One Week and Counting...

Well, it is Sunday the 27th, and I will officially be married in one week and about 6 hours!! Yesterday was my Bridal Tea hosted by friends of my mother, and it was so fun! Mainly because there was a lot of amazing food and I got to open presents the whole time. Only after I got everything back to the house did I realize that I had to write thank you notes for all of them, but I went ahead and did that last night. Go me!! The next week will be crazy! I come back home on Wednesday night, which is also when my grandparents on my mom's side get into town. Thursday is when my dad's parents get here, and also when Christine, Kelsey, and Courtney (our friends from Germany) arrive. Christine and the girls have never seen the new house or DJ or the two youngest kittens, so that should be fun! David's entire extended family will get here sometime next week too, but thankfully many of them won't come until the day of the wedding. There are just so many of them!!

In other news, everyone needs to check out the DPM's Blog and website!! I have done a lot of work on them, and they are totally the place to be on the internet now!! I am in the process of adding an e-card service, a FAQs service, and the guestbook service is already in place on the blog only. In completely unrelated news, check out the Wide World of Waco Eats under my links!!

And this is DJ as of about an hour ago. SO CUTE!!

 

A sampling of the beautiful decorations around the house.

 

All of the stuff I got! Everything was beautiful, especially the quilt my grandmother made us, which is on the left in the pic. It is called a double wedding ring.

 

All of the bath stuff that the Schnapp's got us. That is Lil' Carl, my sis, next to me.

 

This was one of my presents from Steph Loden. That is Donnie, one of the hostesses, behind me.

 

All of the yummies!

 

Kind of fuzzy, but this is mom and me before the tea started.

 

Canyon Lake 06!!

David and I just returned from the lake after one last big weekend before starting school tomorrow. Saturday was Ryan's 21st Birthday, and he LOVES pirates (or the idea that he was one in a past life), so David and I spent all night Thursday night buying him his pirate presents. We got him a light-up sword and shoulder thing to put it in, an eye patch, a gold earring, a bandana, and a LOT of rum!! Dave and I got him Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay Coconut Rum and my parents got him Pyrat brand rum! He enjoyed a large amount of it this weekend:) We bought all the pirate stuff for him so he could be captain of the ship this weekend, which he did for a while. On Saturday we met Kathy Elder, her son Trey, and his girlfriend Stephanie - who I like to call our traveling buddies - for a day of boating on the lake. We went out on our boat almost all day, whereas the adults stayed on shore in the shade drinking and chatting. I don't think they went our for more than a few hours. The lake was so pretty! I was way down, but it was clear and turquoise blue, and the perfect temperature for swimming. We swam a lot, so at the end of the day we just went back to the condo and ate leftovers. Since I have been on a diet for a while, I decided to indulge a little yesterday at the lake, which was a HUGE mistake. I got REALLY sick that night from all the horrible (by this I mean horrible for me, not horrible tasting) food I had eaten, so Dave and I ended up going to sleep around 11:00. Today I felt much better, and we went swimming this morning at the pool, then we went to the Gristmill in Gruene for lunch with Kathy and Trey and Stephanie. Gruene is such a cute town, and the food was yummy, but alas, Dave and I had to leave to get ready for school tomorrow. I really don't want to go back, but at least I don't have Latin this year, which is what I try to keep telling myself. Anyway, I have all three of my classes tomorrow, so wish me luck!! And check out the pics!!

This is right before we left, and even though I look happy, not so much....

 

The Guadalupe! From our balcony at the Gristmill

 

Mary and Davy at the Gristmill...

 

YARR!!

 

Trey watching as Steph drives the boat...

 

Mary and Davy at the Lake!!! We are so windswept!

 

Davy!!

Aww! Sweet Moment!!

Princess DJ!!

 

And the rest of the summer...

So, since my last post a lot has happened. First, we went to Alabama to visit my family and David got to go with us for the first time. I think he had a good time, except for the fact that my sister's friend Jessica also went with us and they acted like they were freakin Paris Hilton the entire time. "That's Hot" and "Loves It" (both said in a botox-induced drawl) the entire freakin time. I thought he was going to kill her before we could get home! Besides the blonde moronic fun, David had the unique priviledge of getting to meet almost everyone in my entire family over the course of two family reunions. He got to meet people I have never met before! It was embarrassing in many ways, but good too because he is still agreeing to marry me! All jokes aside, I think Dave opened up to my family and it was a great chance for them to all get to know each other before we get married.

