The Wedding Quilt

One of my Mum's oldest friends is quite an accomplished quilter. She has been my inspiration...my quilting skills are NOWHERE near hers but I do hope one day to be able to sew some pieces are gorgeous as hers.  She made Garret and I beautiful quilt for our wedding gift and it was finished just before Christmas and we picked it up.  She has everyone pose with the quilts she makes them before she sends them to their new home--we had a lot of fun posing with ours

[caption id="attachment_1240" align="aligncenter" width="388"] With this quilt and our love we will stay warm![/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1241" align="aligncenter" width="388"] our fancy quilt pose[/caption]

It is so beautiful that we currently have it on our couch because G thought that not enough people would see if it we put it on our bed. We obviously have way more visitors to our living room than our bedroom ha ha.  It is hard to see in the pictures but the quilting was actually done with a variegated thread and it looks so amazing.  We received many truly special gifts for our wedding that we will cherish forever.  We are l so blessed to have so many people in our lives that love us and spoil us so much.

 

Dance Me to the End of Love

One of the things that I always have loved about Garret is that he will always dance with me.  I had never dated someone who was so willing to hit the dance floor...match made in heaven!  We had discussed doing something special for our first dance but never really got around to planning anything. We were at a wedding this summer where the couple had a special dance and we remarked how special that was...and yet we still did nothing about it.  Cue my mother in law who can be very persuasive--she did some googling and found us an amazing dance instructor who taught lessons just outside of Barrie.  As our wedding gift she gave us the first few lessons to get us started and we had a total blast.  Most of the dancing we had done together involved goofing around and nothing technical. We weren't sure what we had in store for us once we started classes. I thought that learning the Viennese Waltz was really sexy and a lot of fun. It surprised Garret how much he enjoyed it as well.  We didn't tell many people that we had something special planned so it was really great to "wow" some of our guests with our sweet dance moves.

Last night our friend/videographer sent us the link to our first Dance from the wedding.  It was really dark in the room so he did his best getting footage--I love that it looks vintagey.  This was the first time we got to see ourselves in action and I am pretty proud of the progress we made.  We don't have footage of those first few lessons, but let me just say we weren't quite Fred and Ginger.

 

Guest book

We did some crazy cleaning and organizing today. G hung up the guestbook picture from the wedding so now when we wake up each day we can be greeted with this



Now that we have looked closer at everyone's signatures we have noticed that a few couples have doubled up. G claims its cause the wives didn't trust their husbands to sign...sounds like a fair assessment to me. Got me wondering how many times we have doubled up on the same thing

5.

Sometime in the summer G and I were in the car singing along to the radio--one of our fave pastimes.  "5 long years" by Colin James came on and I sang along to it somewhat absentmindedly thinking...hmmmm it's our 5 year anniversary this fall...I will post this on Facebook/the blog as my Happy Anniversary tribute. Then I never thought about it again until today.  So I pulled up the Youtube of the song to listen to it and then realized....this is NOT what I thought this song was about at ALL.  I now realize that the story is that they broke up 5 years ago....and he hasn't seen her loving eyes since then and it's sad cause he still loves her just the same.  Not quite the smushie lovey vibe I was going for with the whole post.  But 1) it's funny and 2) it's a great song, so I am posting it anyway. I also should probably change the words, but "It's been 5 awesome years and I love you even more"  doesn't quite have the same ring to it but then again I don't claim to be a song writer.

Have a listen and a laugh

And now to fill the cheesy love blog quota for the year:

Dearest sweet husband babe/Old Man, (with too many other nicknames to fill out here),
While these have definitely been the best 5 years of my life, the past few months have stood out as two of the best. Becoming your wife has made me so happy as we officially start our family as the Walsh's. Thank you for being you, and for loving me the way you do. I know with no doubt that we were made for each other and I am thankful every day that we found each other. You drive me absolutely bonkers at times, (and I am sure I do the same) but I would never change it for the world. I look forward to each new milestone we reach...and yes, after this year we can just start celebrating our wedding anniversary and not also our dating one...One less card to buy ;)
I love you to the moon and back,

Your lil Wife /Old Lady (insert other nicknames here)

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="aligncenter" width="388"] Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction--Antoine de Saint-Exupery[/caption]

I love that quote...but I do feel that sometimes gazing at each other is just what love needs.

