No, I didn't forget about you.

Okay so maybe I did. Don't take it personally. I actually think you're very pretty. So let's get things up to date!

In non-wedding news:

Thanksgiving was in Grafton with Barb and Peter and several more of Robby's family members. It was nice to be back so soon after getting a chance to meet the extended family. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well for some of the trip, so I spent a lot of time being lame on the couch. I WAS, however, feeling well enough to watch the Diet Coke + Mentos extravaganza. :)


Christmas Eve was the usual church, dinner and shenanigans at my parents house in White Bear Lake with the Donley family. Lots of singing, talking, eating, and being together. Christmas Day was also out in WBL with Dave, Karin and the boys. It's so fun to have the boys around for everything - especially since Dave and Karin were off in Russia last Christmas working on bringing Vanya home!


And right before Christmas, we had a new addition to our friend group! Jackson Thomas Verdoorn was born, making a family of 4. Robby and I were able to visit them while still in the hospital. It was so great to see how excited Sophie is about her new brother. It's entirely possible that Sophie was just as excited to get some time to hang out with Robby. Wow, she loves him. :)

And finally, within the last week Robby and I have purchased a new car (Honda CR-V) and a new furnace! We are a little more excited about one of them than the other. But I've had my eye on that cute little furnace for so long now!

In wedding news:
WOW. 75 DAYS AWAY. Dinner menus have been finalized, bridesmaid dresses have been ordered, I've had my first dress fitting, and the invitations have been ordered! Also, it's a good thing I happened to use one of the phone numbers for our hotels because it turns out I had typed out a 9 instead of a 0 and called a fax machine instead. SO glad I found that before our final order!

Last week I got a call from Mom saying that she had received a letter from our florist. Unfortunately she's had to close her shop! :( I had a couple seconds of panic before I realized we had plenty of time to find someone - it just meant some more running around and appointment making. Luckily my mom had already done some research before she even called me. I think that helped me not to worry! In addition to Erik telling me that the florist went out of business 1 week before his wedding. I had nothing to complain about!

Mom and I went up to Forest Lake on Saturday to meet with Melissa at Bella Flowers. She was so great! She even spoke to our former florist to get an idea of what we had talked about, she used some flowers from her shop to give Mom and I some visual help and was just all around awesome. Plus, we were there for about 3 hours and it didn't feel like it at all! Both Mom and I left feeling really excited about everything.

And in the category of my current favorite people, Heather Hofmann is being AWESOME and helping me to locate these adorable cupcake photo holders that we'll use on the tables for the reception. Yay for having friends who can use their employee discounts! :D Now we just have to figure out how to ship 35 model cupcakes from Indiana to Minnesota...

So now Robby and I are working on real specifics. We're going to meet with Dave to work on planning the ceremony, we want to find a time to meet with Mike so we can choose music, our friends are planning parties for us, our registries are being updated. All kinds of stuff! All of our friends are being amazing and offering help left and right. We are so so lucky!

I think that's the update for now. I'll be updating the links on the blog for our updated registries and any hotel information.