Speaking of getting married... I will be married in 17 days!! OMG! Over the last couple of weeks I have had both my Bridal Shower and my Bachelorette Party! They were so much fun, and I owe it all to Stephanie and Tami, who made everything happen. They are so freakin creative! At my Bridal Shower we played fun games like "What Would David Say" and "How Well Do You Know the Bride?" We had it at the Ambrosia Tea Room, which is already cute, but then they put up pictures of David and me with candles and flowers everywhere. It was just so special. The whole day was really fun since that morning I had my bridal portrait sitting, and they ended up turning out really good. This Saturday night was my bachelorette party at Las Casas, and once again it was perfect down to the wedding ring placecards and the lingerie clothesline display. Probably the two funniest things about the shower were the fact that Stephanie and Tami made this huge penis cake by hand and the "member" was vanilla and the balls were chocolate! The second thing was that Jennie bought a Playgirl (which I think is funny in and of itself) and replaced all the faces with cut-outs of our favorite actors! The main one was Colin Firth, since he is who I always cite as my favorite actor. She also put in Hugh Jackman, Owen Wilson, Russell Crow, Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, and a couple more. ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS! It was definitely the hit of the party.

Afterwards we all came back to Waco to go out to Cricket's which ended up being really fun since everyone was in town for graduation (Go Liz!!). Tami had arranged for the bartender to make us a special drink called Between the Sheets which was delicious! I was so happy Jessica and Jennie decided to stay, and we all played a scavenger hunt which was so much fun!! My team, which was me, Liz, and Carol, totally won. It was also fun because as soon as we walked in we met a friend Stephanie, Tami and I went to high school with who was also there for a bachelor party, so he stayed with us for a while. I also ran into Lance and Adam since Lance had graduated on Saturday. Just to sum it up, I got REALLY drunk. I had about 8 shots and 4 drinks, and the last one was a Four Horsemen, which for those of you who know what that is, will understand when I say I had to leave immediately after I downed that one. I got home, upstairs, in my pj's with help from Steph and Liz, and got into bed, THEN had to throw up. Not fun, and not I won't be able to have a shot in a very long time. I don't regret it though, and I had an absolute blast!!

In future news, if you don't already know, I am getting married in about 2 weeks! I pretty much have all of the planning done, I just am waiting for it all to start happening. This weekend David and I are going to Canyon Lake to celebrate his brother Ryan turning 21, so it will be nice to take a break before school starts. At the end of September I get to go to Las Vegas for the Dr Pepper Bottler's Convention for work, and we are staying three extra days just to see the city and everything. While we are there Jennie and I are going to Thunder From Down Under to celebrate my birthday! I am so excited because we are totally getting VIP passes! Check it out at www.thunderfromdownunder.com!

For work I also got to go to Crawford to serve Dr Pepper floats to the White House Press corps, so to check out the pics and the story on that, go to the museum's blog under my links.

Love you all!

Outside the Unclaimed Baggage Center in AL

Me and Carol eating worms before going fishing! J/K!!

Jessica and DJ in the car on the way home.

Me and the "Tree of Knowledge" from the bridal shower where everyone had to include a piece of marriage advice!

Steph, me, and Tami at the Ambrosia Tea Room

Me on the way to Las Casas in my bride hat that I got from Crawford!

PomPom fantasies!!

Jennie's Playgirl funniness

Me with all the beautiful lingerie I got!

Jessica trying to get this guy to do Buck-A-Suck with her! He tried to not give us our dollar....

Me laughing at my penis necklace when I was extremely drunk..

Defensive Driving and Such...

Like I told you, I had to go to defensive driving on Saturday, and it was definitely a crazy day. There were a lot of people there, but the instructor was funny. However, the very first thing we do is fill out forms, and he makes this huge deal of following his instructions and about how many of these forms get messed up every week, so of course I am the first person in the whole class to make a mistake! Grrr... Then he told us that they only take cash or check for the class payment, and I never have cash and I have a debit card so I don't carry checks, so Dave had to pay for me and my sister. One of the women in the class was absolutely crazy, and kept on admitting that all the bad things he was telling us not to do were things she does on a daily basis and is not going to change her habits, so all of us made sure we left before she did and noticed what her car looked like! She was insane, and kept talking over the instructor and making comments about her horrible driving habits. Then we had lunch, which was part of the fee we paid. Please keep in mind that this was at Ryan's in Killeen, so I only ate the rolls, a Caesar salad, and an ice cream cone. The food was pretty gross... Then, to top it off, as we were watching one of the videos in the afternoon, which presented the class with different scenarios then asked either multiple choice or true/false questions, the scenario came up that my sister got her ticket for. She was pulled over on her way to take her AP test because she had turned left across two lanes of traffic and pulled into the middle turn lane before merging into the closest lane and continuing on her way to school. The cop was behind her with his siren blaring and lights flashing, and since she was in the inside lane and not the farthest lane, she had to travel about 3/4 of a mile before she could safely get over and pull off the road. The cop told her that he had originally pulled her over for the turn lane thing, which he said was illegal, but he had decided to just give her a warning until she had refused to pull over. So he gave her a ticket for evading an officer, and promptly told her he could care less if she was late for her test, and he was giving her the ticket no matter what. Now, you have to understand, my sister is 17 and only been driving on her own for a few months now, so she was completely shaken up and was not able to take her test. Anyway, the scenario of waiting in the middle lane to merge into traffic comes up and it asks "this is legal, true or false?" So she is looking embarrassed because she didn't know and it was obviously false, and then it pops on the screen that it is TRUE! How messed up is that. The instructor would not comment since he didn't want to get involved, but the officer was a jerk, and she was pissed! She took one of the instructor's cards and has threatened to mail it to the officer and suggest he look into taking a defensive driving course, too.