Thank Yous

I ordered our Thank you cards today from Shutterfly.  I am super duper excited for them to come.  I originally wanted to wait for our professional pictures to come back but I also don't want to be writing Thank you cards at the same time as Christmas cards, so I just used some of the best ones from friends and family and got it going. I find Shutterfly really user friendly and it only took me about 10 mins to choose and create what I think is the perfect card for us!  Now onwards to write out about 70 of them. 

Weekend Travels

Both of G's sweet Grandmas live in nursing homes and were unable to come to our wedding.  We had decided a few months ago that we would dress in our wedding finery and go visit them so they could still see us all dolled up. This past weekend was Grandma Boyce's turn so we headed up to North Bay Friday night and on Saturday we went over with Charlene and her cousin for a visit.  I think that Grandma really enjoyed seeing us dressed up and it was a bit hit for some of the other people in the home as well.

[caption id="attachment_945" align="aligncenter" width="388"] She signed our Guest Book[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_946" align="aligncenter" width="388"] Posed for some pictures with the happy couple[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_947" align="aligncenter" width="388"] I love how this one turned out![/caption]

She noted "Garret you forgot to shave for your wedding". When he asked if she liked it she was very honest and said "yes....and no" We had a good chuckle with her about that.

On our way home we kept up our Walsh ritual of hitting up Weber's.  Honestly we could have just had breakfast and G will insist we stop!  We took a photo because I think this will be our last visit before they close for the season.  (Nerd Alert:  I think that I could make an entire scrapbook just of the Weber's photos we take every year...scary)

[caption id="attachment_948" align="aligncenter" width="388"] First official Walsh family visit[/caption]

An additional highlight this weekend was while we were hanging out on Sunday night our wedding photographer sent us a few photos!  He is still processing and editing them, but he knew how excited I was so he emailed us a little preview.  I CANNOT wait to see the rest.  We were quite fortunate to have a lot of people taking photos that day so we get to have several different views on all the events.  Sigh....I can't believe it was nearly a month ago!

[caption id="attachment_949" align="aligncenter" width="388"] Rocking Rain boots and Umbrella's--best way to combat wedding day rain![/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_950" align="aligncenter" width="388"] Nearly 5 years later, reliving our first date[/caption]

So all in all it was a lovely, busy, family and friend filled weekend!

Changing Perspective

Garret and I have lived together for over 4 years now, and been dating for close to 5.  We share a bank account, vehicles, a house and now a history. He is my person.

I had wanted to get married, but I really didn't think that I would feel any different.  Technically we have been living as husband and wife, and would saying our "I dos" change that?  I didn't think so.  However, the closer we have come to reaching our wedding day I feel the enormity of what we are committing to.  I guess I can't really explain it because I have felt committed to him all this time, but just somehow, vowing in front of our friends and family that we will love and cherish each other forever just seems to make things a bigger deal.  We have been giggling with each other for the past few weeks, referring to each other as "almost husband" and "almost wife"  Somehow I feel that in 5 days it will be really surreal for us to be "actual husband" and "actual wife"  It has been lovely having such a long engagement, we have got to enjoy this stage together...but it just made our wedding feel so far away. I can honestly say that as I am writing this I feel total disbelief regarding our wedding being in Saturday. Surely it is still a few more months away?  I have to say though that I am really happy that I am feeling more excited about the change that is to take place in our lives. I know that even when he is my husband he will still never do the dishes, and he knows that I will still never pull my hair out of the drain...we know that things won't change between us, yet in another way everything will change. How awesome.

Rookie Mistake

I have tried to remain a very calm and chillax bride.  I know that the whole point of the day is to celebrate our marriage and that at the end of the day we will be married. Chocolate fountain or not (definitely not)  As it gets closer though I have started to feel a little more nervous about the logistics and all the last minute details.  I think that I worked pretty hard at getting as much done ahead of time as possible, but some items have just taken longer to come together than others.  I've been having a long insane week at work and in a moment of stupidity I decided to check the weather for next Saturday. And as of this moment...it looks like rain. barf.  I know its not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination, however, no bride ever thinks "goodie cause it means good luck" when they hear rain on wedding day forecast.  It's funny though because the fact that the weather might not be anything other than perfect hadn't occurred to me until last week. It suddenly came to me when we were discussing having the cocktails before dinner outside. I dont want to have a rain contingency plan...so....let's just not rain shall we?

