The Wedding Planning Begins

I am going to start posting detailed wedding plans....basically for my own records  so if you get bored and don't want to read I won't be insulted. I'll try to put some non wedding stuff in too!

Shauna and Brad do not want to get married in a church. They want the ceremony to be at the same place that the reception is. I personally love that idea. It's so convenient and they don't have to worry about transportation to the hall from the church.

So we need to find somewhere that has a nice place to have a ceremony outdoors or indoors if the weather is not so nice. This is Michigan and the weather can be unpredictable. Brad prefers a golf course country club because they are much more picturesque!

The first place we checked is called Fox Hills. It's in Plymouth, fairly close to where we live. The hall was beautiful with windows all the way around overlooking the golf course and a wrap around balcony. This is the only picture I got of the outside.

Shauna and Rich would walk out the door and down those stairs and along the brick walkway to this gazebo

which is really beautiful with hanging baskets of  flowers so we wouldn't have to decorate it.

It's also very expensive. I'm not going to go into detail about costs in these wedding planning posts because it's not necessary but I'll give you one example. They charge $700 to rent the gazebo for a outdoors ceremony.  Fair enough because it is beautiful but the kicker is they also charge $3 a chair for the guests, so if you need 150 chairs, it's an additional $450! Seriously!  So that, along with a few other little things was a deal breaker for us. Too bad, because it truly was a beautiful place!

The next place was called Beacon Hill in Commerce . They were setting up for a wedding that evening when we got there.

Their prices for food and drink were a little more reasonable but what we really liked about this place was the outdoor ceremony area.

Beautiful and on a lake, too! And I can't remember the actual cost of the rental but the chairs are included. And we love the way they curve around the center. We would have to decorate it ourselves but I don't see that being a problem.

We are checking out a few more places but this place is a strong contender.

That's all the planning news for now. They haven't set an actual date yet but it will probably be sometime next August or September.

I did want to show you the patio of one of the apartments I walk by a lot on my daily walks.

It's a little hard to see but they have a bar with plants and solar lights in little colored buckets. A small potted tree and some chairs. And plants, wind chimes and balloons hanging from the balcony above it. So cute!  I want so bad to walk up there and tell whoever lives there that I love their little oasis and how much enjoy looking at it every time I walk by!

Until the next time....

Vacation Recap

Rich and I have been on vacation this past week.

We planned a little trip into the upper peninsula to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. That's the area circled on this map.

There is a ton of waterfalls in the UP and we wanted to see some of them. The most breathtaking are in this area. 

We definitely were not disappointed! 

This is Miners Falls. I really wish the pictures showed how truly beautiful this falls was. It is a 20 foot fall into a gorge. 

The round holes in the rock at the bottom were interesting. I can only assume that they formed from thousands of years of dripping water! 

This is Sable Falls. 

This is also a 20 foot drop but it's three-tier and equally as impressive. I could look at these falls all day! 

The least impressive one we saw was Mosquito Falls and before we could get to it we had to hike 1.1 miles of trail that looked like this:

and climb areas that looked like this: 

To finally get to see this:

Nice but definitely not as impressive as the other ones; and it was a rough 45 minute hike! But we chalked it up to experience and good exercise!!

We only spent two nights up there but it was nice to get away even for just a little while. 

Now onward to wedding planning...

Oh and little Anthony is still in the hospital. He's recovering slower than we thought he would but still doing good and hopefully he will be home in a few days. He had strict instruction from his Great-Aunt Jeanette to not be there when I came back to work on Monday!

Until the next time.....

Woo Hoo!!!

This was the longest week! Not only because it was my last weekend before my vacation but I was anticipating a particular event.....

Last Tuesday Brad asked Shauna to marry him while they were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC! 

He came over to our house about 3 weeks ago to tell us what he was planning. He asked us to not say anything to anyone so we have been bursting at the seams for three weeks. Now it's official and we can shout it to the world. We are so happy! We couldn't ask for a more wonderful man for Shauna to be married to!

 Another wonderful thing was Anthony had his surgery on Wednesday and everything went wonderfully! The surgery didn't take as long as they anticipated and he was only in ICU for less than two days. He's in  regular room and doing well...probably will be going home by the middle of next week!

Last Friday we all went to dinner for my oldest brothers birthday. Here he is with Dominic enjoying some chocolate birthday cake! 

And finally here is the best substitute for noodles I have found to date! 

Shirataki pasta! It's perfect for this diabetic, wheat-free dieter!

Until the next time...