After that I took Carol shopping so she could buy stuff with her first ever paycheck, and then I just spent the rest of the night getting the wedding invitations ready to send out. It took a while, but finally this morning I got everything sealed and ready to be mailed, so be looking out for your invite!

Today I had just planned on lounging, but Carol and Jessica wanted to go to Belton Lake, so I took them out there and we just layed out on the beach for a couple of hours. There were sooo many people there, and especially drunk GIs who hovered way too much. At the first break after we got there Carol and Jess wanted to go down the water slide, so I told them I would stay with the stuff, but to hurry up cause I needed to go to the bathroom. So I am lying there for like 30 minutes, and after giving serious contemplation to the thought of just going pee in the lake, my sis gets back. Literally as I am walking away to go to the bathroom, this obviously drunk guy comes up and is like "Can I interest you ladies in a trip to the water slide?" My sis told him they had just gone, and he looked at me and I told him no, hell no. "Man, I have been like 6 times already!" he drawls. Real mature. So he keeps on pestering us, and then offers us a beer. It is illegal to have beer at the lake, as it is a military facility, which my sis pointed out to him, and by the way they are 17 and can't have beer anyway. He promptly told us that he is only 19, so come have a beer with him!! At this point I had to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, so I had to be really mean to him to get him to leave. Idiot. Then when I was lying there by myself these two guys literally hovered over the top of me for 10 minutes trying to provoke me to acknowledge them without having to actually talk to me themselves, and I just kept my eyes closed and ignored them, which pissed them off, so they eventually left to harass someone else. I find all of this amusing, which is why I don't mind going, but it actually makes me appreciate how non-military Waco is. When we got home my dad had grilled steaks, and mom had fixed corn, yum! Well, I am back in Waco, and about to do some internet class stuff, so hopefully this week will be mellow before the craziness that is our trip to Alabama arrives.

Love you all! ~MB

Ahhh, Love!

Well, this past weekend was Jackie and Joseph's wedding, and it was a blast! Dave and I left Friday morning and we drove straight to the nail salon where Jackie had paid for me to get my nails done. I felt sorry for Dave because he had to sit and wait for me to get them done, but we went to Pappadeux's afterwards so it was all good. We checked into the hotel and I had to do my homework, but then I took a nap before the rehearsal. The rehearsal was crazy because Jackie had sooo many kids in the wedding! They were absolutely adorable, but they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing, so it took longer than usual. The rehearsal dinner was at the wedding planner's house, and it was more like a barbecue than a formal sit-down dinner. It was fun, and there were super-strong homemade margaritas! I was exhausted by the time dinner was over, so we went back to the hotel and crashed.

The next day was the Big Day, and Dave and I started off with a big breakfast at Cracker barrel!! I LOVE Cracker barrel!! I know it is very country, but it is yummy. Thankfully we both ate a huge breakfast, because I did not eat until almost 10:00 that night! The ceremony was so pretty, but it went by really fast! After the wedding was food and party time, then we went out to decorate Joseph and Jackie's car. Joseph was so pissed! It was hilarious... We also had all been stuffing Joseph's pockets full of condoms all night, so I hope they had a great honeymoon!! We love you guys!!

Well, this week at work has been hard, but rewarding. We painted the wagons all week, but we are almost done now! I got to meet Jessica's boyfriend Jason on Monday, and I think I freaked him out because I gave him a big bear hug when Jessica introduced us. It just felt weird to shake his hand all formal-like when we met since I feel like I already know him! I remember when Jess first showed me his info on eharmony.com, and I am so happy for them that it has all worked out. This weekend my mom and I are sending out wedding invitations, and then my sister and I have defensive driving tomorrow:( I actually deserve my ticket, but my sister doesn't, and then Dave got a ticket on the way to Waxahachie, so we are all in it together now! It hopefully won't be that bad, but we shall see... Updates to come!!!

Love, Mary Beth