My bachelorette party is this Saturday night so I feel that my girlfriends will hopefully do a good job of getting me sauced enough to not think of rain, but not too much that I am hungover for the whole week before the wedding. Girls you have your work cut out for you!

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

Ages ago someone told me that right before they got married they started having lots of dreams about their ex boyfriends.  I wish I could remember who it was because I scoffed and failed to think that would happen to me...however, the past week many a past boyfriend, crush and even Justin Bieber (weird right? I know..clearly no dating history there)  I mentioned this to a few of my friends and they had the same thing.  It's funny what your subconscious holds on to, I have been dreaming about one of my childhood crushes, and a few guys I went on just a few dates with in high school...people who haven't occupied my conscious thoughts in over a decade are now becoming all consuming in my sleep.

Eeek

Life through my iPhone (end of Aug edition)

[caption id="attachment_868" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Box Seats...Shwalsh's be ballin[/caption]

Aug 16th--Jeremy and Ashley got some box seats through a friend so we went to see the American Idol tour when it came through Toronto.  It ended up only being the four of us in the box and we were SPOILED.  I don't think I have ever had so much fun at a concert.  The music was good, but the really private experience as they over fed and boozed us was amazing. We had some drinks, sushi, veggies, tons of snacks and then ice cream and cookies.  It was a really awesome night and we hope that they fall into some more tickets so we can live it up concert style

[caption id="attachment_876" align="aligncenter" width="468"] I'm just a little bit excited[/caption]

Aug 24th--in the spring Garret and I bought tickets to see Bruce Springsteen.  I have had a countdown on for ages because I love love love him and was really looking forward to sharing the experience with him. Needless to say he is called The Boss for a reason...the show was amazing and at nearly 4 hours long we really got our money's worth.  This was my 5th or 6th time seeing him and I had told G how I have never heard him play Dancing in the Dark (my all time favourite song)  we had heard they had played it at most of the other shows for this tour and were hopeful.  As the encore seemed to be starting to wind down without having heard it I was getting a little bummed.  But after Rosalita Bruce said "time to put on your dancing shoes"  I nearly passed out with excitement and G snapped this pic of us. I had that size smile on for the rest of the night

[caption id="attachment_871" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Pants may need to be hemmed just a wee bit[/caption]

Aug 25th--We headed to Moore's for some of the guys to sort out their suits. Dods and Taylor are both giants and Jeremy doesn't seem to have a proportionate shoulder to leg size ratio so they wanted to be sure that their suits fit.  Low and behold, Jer's pants definitely could use some work!

[caption id="attachment_878" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Family time on the boat[/caption]



[caption id="attachment_882" align="aligncenter" width="525"] G and our mascot Prince[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_884" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Chilling with Michele[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_883" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Late night Webers = G's dream come true[/caption]

Aug 25th-26th--we headed up to a family friend's cottage for some relaxing on the Severn River.  BBQing, swimming and boating made for a really relaxing weekend. It is always so hard to drag ourselves away at the end.  We stayed up until after dinner in the hopes that we could wait out some of the traffic...We left around 8 and G and Dods were beyond excited to note that Weber's was open until 10:00 on Sunday nights.  They indulged in a second dinner, and G talked the rest of the way home about how excited he was about his burger.  Apparently I ruined our family tradition on our way up on Saturday cause I didnt let them stop, but "tradition shines through Jules" and we were able to get there once over the weekend.

[caption id="attachment_885" align="aligncenter" width="525"] lover of my heart and killer of (my) bugs[/caption]

Aug 28th-- I have written before about bees here and here.  I am not sure if it is a seasonal thing? Or if perhaps they nest somewhere in my attic or something, but once again, we keep finding bees in the house.  They are pretty dopey, but regardless, not a fan of them in my living space.  Garret to the rescue hunting them down and smushing them for me.  He totally rocks that hot pink bug swatter!

