Its beginning to look a lot like fall

In the past week our house has transformed from full on Summer to leaves everywhere Fall.  Our front yard is filling up fast with the quickly turning leaves that are falling constantly from our two giant trees in the yard.  And I love it.

The colors are so bright and natural at the same time and seem to really compliment the front of our house.  A couple of weeks ago I purchased our pumpkins for the front porch and planted a new pot of fall flowers to add a touch of color.  I also threw in some fake spiders around the pumpkins and flowers.  Fake spiders are a must for halloween.

Doesn't our house look so cute?

wedding to-do list

My big ol' wedding binder is my only sanity during this ridiculously long planning process.  I keep almost everything wedding planning related in the binder and I check it often.  The most important piece of content in the binder?  The To-Do List of course!

If you don't know, I am a major list maker.  I make a work to-do list, a home to-do list, a life to-do list, a weekly dinner menu list, a list for any event or major activity that I might have, and many many more.  I even write "update to-do list" on my to-do lists.  Yep, I am an organizational weirdo!  So when it came time to start planning our wedding one of the very first things I did was start making a to-do list.  And thank god for that because if I couldn't look at that list 10 times a day I would explode with stress!

So what does this binder and to-do list look like you ask?  Well, check it out.

Simple and effective.  I actually purchased several pre-made wedding organizers and found that none of them had all the components I wanted and most of them had way too much crap that was just causing clutter.  I ended up deciding to skim through each, find the things I liked and then create my own version.  Cheaper and customized just for me and my planning needs.

Now, back to crossing things off that list.  I only have 29 days to go!

filming our wedding

One of the things Chase and I decided early on in our wedding planning was that we didn't need or want a videographer to video our ceremony or anything else. We thought it was unnecessary and an expense that didn't fit into our budget. BUT, we did want some footage to document the day and catch some of the special moments, so we came up with our own DIY idea. Flip cameras.

The idea is that we will have two flip hd cameras that will be passed around to different people who will be charged with getting some good footage of whats happening. To start the wedding day off, one camera will be with all the guys and one camera with all us girls-- to catch some of the hustle and bustle of the pre-ceremony time. Then we will hand them off to a couple people to get some film of the ceremony. Lastly, we will hand them off to a couple more people at the reception to capture whatever they want.

We think the more raw nature of this way of filming will be far more entertaining than a formal wedding video and much more our style. Plus, the cost is minimal. We even got a great deal on the cameras on Woot.com.

Did you hire a videographer to capture your big day? Or did you go another route like us?

The Great State Fair of Texas

Right now the Texas State Fair has dropped anchor in Dallas...about a mile away from our house. We were lucky enough to experience the State Fair on two occasions, once for the OU/TX game and once for our fried food extravaganza.  Lets talk more about the fried food.



The Texas State Fair is known for its outrageous fried food creations and they even have a special "Texas Fried" map to show you where all the fried food locations are.  We set out last Wed night to experience all that the fried gods had to offer us.  So, I present to you the fried food menu...


First up- the Fried Margarita. This is made up of funnel cake bread soaked in tequila then fried, put in a cup, tequila poured over the top and whip cream. It was just okay.



Next- Fried Peanut Butter, Jelly and Banana sandwich. A basic pb&j, add banana, fried and topped with powdered sugar. SO yummy but pretty heavy. A must to share this one with someone.



And next- Fried beer. Yes, you read that right. Fried beer. It won for most creative in the fair food competition. It was disgusting. We both had to spit it out. Imagine a pocket of cardboard tasting dough filled with beer then flash fried. Gross.



Next up on our trip o' fried food- a good old fashioned corn dog. But with a twist...jalapenos and cheese on the inside. Topped with mustard of course. This was yum, as always.



And then we took a venture away from the fried food and had some cold beer, nachos and cotton candy with a game of pop the ballon with a dart (that I won!). More pictures for your enjoyment.





I can only imagine the amount of calories we took in that night but it was well worth it. We had an absolute blast and most of the food was pretty darn tasty. Until next year...bye bye state fair.

exploring the metroplex: rusty taco

After a very fun and tiring state fair/OU-Texas game weekend Chase and I were ready for a lazy Sunday.  Part of our lazy Sunday included some grocery shopping, fun World Market shopping and a nice yummy lunch out.  For our eating adventure we chose to check out a new street taco place called Rusty Taco.  Yum!

The place is an old gas station/car repair shop turned very cool and mechanic inspired taco restaurant.  The patio is huge and the main indoor dining area becomes outdoor when you open up the two old garage bay doors.

Plus, the price was right.  The tacos are just $2.  They also serve beer and frozen margaritas.

And even better, the food is delicious.

If you are in Dallas, I recommend you check this place out for a casual, cheap and tasty dining experience.

Wedding Traditions: The First Look

There are a lot of wedding traditions that Chase and I will not be doing...mostly because they just aren't our style.  One of the newer traditions that we didn't agree on skipping is the first look.  Turns out Chase is old school on this one.

I know a lot of people who said seeing each other just before the ceremony was so great because it helped calm nerves and it was also a nice intimate moment to have before being displayed in front of hundreds of people.  Some couples and wedding parties even took the group pictures before the ceremony so they wouldn't have to do it afterwards and delay getting to the reception.  I brought up all these points to Chase, they didn't phase him.

As it turns out, Chase is old school.  He doesn't want to see me until I start to walk down that aisle.  Its sweet, I know.  And romantic.  And I appreciate it, I do.  But a part of me still wishes we could have our own private moment, one last time, before we are a married couple.  But...I guess I should give him this one.  Its the only real thing he has had a strong opinion on during the entire planning process.

And because we won't have some cute first look pictures I thought I would share some of these adorable moments.

45 days and counting...