As promised...

...an update about all my goings-on last week!

On Saturday, I met my mom in Richmond on my way down to Williamsburg, and got fitted for my wedding dress, and then registered for wedding gifts. I'm pretty sure Mom had a lot more fun with that than I did, but I was SO glad to have her there, because I sure don't know what sort of stuff you need when you're married!

Sunday was the 4th, so we had wings and peach cobbler for dinner, and then Mom, Mike and I went to Colonial Williamsburg to watch the fireworks!

Then the rest of the days sort of run together in my mind (you know how it is when you're on vacation!) but we got a LOT of stuff done for the wedding-- selected a bridesmaid dress, which cemented my color choice, figured out favors, got an idea of what the save-the-dates and invitations should look like, figured out the flowers (although now we need to find another florist... our first choice needs to be at her grandson's graduation that day, which was a little bit of a blow!) and we got a lot of the little details hammered out! It was a whirlwind of busy-ness. But my biggest project for the week was my handmade checkerboards! We're operating on the idea that the wedding will have a "southern" theme-- colored parasols for the bridesmaid photos, mint juleps as the signature drink, cocktails on the sprawling veranda, a really awesome band for entertainment and dancing, etc. (No hoop skirts.) But the venue won't let us hammer croquet wickets into their lawn... which blows my mind because they WILL let us place 150 chairs there... I feel like the wickets will do way less damage than the chair legs, but that's not really my call. So I decided to place checkerboards on the tables on the porch for people to play during the cocktail hour. My friend Melinda suggested that if I spend some time making the checkerboards, they'll probably turn out WAY cuter than the cheapo ones at Wal-Mart (she was right) and way less expensive than the really fancy ones online. (And she was right again. That law degree is really working for her!) So I got the guys at Home Depot to cut up some plywood for me, and I bought some acrylic paint and paint tape, and painstakingly measured 8 by 8 squares and taped them off for painting. I couldn't have been happier with the result, and I am SO excited about the checkerboards. I'm not a crafty person at all... so this was a pretty big deal for me.

I ordered checkers online from a small wood products manufacturer in Maine, and they're really cute! I'm going to be spray painting them later this week, and I can't wait to have that step done too and see the whole thing together!

I got to hang out with the aforementioned Melinda, who is spending the summer at home studying for the bar. It sounds like the suckiest way ever to spend a summer, but I've never seen anyone so motivated to get finished with something!

I also got to have a nice dinner with some friends from high school! Tiffany and Jacob have been dating since right around the time Mike and I got together. They both went to Elon and are still going strong. They're back in Williamsburg, and they're actually waiting to hear if Jacob will get selected to enter the Navy, so we had plenty to talk about.

Anyways, today I went back to work. It was fine, but busy because I was playing catch-up from being out all week. But still... what a bummer to have a nice week off and then be thrown right back into the swing of things! They should make a rule that on your first day back from vacation, you should get to just stay in vacation mode and not have to go to any meetings and just kind of check a few emails while you get back into the swing of things. But instead, I spent 10 and a half hours chained to my desk trying to get everything done that needed to get done. Oh well... at least it will all still be there tomorrow, too!