24 Days til...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbqv3MwwVd8

Hopefully I don't get kidnapped by Prince Humperdink first..." My Walshy(/Wesley) will come for me"

32 Days to Walsh (and some other stuff)

OK, ok...so 32 days isn't as dramatic as "one month to Walsh" but technically I have a few extra days and am still excited--so the countdown is on.  I think that since we have been engaged for nearly 2 years, I am still of the mindset that the wedding is still so far off.  It has been coming for a while now, but it just seems that time is suddenly speeding up at an alarming rate!  We have been good about keeping on top of most things, and now we have all the small details left. My mantra as of late is "keep calm and party on" or something like that, the focus on being calm.  I know that no matter what it is going to be a special fun day, and the best part is that at the end of the day we will be married and celebrating with those we love. (Let's see if I can maintain this attitude over the next month. Queue to me becoming a Bridezilla and alienating all my minions, oops I mean bridesmaids)

Mum and I put wedding planning stuff aside this weekend and hosted a baby shower for my brother and Ashley. I love hosting parties due to how it lights fires under our asses to get stuff done around the house!  Garret was quite agreeable on Sunday as he volunteered to wash floors, put laundry away and fix our screen door.

[caption id="attachment_851" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Garret door fixing while my brother and Uncle Dave cheer him on (and by cheer him on I mean repeatedly tell him he is doing it wrong)[/caption]

I sometimes feel bad that Garret doesn't get to have a father in law, but then I realize there is a multitude of Uncles who can tease him and drive him crazy.  For example: my Uncle Dave in the above picture.  He affectionately calls Garret "Near Beer" and enjoys driving him crazy whenever they are together.

[caption id="attachment_852" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Insanely delicious dessert[/caption]

We ordered a variety of cupcakes from Sugar City Cupcakes which were a delicious delicious hit.  We rented a cupcake stand from them that I have to return tonight and I am already day dreaming about getting a snack pack to take home!  It was a really lovely day and so much fun to get to hang out with the family we don't get to see too often.  Weddings and babies = a busy summer.

Yesterday I went to the dentist to get my first cavity filled.  I was pretty freaked out and wanted G to come with me, he graciously declined informing me "you can handle this babe, it's no big deal"  I guess since he has had a few fillings he couldn't remember why it would be somewhat nerve wracking.  I am not a huge fan of needles at the best of times, but having someone sticking several in my mouth before drilling a hole in my teeth? Utter despair!  Thankfully my dentist was super nice and managed to keep me calm throughout.  I sent G this picture after to prove I made it through and was still smiling...sort of.

[caption id="attachment_853" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Half smile...the freezing took hold of the whole side of my face including my eye. Very foreign feeling![/caption]

That's all the Shwalsh's have been up to as of late!

Magic slippers and a glimpse of my dress

[caption id="attachment_835" align="aligncenter" width="741"] If I click my heels together three times and say "there is no place like home" I wonder if they will transport me to the altar?[/caption]

Erin and I went out shoe shopping on Wednesday night and I was somewhat frantic.  I had my dress fitting on Thursday and my very stern Ukrainian seamstress already chastised me last time for having no shoes.  I needed some STAT and of course left it to the last minute.  I was pleasantly surprised to find these beauties right off the bat.  They have a teensy wedge heel so they are a wee bit fancy, they sparkle like a Stephanie Myers vampire in the sun and I love love love them.  We found them in the nick of time and I was able to get my dress pinned up yesterday.  It just makes things seem so much more real...wedding bells are almost ringing people.....43 days til Walsh!  Plans are coming along really well, although most days I feel like I need to remind Garret that we are having a wedding in just over a month.  His to do list is concerning me as I am not sure if it is getting taken care of...what I call reminding he calls nagging. (but I swear it is just friendly reminders!) However I will call it frustrating when September rolls around and he still hasn't got his groomsmen gifts sorted out ;)  But I digress....my shoes my dress squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Bachelory Things

Last night I had a flash forward to my future...as I watched Garret get packed for his bachelor party I 100% saw my future child getting packed up and ready for camp. He was giddy with excitement and fielding phone calls from the other guys about who was bringing what.  They are only gone for two days but he brought six dress shirts, three pairs of shoes and about nine tee shirts.  We joke that he is like George Costanza   It is frustrating when I am trying to share a suitcase with him, but endearing otherwise.

