what happened to spring time? I feel like we dove head first into summer and the summer weather/temperatures.

To quickly relate these 2 things...the AC repair man was clearly put out by the fact that our driveway was ripped up and aghast at the fact he would have to carry his supplies all the way from the street. He even called Jimmy to ask him if there was any way to get in our driveway? Not sure what Jimmy's response was, besides no, but mine would have been "Are you blind? There is no way to get in or out unless you want to hire a tow truck to pull your van out of the 2-3 ft hole. Just do your job and carry your stuff in!". I wanted AC that bad I was willing to be rude. However, I didn't get to discuss that with him. Maybe next time. So he suck it up and carried all his stuff from the street to our basement. What an inconvenience we were to him :)

The weekend in pictures!

Instead of writing out the whole (full) weekend---I decided to give it to you in pictures. Some of them are mine that I took, some of them are not.

The weekend kicked off with a visit to the Sprint store. Jimmy had been eyeing the new Sprint phone, the Evo 4G, for a while. I thought it was too expensive and mainly that we wouldn't be able to find one the afternoon of the launch. Well, lucky for him, they happened to get 20 in when he showed up after work. After I got there, he had a convincing story for me as to why we needed them. And he had money leftover from the honeymoon. Really, no one wants to see their husband grovel in public, so I caved. So far, so good, except the battery life.

Then it was home for a pasta dinner (loading up on carbs) with Jimmy, Dan and Danny. Dan and Jimmy handled the wine for Danny and I since we were racing in the morning. But it was delicious!

Next it was up early for the Hospital Hill 10K! It started at 7:15AM and Jimmy dropped Danny and off around 6:45 so we had some decent stretching time. It was amazing. Here was us at the finish. More on that later though.

After the race. It was exciting!! And Courtney and Brian were there to watch us finish!! So fun!

I dominated Danny. Haha, ok not really. This was staged...but still funny.

After a shower, Jim and I grabbed breakfast at Hy-Vee and did some grocery shopping for our Sunday night celebratory dinner (last night with no AC!). Then it was off to Monica's (Jimmy's cousin) baby shower with the Carter girls! They had an ADORABLE set up with some great food and decorations. It was good to see everyone because I hadn't seen them since our wedding! I didn't take any pictures :( But here is kind of what her crib bedding looks like for their new little baby Frank (calling him Frankie) that will be here in July! Congrats to the new family!!

Next it was off to Katy's (niece) first birthday celebration! She was so stinking cute with her little outfit! Cannot believe she is already one!! I feel like she was just born!! Crazy how time flies!

First cake!!

Princess cupcakes with laffy taffy crowns- YUM!

Most of the Carter kids enjoying the delicious cupcakes!

They are getting married VERY soon!! We need to get Hillary's shower planned ASAP :)

Such a very happy baby!!

THEN- we went home and it was like 100 degrees in our house (due to the lack of AC). So we called up Barb and asked her if we (and our 3 dogs) could crash at her house for the night. She of course accepted...but that meant there were LOTS of dogs and people in the Bruns house. We appreciate her letting us stay there! I still think Jimmy got the good end of the deal because he slept on the floor in the basement where it was super cold and I slept upstairs in a bedroom with all 3 dogs. But anyways, it was MUCH cooler than our house- so thanks mom!!

The next morning I hit up Target to return some bedding I bought for the office daybed and was looking for inspiration for the color scheme of the room. I found this RUG! And fell in love. Bought it and lots of stuff to go with it, so stay tuned on that reveal :)

Then we headed to Danny's parents pool for some time in the sun with me, Jimmy, Danny and Dan (see a trend here??). I didn't take any pictures here- but pretty much I laid on a mat in the pool while they made fun of each other and threw the football around.

Then it was time to come home and start the prep for the simply scrumptious steak meal (see recipe I found in a magazine below). They claimed it was "fast and easy and cheap". Um, it was none of those. More like, "very time consuming and hard and expensive", but whatever. It tasted good, right? :)

Dinner consisted of LOTS of grilled vegetables. With a delicious marinade.

2 ribeye steaks

With some heirloom tomatoes on top. YUM.

And to finish it off....a key lime cheesecake (which is Jimmy's favorite). Really, I just wanted to make this because it called to use a spring form pan....which was one of the things I registered for that Jimmy said "we'll never use that". And, I just did. :)

Finally, we finished off the night with our new NetFlix addiction, Breaking Bad. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's very addicting. And very good.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend. My dad is back from Iowa and will be at our house to talk to the AC guy when he comes tomorrow- which his appointment time is, "whenever", so thank goodness my dad can hang out.

We also had some very sad news....one of my friend's dad's unexpectedly passed away, so we are praying for her and their family. He was quite an amazing guy and we will miss him and all the wonderful things he brought to this world!