Mama's Wedding

On April 21, 2012, I got to watch my beautiful mother get married to the man of her dreams! The Wednesday before, Scottie and I drove 8 hours to go start setting up. We picked up my friend Suzy in Houston on the way (We've been friends for over 10 years so my mom was dying for her 3rd daughter to come!) and headed to the Bayou state!

Due to my at the time injured hand, maid of honor duties with MOH2 (Maddie!), and my camera dying on me, I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I really wanted from the ceremony/reception, but I did capture some precious moments with the help of Suzy! It was a lot of work doing a "Pinterest" Wedding, but it was so authentic and original, gorgeous, see for yourself!

Turning that... into this....

Got this idea off Pinerest, Mason jars on each fence post. We also did different sized Mason Jars and individual 2in wooden stump looking things with green moss... I hope the photographer got a picture - it was a lot of work but looked fantastic!!

Getting Ready...

This is Al's grandaughter, Emily - the coolest 10 yr old I've ever met! She was the junior bridesmaid

:-)

The whole salon was laughing at me freaking out getting my eyebrows done... the ladies are scared of me! I don't know why my eyes are so sensitive, but the waterworks go crazy every time! It was hilarious.

The Ceremony...

I didn't get a picture of the food tent, but when the photographer gets the pictures in, I'll be sure to post because it was BEAUTIFUL! A few of the housekeeping gals that works for my mom's hotel came to help decorate and made a giant fruit set up! It was gorgeous.

My Aunt Nita made Crawfish Etoufee, Al's brother in law made the most amazing brisket, we also had Jumbalaya, Veggie trays, Meatballs... it was a buffet style. Suzy did get a snapshot of what her plate loooked like... the crawfish etoufee was to die for!!

Check out these cakes......

My mom had an Almond Creme Cake and those are fresh roses for decor - so beautiful!

Now Al's cake was so cool! Our family are known for being crawfish fiends! Look how talented this place was... even put April 21, 2012 with the headline of them getting married on the newspaper! Haha oh and the flavor? TURTLE - tons of Chocolate and Caramel! #holyyum!

Some pictures from the reception...

Best Friends since 8th grade! Love this girl :)

Is that not the cutest picture ever? Love love love.

The close family like my mom's two brothers and their wives/girlfriend and we all went to a bar abuot 30 minutes away to listen to her friend's band play. Danced until about 2am then came home and sat around the bonfire as you can see behind me in the last pic... ALL night listening to Scott and my little brother Nick play guitar, drink, etc....

Needless to say we were soooooo dead the next day... tired got a whole new meaning!

We did manage to get off our butts and go see our Uncle Joey and eat some crawwwwfish!

It was so wonderful. Best part is that the two love birds had the best time with their loved ones and took off the next day to their Honeymoon which they went to the most secluded Bayou area and stayed in a Cabin on a Lake.... this is the ONLY picture they took (below) lol. Well, I take that back. They had 18 pictures total. 17 of the alligators running around and ONE of them. Haha I love my mom.

Al put this picture below up on Facebook with the Caption...
"Happiness Is..."

Congratulations to my mama and her hubby!

New Job, New Car, Mom's Wedding, & Retreat

Just by reading the title of this, you can already imagine the insanity of the past 2 weeks of my life!

I made a huge choice to put in my two weeks at Dell after so many months of stress, feeling like I wasn't good at what I was doing even though I was one of over 50 people who felt the same way. Everytime I would hear a snide remark or see another day go by that I wasn't hitting my sales quota goals, I'd motivate myself to research for another opportunity. I prayed over and over about the decisions coming up in my life and how I would handle them, what I would do, etc.

Well after going to one and ONLY one interview, it was a done deal. I met with the CEO of my new company for coffee and for what was only going to take a few minutes I thought - lasted two and a half hours! We talked forever! I truly enjoyed hearing about how passionate he was about this company and the success of it. It's a small company under 50 people, and I'll be the only one in my position, so will definitely be making a HUGE difference. No more quotas, no more just being a number. I will be doing Sales and Marketing for a local Medical IT Company in Austin. What's even better?! I work on SoCo! For those that don't know, South Congress is one of the best roads in Austin with the best shops, restaurants, and if you haven't been you are missing out!! My commute isn't all that bad, but when I feel like it is, I can work from home! If you can't tell, I already am in love with my job. No more cubicles, I have a beautiful office with two huge windows that overlook SoCo!

Anyway, I had to share what a blessing this has been to me. I am so looking forward to this new journey and can't wait to see what the future holds! Here are some pictures of my office!

New Jeep on the bottom right? Oh yes, that's me!!

Another blessing is buying a new car...well, JEEP... or SUV? Hehe! I couldn't be more happy with it! I sold my 1998 Mazda Protege and upgraded to a new Jeep Compass!

Also got a new pair of Cowgirl boots.. my very first pair! Scottie is too good to me!

Put on these babies and headed to Dripping Springs for a Nutty Browns Concert to see Brantley Gilbert!

It was so fun until we were leaving and it slipped my mind to take my hand OUT of our friend's truck door before Scott slammed it shut! :( Ouch!

No worries, nothing broken or bleeding, but they did have to CUT OFF my ring! I was really sad because this is my dad's first promise ring he gave to my mom almost 30 years ago and when they divorced he gave it to me... I am already having it repaired...

I had to wear a splint at the wedding! I was devestated, but with running around on my mom's wedding day I knew the moment I'd take it off feeling rebellious I'd really smash it doing something not even thinking about it! Haha

Anyway, her wedding was beautiful! I will have a whole post dedicated to her wedding, but unfortuantely I didn't catch all of the pictures that I had wanted to since I was IN the wedding. The photographer did though, so stay tuned :-)

Isn't she stunning!? She is so happy :-)

Myself, best friend Suzy, & Maddie (my mini me!)

Three days after we got back to Austin from the wedding, we took another 4 hour drive right northeast of Conroe, TX to the Retreat at Artesian Lakes for a relaxing weekend with Scott's sister and her hubby. Unfortunately I forgot to do a group photo and they never took pictures, so I only caught a few and here they are!

It was beauiful, relaxing, we went fishing several times, drank by the fire, swam in the lake, fed Mr. Edwin the Elgin Sausage eating Alligator, and Scott took me canoeing for hours just exploring the lakes... pretty cool each dead end to a part of these lakes always had a hidden tunnel you could take where it opened up on the other side!! I wanna go back... like now :)

Hope you enjoyed my picture-FULL post & new changes! More in detail post to come!

PS - This new job also allows me to blog again - wahoo!! My recipes will be back and deeeericious!

XO

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