[caption id="attachment_815" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Packing only essentials[/caption]

Amongst all the "essential' over packing needs, please note  Brutus, our white brass buffalo.  Few people know this but he is sort of the ShWalsh family mascot--he comes with us places like a travelling gnome. Garret makes videos of him getting up to no good, and he along with the other guys decided that he had to make the trip to Montreal as well.  I am wondering if he, along with everyone else will make it home in one piece!

And it really is all worth it...

...because I came home last night to 3 reply cards in the mail.  And I got all excited and realized I need to stop spazzing out and just enjoy the ride.

[caption id="attachment_794" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I'm envisioning hours of amusement to come[/caption]

Our Wedding website is taunting me

[caption id="attachment_790" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The daily Countdown is giving me hives[/caption]

I feel as if I have been decidedly "UnBridey" for a while.  I have been trying to keep our wedding day in perspective and remember that it is just one day and we shouldn't let it take over our lives.  So because of that, I avoided a lot of the wedding things like wedding shows and websites etc. I didn't want to realize that I "needed" something crazy expensive to make our day perfect...But I think that by doing that I now feel I have managed to forget a ton of stuff that we need to do to get ready.  This didn't seem to be a problem because the wedding is SO far away and We (totally I...not much we in this wedding planning stuff. cough, IloveG cough) have so much time.  However I made a wedding website to send out with the invitations to include information such as accommodations and information about the ceremony and reception.  Over the past two days people have been getting our invites (yay) and checking out our website (also yay) . The down side of this is that I too keep checking out our website and noticing how the date at the top changes. 74 days til the wedding people 74 days.....that isn't really a whole lot of time. Especially since I have been reassuring myself with "we have three months" for the past few weeks. And I start getting minor heart palpitations thinking of crucial things I might be forgetting. Wedding panic dreams that people show up and I forgot to pick up my dress type of thing.  Rational Julia knows, that at the end of the day as long as G and I get married, the day will be a success. But OCD, emotional, planny, Norman Rockwell visionary Julia needs everything to be PERFECT or the world will end.  Those two need to meet in the middle somewhere I think.  So the moral of this story is, remind me to quit looking at the website and someone get me started on a to do list and some Valium (haha)

Buck and Doe aka now it's 93 days to gooooo

See what I did there? A little rhyming action? Cheesy, but it's good right? aaaand moving on...Last Saturday night we had our buck and doe/ Jack and Jill.  For everyone who isn't from a small town let me explain.  We pretty much had a dance party that acted as a fundraiser for our wedding.  I have been to roughly 500 of them in my lifetime and they are always so much fun! We have been looking forward to this for such a long time I can't believe that it has gone by already.  It was such an amazing night, and felt so good to be surrounded by friends and family drinking, dancing and listening to great live music (our friend's band 'Hewgie and the Dustjackets') We were up until 4:30am--the evening culminated with an impromptu hot tub party at my Mum's place. Thusly Garret and I have been haggard creatures all week. In fact it took until today for me to feel some sense of myself again. I guess that is a sign of getting old? What a great great night

[slideshow]

100 days til Walsh

My mum just texted me to say the wedding is in 100 days.  I think I have been so caught up with school and the buck and doe plans over the past few weeks I didnt realize it was so soon (sounds silly doesnt it?!)  I guess because we have been engaged for so long that it seemed so far off....and now far off is 100 dayssssssssssss!!!! yay and yikes all at the same time

Just hangin around

Had an impromptu girls night tonight with Ashley! Our menfolk went snowboarding so we did what any left behind wifey would do...wedding planned! I told Ash I needed to post a pic so she got creative with the chalkboard wall. Unrelated...I gave up wine for lent, but allowed myself one night in between to have a few drinkies.(tonight is that night) So we had some wine, attempted some glue gun themed wedding crafts, and are now about to watch Ashley's wedding video. Who said girls don't know how to have fun!!!??? Hope everyone is having an amazing weekend.