Wedding Day!!
My only sister getting married was a pretty big deal and I was nearly as excited as I was on my wedding day for her! Everything had turned out perfectly, the dresses fit, the jewelry was a hit, all the family was happy and healthy and here, and it was a beautiful sunny summer Michigan day! We arrived at Headliners in the morning for our hair up-dos and wedding make-up. It was so great to hang out with my cousins and sisters friends for the experience, I don’t see my cousins very much, but we always seem to pick up where we left off and have a great time together. I can say that about lots of my cousins actually on both sides of my family; the Raineys and Mahers are definitely a great family to be a part of.
We all got beautified at the salon, watching and commenting on everyone’s up-dos while eating breakfast and drinking coffee. After the salon we drove to the church to get ready, I was excited and antsy waiting for the festivities to start, fortunately my cousin Amanda had the foresight to order a pizza delivery to the church so we were able to get a bite to eat.
My sister had asked all of the girls to wear navy blue shoes of their choosing for the wedding, and being a nature girl myself, I chose a simple wedge with medium sized heel so that I could walk and dance easily; however all of the other gals chose heels that were crazy tall and I looked tiny compared to everyone else. I tried on Leah’s shoes and it was pretty comical watching me walk in those heels, but the other gals rocked theirs.
The wedding started out to be a tear-fest but somehow lightened up and we all enjoyed the ceremony without too many tears. For me, this was due to the 4 year old flower girl and Cody’s cousin Almy who sat next to me. She chose me as her new “BFF” (best friend forever) and continued to crack me up with her nonstop fidgeting and talking during the ceremony. The comic relief allowed me to enjoy the ceremony rather than fighting the tears while trying not to cry 
After the ceremony the bride and groom rented a stretch hummer limo for the large bridal party stocked with beer and champagne for the 3 hour time difference after the wedding before the reception for photos. I had insisted Laura and Cody spend a good amount of money on a photographer they really liked so they could enjoy their wedding photos forever. After our wedding photo experience, I wanted her to learn from my mistakes. Their photographer Vince was incredibly nice and had a great eye for urban shots; I cannot wait to see how they turned out!
Once we got to the reception the realization that I had to give my maid of honor speech hit and I got really nervous, but after talking to Justin, the best man, and finding out that he was even more nervous than me, I calmed down and knew it would be O.K. Both Justin and I promised each other loud laughter during our speeches and wished each other luck as I went first. The speech came easily to me and I enjoyed sharing it with the families; Justin’s was even better and received a lot of laughter from the family and a little embarrassment from Cody, as it should be.

After dinner the real party began as the DJ started playing music and I tried to spend time with family even though I could have spent the entire evening on the dance floor. My favorite piece of the night was talking with my cousins who I rarely see, and dancing with my grandparents including with my grandpa to Cotton Eye Joe, a fast bluegrass song.
It seemed the evening ended all too soon, and we waited impatiently with a group of cousins and friends for a cab to the Hunt Club for a nightcap and some deers ears (potato skins). Unfortunately the kitchen was closed and I insisted Josh call a cab so that we could drive through Burger King for some grub to soak up all the beer I drank all night. Fortunately the cab came quickly and we drove through the drive through before being deposited at the Country Inn for the evening. I hear the party at the hunt club continued till 2pm, then on into the evening for the true partiers. I, however, was ready for bed. What a great night, I wish I could make it back for the next big family wedding in August.
My parents had planned a family party for the 4th of July the next day to enjoy the out of town visitors for another day. This was a great idea and we were able to visit with family in a relaxed setting. I had a great time talking to my cousin Jim and uncle Rob, who I didn’t get to talk with as much as I would have liked the day before. We enjoyed kayaking in the lake, and then taking the boat out onto the lake for fireworks with the newly married couple to watch their first 4th of July fireworks.
After many tearful goodbyes we packed up our suitcases for the next leg of our trip with Josh’s family and to start our weeklong camping trip across the country.

This year I had high hopes of having a huge garden, bigger than all other years, because I am not working at a full time office job anymore, I thought I might have more time to tend to it. Boy was I wrong! We barely got two raised beds in and planted in time, and already my peas are looking hot and wilty, a product of the hot sun in Colorado and late planting. Other than my peas, the rest of my garden looks pretty good, I can already harvest salad and radishes are starting to come up! My spinach is not doing good, however, I am not sure what’s wrong with it, but this is my first year planting spinach, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

In my second planter, I planted things that needed to grow after all danger of frost or snow, and as we know here in Colorado, snow can come in June. I planted these about 2 weekends ago and the onion bulbs are coming up, so are some green beans and one squash plant. I hope the raised beds help me contain the weeds a little better.

