Bridal Shower #1!

Hi my name is Laura...some of you may remember me... :)

My life is very busy! Lots of excitement since my last post...

1. Yes, I completed Ironman Canada. 7th Ironman! 12:57. Not very happy with my performance. It was a beautiful race, it was tough, it was a great experience. Just not my time to shine.
   
2. New job - I love teaching and working in the lab!
   
3. BUYING A HOUSE!!
   
4. WEDDING PLANNING!!!! wow, it's so close!
   
5. Winston of course :)


6. Getting fat :) Haha. No really, this is first SERIOUS break from training/triathlon/structured exercise in like 5 years. I'm getting back into a "prep" training mode now, but it's reeeeaaally pathetic. :)

But anyways, you'll hear about all these wonderful life happenings in blogs to come :)

Right now, I would like to share with you my wedding shower #1 from last weekend!

The majority of Dan's family lives around here (Bloomington-Normal), so his mom and sisters offered to host a wedding shower for me down here. Most attendees were ladies from his family, my awesome co-workers at Illinois State University!, some home crew (Mom, Kiki, Ama, Michaleen), and my bridesmaids!

Adrienne, my Maid of Honor, and Dan!

My bridesmaids - 1! Laurie had to leave early before pics were taken! Leslie (Dan's sister) is in the back, Singeli is in the pink bottom left (My cousin!) Then Adrienne and Margaret!

Such a ladies' man.

The morning started off with a great bike ride with Margo! She is an AMAZING athlete, watch out IMOO next year- she's got some MAJOR unfinished business. We rode on the FRIENDLY roads out to Danvers (unlike our last ride), no dog incidents, just some high heart rates because we get too fired about about some conversations...hahaha, gotta remember it's base-training now!! Weather was a perfect fall day - 50's, sunny, pretty leaves... :)


Dan and I getting the first glimpse of the real wedding invitations!

Since I am notorious for "comfort and efficiency" it is RARE to see me dressed up. However, my mother "forced" me to go buy some cute clothes for my shower :) Thanks Mommy! I went a

little overboard with the make-over though, i.e. dying my hair BLACK!! not intentionally. No worries though, Dan was totally into Ashlee Simpson during her punk-rock phase so he loves it :)

Tea party!

The party was so cute - Dan's mom and sisters planned a "tea party" theme, so every table had its own real tea set and lots of delicious flavored teas!

Margaret and I enjoying tea. :)

They also had some yummy sandwiches and veggie trays (my favorite!), salads, and tasty little desserts. As you can imagine, Margo and I were very happy to partake in the feast after our ride!

We played a couple games- a wedding word scramble..and my i-phone junkie mother found a word-scrambler app...YES AN APP FOR WORD SCRAMBLES...so she totally cheated.

Everybody received some Mardi Gras beads with our wedding colors (black red gold) and got to steal beads from others if they caught anyone saying "Laura, Dan, Bride, Groom, Wedding". Yikes. I had some very pretty white loooong beads that were stolen by my co-worker Karen's daughter Cassie b/c I couldn't resist saying the love-of-my-life's name!!

There were also two poster boards with pictures of Dan and I from when were very little- through teenagers, and everybody had to guess our ages in the pictures. I did terrible! I guessed 3 of my own correctly, and 2 of Dan's. Oops. Again, Cassie WON this one!! Maybe the youngens are better at identifying people their own age?
Dan...super cute.

I really did feel special - all these people came to this shower to help celebrate our upcoming marriage - they took time out of their day to not only come celebrate, but to get a card and a gift for us too!

Holy cow, we received so many wonderful gifts!! Lots of dishes and fun things for our kitchen, and LOTS of wine and cheese accessories! NICE!! We are so excited to put all of our new things into our new house...Karen and Betty said that after 10 years of marriage you should be able to throw yourself another shower, because you need all new stuff!!

Only 2 months left of the year, but wow it's going to be exciting!