Seems like two months between posts is a recurring theme, so we'll roll with it for now.  We have both been fairly busy with work, family life and of course planning a wedding.  We had huge checklists that we've been able to slowly start to whittle away at and get them to a more manageable size.  The majority of the "large" items have been dealt with and we are starting to focus on the details now.  Some items in the "rear view" since my last post include the wedding dress, the brides maid dresses, Caterer, wedding cakes, most flowers, table planning, and the Wedding DJ. 
     Recently we also started working on plans to convert Jessica's house from a single w/ 3 cats, 2 dogs house to a married w/ 3 cats, 1 dog house. We went took inventories of our "stuff" and worked on what we would get rid of, combine or replace.   We also worked on some new paint colors and some minor decorating ideas for the house as well.  We were able to replace all the blinds in most of the house with beautiful full length curtains this past weekend.  We'll post some pictures when we are through painting so you can get the full effect, but here are some of the colors we are using, along with our Jessica's new shower curtain:

 

     This past weekend was the 4th of July and we had a great time cleaning, making wedding plans, and of course visiting with many friends and family.  We were able to go see Despicable Me 2 on Sunday and in preparation we made Minion cupcakes on Friday night:

 

 





Still more planning to do as we really start to look into decorating the barn and all details that go along with that. 

     It's been a little while since I updated the blog, but after this past weekend I figured it was time. There are several topics I want to write about but this weekend is a great starting point for getting back into the blog a little bit.  To start off, Jessica told me about a month ago to not make any plans for the weekend and that she was going to surprise me.  Now, I like surprises as much as the next, but it can be hard to surprise me sometimes.  I was determined not to snoop or look on the internet to see what was going on that weekend so that I could truly say I was surprised.  Well, that weekend finally come to pass and we met in Chattanooga on Friday around noon.  Jessica pulled out her phone and it proceeded to give me driving directions and after a short time it was evident we were heading to Atlanta.  Now, I have to admit that this is the traditional weekend for all kinds of music festivals like Jazz Fest in New Orleans, Memphis in May, Birmingham Music Festival, and more recently the Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta.  I'm thinking we're going to the Shaky Knees Festival...
     We end up at a restaurant called Canoe.  It is the number one restaurant on Trip Adviser, which carries a lot of weight with us because we have found some excellent restaurants this way.  And true to form, the lunch was great! 

Did I mention the weekend was to celebrate our one year anniversary?  We met at the end of March and "got to know" each other for about a month and met in person on May 5th, 2012.  That is a blueberry sorbet with a lemon poppyseed shortbread cookie.  They also had popcorn flavored icecream that our wonderful server let us try, and it was so weird, but really good!  Tasted just like popcorn, butter and all!   I had a huge lamb sandwich and Jessica had a Salmon burger with an egg on top that was also fantastic. During lunch Jessica told me how we would be spending the rest of the weekend, and it was not the Shaky Knees Festival.  She had booked us at the Weekend to Remember Marriage Seminar at the Atlanta Renissance Waverly Hotel.  This is a three day event hosted by Family Life that works with married (and engaged) couples to show how important marriage is and how to strengthen that relationship.  I think Jessica thought I would be disappointed, but on the contrary, I was looking forward to it! 

     This is getting a little long winded so I'll start to be brief.  We checked into the hotel and enjoyed the first night of the conference and finished it up with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  The next day we enjoyed the conference and at our lunch break went to Pappadeaux's Restaurant and enjoyed some great seafood.  More conference and then for dinner Jessica had made reservations at the Blue Ridge Grill, another highly rated Trip Advisor favorite which also lived up to its reputation.  But we weren't through for the evening yet!  Jessica had tickets for Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engval at the historic Fox Theater!  Those guys are very funny and we had a great time laughing that evening.  Sunday was a half day as we finished up the conference by 1pm and stopped by Chipotle for lunch in honor of Cinqo de Mayo.  After a short stop at NorthSide Hospital to see my brother we then headed to...the Shaky Knees Festival for the second day to see such bands as Drive By Truckers and The Lumineers!

 

     Almost immediately after we parked at the commuter lot to wait for the bus to take us to the festival we noticed that everyone had on mud / rain boots.  It had rained all the day the day before we we quickly figured out that it would be muddy where we were going.  Jessica was smart enough to recommend we get ponchos at the mechandise booth and after we purchased two they sold out.  We put out yellow plastic ponchos on just as it started to rain.  The rain came and went for a while and then set in around 8pm for good.  It wasn't bad till the sun went down and then it started to get cold.  The Lumineers were the last band, and of course the one we wanted to see the most.  They took the stage around 8:30 and we enjoyed about an hour of their set before we were just too cold and started to make our way to the commuter bus to be taken back to our car.  We took off our muddy shoes and cranked up the heat in the car and started our own commute back home to Chattanooga.  All in all it was a packed weekend as we crammed so much into the time we had available.  It almost felt like we were back in Barcelona.  I have learned one thing from this weekend, and that is that Jessica is a great planner (like I consider myself) and able to schedule just enough to keep us busy but not so much that we were overwhelmed or late for anything.  Thank you Jessica for an incredible Weekend to Remember! 



 

     The hunt is on... we have four places we will be touring this weekend for possible wedding / reception locations.  We don't want to give away too much yet, but on the down side, we have already had to cross off a few favorites because the date we want is so late in the fall that the location is already closed for winter at that point.  We are hoping for some decent fall weather in mid to late November, keep praying for that. We have pretty much decided on a theme however, and that is giving us something to work with. 
     This is us at the Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona.  It is still under construction and scheduled to be completed in 2030.  I like to joke with Jessica and will sometimes just start chanting "Barcelona 2030!" as a possible location and date to get married.  And while I do have faith we will get married this year as planned, it would be awesome to go back to Barcelona between now and then and check the progress of the church, and again in 2030 to see the final, finished masterpiece of Gaudi.

So we're getting married!  I figured we would start a blog to tell some stories and keep everyone up to date on what we are doing and how the planning is going.  Here are a few pictures to start it off.  The second picture is Jessica right after I proposed on the beach in Barcelona.