Unfortunately, when I went to check the plants today, I noticed the lettuce and radish are already being eaten by some bug! I never know what is doing this because I never see them, this is the earliest in the season we have had bugs and I am not too happy about it. I see some little flies around the plants and also teeny white wormy things in the soil, but I am not sure what either of these are.

Here is a photo of the leaves, if you have any suggestions.

I am going to go pick some lettuce and try some of the bug killer around the outside of the garden, hopefully that will get rid of some of the bugs without putting pesticide in our vegetables. But I guess it probably gets into the water and soil. *sigh* Isn’t there a better way? The soapy water never works for me.

Hopefully your garden pests are staying away this summer season!

My second planter box in the photo below, I just planted about 2 weekends ago. The green beans are just sprouting out of the ground, as are the onions and squash. None of my chives or green onion came up, thus continuing my bad luck with herbs. I am going to try to replant something in those rows after camping this weekend and hopefully I can harvest something there before the summer ends.

Josh and I had our 5 year wedding anniversary on October 16th, and for our anniversary I really wanted to “re-take” our wedding pictures. I didn’t really like our wedding photos, for a number of reasons, mostly because my grandmother hurt herself shortly before my wedding and my grandparents were unable to attend my wedding. Because I am very close to both of them, especially my grandma, I was devastated at the news and spent a lot of the day before my wedding crying. My dream was to re-take some photos, with us in wedding attire, in our Colorado home. And this year we finally did it! It was our 5 year anniversary and it seemed fitting to do so. Now, we did not renew our vows or anything, we just took photos
The hardest part was finding the right photographer. The first thing that I did was ask all of my girlfriends who their photographer was, as they were all married in Colorado and all had beautiful photos! I was able to check their photographer out online and see the sample photos on their website and one photographer really stood out; Benjamin Buren of Alive Studios.
He photographed Heather and Russ’s wedding, they are good friends of ours. One night at our weekly girls night Heather got out her wedding album for us to look at, and her photos were in-cred-ible! It sealed the deal for me and I contacted Ben immediately!

We were able to schedule a weekday session the day before our anniversary and negotiated a lower price. I also wanted to get the CD with all the photos to keep, which comes at a higher cost for photographers (as it probably should).
Ironically, our friends Laura and David were getting married Saturday October 17th in Estes Park, and our anniversary is the 16th, so we scheduled our photos on the 15th. We were SO glad that it worked out this way, as our great friend Geri and her boyfriend Wayne flew in for Laura’s wedding.
Geri usually stays with us when she visits Colorado; she, Josh and I are three peas in a pod and get along great! (and i miss her!!!!) They were able to share the day with us and it was great to have help getting into my dress, making sure my makeup and hair looked OK, and just another girl to share the fun with!
Plus, we really wanted our dog Rock to be in the photos with us, and they were a great help taking care of her while we were taking photographs.
I wanted to take photos at both Red Rocks and in downtown Golden. Both of those places are very dear to our hearts with lots of great memories and they both offer incredible scenery and views! Then I wanted to end the shoot at Golden City Brewery (click for their link) with all of our friends for a group photo! Golden City is a great local brewery, they brew a garage and they have a very small indoor area to buy beer with a few seats, then a larger outdoor area with picnic tables to sit outside and drink your beer in the Colorado sun. They don’t offer food, just great beer! Anyway, this is a place that we love and our friends love and we all *love* good beer, so it was very fitting to take some photos here.
The photo shoot was a lot of fun to do, especially because there was no actual ceremony or expectation, except to take great photos. We spent most of our time at Red Rocks getting some incredible shots on the rocks, of the front range, and with the amphitheater behind us, and we also took pics with Rock in them. Next we drove to Golden and took some photos on the bridge where Megan had taken our “engagement pics” over 5 years before. We had some great shots with Ben by the water, then he had us go onto the suspension bridge in Golden, and stand ON TOP of the table which is on the bridge for some shots. He also took some photos of us right in the middle of the main road in Golden, which turned out really cool! Lastly we walked over to the Brewery and took some awesome group shots and shots of us drinkin’ some beers, which is very *us*.
All in all it was a great day, and I highly recommend Ben and Alive Studios for any photos in the Denver/Boulder area, he is incredible! Here are some more of my favorite shots!