Wedding Week

This entire engagement has been such a wonderful time but this week will be by far the most memorable. One of my favorite movies is Father of the Bride and you probably all know the scene where they are preparing the house and wedding decor is everywhere. Well, we may not be doing the wedding here at the house but between Todd's parents house and my parents, everywhere I look I see bows being made, my bridal portrait, gifts and reception decor which makes me feel like we are reliving the movie scene. All phone conversations are centered around details and lots of shopping to make sure we have everything we need for the cruise and of course a new dress for some festivities. Since childhood, I always knew I wanted a big traditional wedding and big party. I'm so thankful for such loving parents and family that support this dream and are working so hard to make it a reality. I'm very excited to see all the most important people that have influenced my life, Todd's and our relationship. Having them all in the same room will be really special.

As promised I finally have a picture of last Sunday which was the day we moved into our new place. More to come but I doubt I'll blog anymore until after the wedding/honeymoon. I'm sure I will have plenty to talk about!

-S 

A good kind of crazy

Quick update on us...

Greetings from Panera! We have moved to our new place and we LOVE it! Decorating together and unpacking our belongings is so fun. Todd isn't living there yet but we are trying to get as much moved in of his as possible so that we don't have to stress with that after the wedding. We are waiting to get cable and internet when we get back which brings me to my reason for lack of blogging. I've taken lots of pictures of our place that I'll post soon, hopefully before the wedding. Speaking of THE wedding...we are are 9 days away folks. For that I have every reason to be grinning from ear to ear and counting down to everyone I know. Weddings are such a wonderful experience and I'm not ashamed to post to the entire world how many days until I marry the man of my dreams. Most of you reading this have been in my shoes and if not you will be one day. This is a truly exciting time and I will enjoy every moment of it as I'm sure you did/will too!

Today, I have been packing for the cruise. Considering the weather here in the mountains has been around 45 degrees, I'm stoked about putting my toes in some sand and catching some rays. Plus Todd and I have never traveled via air together so we are excited to do so!

I'll be back around later to post more happy pre-wedding stuff and maybe some pictures! I'll be seeing most of you soon anyways!

-S

14 days

Two weeks from today I'm sure I'll have a thousands butterflies in my stomach. I have them just thinking about May 28! I'm at home this weekend packing up a few belongings for our new place (I move in Sunday, woohoo) and finalizing more details for the wedding while Todd is having his Bachelor weekend. My parents and I met with our amazing wedding director at the church last night and it truly hit me that this was happening SOON. I'm really excited about having all our family and friends in one place for one evening to celebrate our lives and God bringing us together. I really will not be surprised if I cry sometime during that day which I know is not a bad thing but with the makeup on and all, I'd rather not. I just tend to cry when I am overwhelmed with blessings. The fact is, I know when I see people at the wedding I'll I think about how much they have influenced my life or Todd's. Everyone is part of the story and that makes me smile really big and cry with joy.

Today I plan to find a new bathing suit considering the last time I bought one was High School. Ridiculous right? Okay I lie, I bought 2 one-pieces for camp but those don't count. So that is a goal today as well as pick up a few things for our townhouse such as new fabric for our dining room chairs. Pics to come of the re-do!

Sorry for lack of photos recently, my camera reader never works. Whenever Todd and I finally get to live together, I'll have his camera reader (that works so well) at my fingertips. Is camera reader even the correct phrase? Oh well, have a great weekend!!!!

-S

Try this!

Today I wanted to share with you all one of my favorite websites. I had heard about it before but was intimidated at how it worked until recently....my life is forever changed. As you all know, I love blogs. I could search and read for hours about DIY and cooking blogs. In reality, nobody has time for that! Which brings me to my new favorite website: Pinterest.

The best way for me to describe it is to imagine one huge bulletin board where everyone in the world gets to post their favorite picture. This includes pictures of food, art, photography, fashion, home and so on. Once you become a member you can also post pictures, categorize them and create boards. Making sense? Probably not, so I'll break it down into steps in case you want to get started.

1. Go to their website by clicking here.
2. Register. You will be put on a waiting list so don't panic. This is normal. Basically it's like asking for an invitation.
3. Once you have been accepted, begin by creating boards by clicking add then boards. For example, I labeled mine fun things such as: get in my belly, I think I can I think I can, stylin, warm and fuzzy...
4. Click on "everything" which allows you to view lots of random photos. Whenever you like something you can "repin" which allows you to add it to one of your boards. What is the point you may ask? Well this allows you to store ideas that you have into categories. I have so many ideas for a future home or things I want to cook that I can store on my boards so I can easily get back to them. Most are linked to blogs that give the tutorials. 
5. Cool feature, your facebook friends that are registered automatically come up as your followers so you can see what your friends are "pinning."
6. I know I know, it sounds crazy but trust me it is oh so fun. It is quick to "repin" stuff so you don't feel like you are wasting much time or having a thousand bookmarks in your internet browser. However I do have a confession, I do spend large amounts of time "pinning" but it has been so worth it. I have found the cutest ideas and recipes!

Sorry for the super long explanation but I want you all to try it. It's free and fun. Let's be followers and if you need any help just ask me and I can walk you through it via phone or in person. In wedding news, we applied for our marriage license (finally), my portraits are gorgeous and our early cruise check in is done. Now we just have to figure out how to get from the hotel to the airport at 4:30 am. Any volunteers??? ;) 

 Also, I move into OUR place Sunday so I've been packing up all day. Poor Todd, I have so much stuff. I'm really trying hard to get rid of stuff before I move! Well clearly I'm procrastinating so I better get back to business!

-S

3 Weeks!!

Good morning from Charlotte! We came into town to meet with our wedding planner at the country club to work out all the details of the reception. Now I can fully visualize where and what the guests will be doing before we arrive and know that they will all be taken care of. The place is even more gorgeous than I remember. Everything is becoming more and more real with 3 weeks to go!

Earlier Friday morning I had my bridal portraits made in Valle Crucis with the talented Eric Heistand. The Heistand family were some our first friends when we began dating and we loved getting to know a couple that were several years ahead of us. They have watched our relationship grow, given us such wise advice and have trusted me to take care of their two precious boys on numerous occasions. Although our wedding day photography is by Orange Cat Photo from Hickory, we wanted Eric to be involved somehow especially sine they are going to be out of town for the wedding. I must brag on Eric for a quick second....in 2009 his photograph won in the Banff Mountain Photography Competition that you can check out by clicking here.  The same photograph was entered in the National Geographic Great Outdoors Photo and guess what....WON. We are proud friends and I trusted Eric to get some shots of me that I know we will cherish forever.

The photo session was so fun. Getting dolled up just like I will on the big day was surreal! Mason, his wife and my friend, made my bouquet which added another special touch. The weather was perfect and I'm so glad we waited to take my pictures in May because everything was nice and green which made for a great backdrop. I'll have the pictures soon but really they will be on lockdown to keep Mr. Davis from getting any peeks. As soon as we get back from the honeymoon I'll try to link the pictures or post some on the blog. Ahhhhhh THREE WEEKS! Bring it on.

-S

Party!

I'm going to be real honest. One of the best parts of this whole getting married thing is an excuse to celebrate aka PARTY. I have just loved the showers which for this blog sake I'm going to call parties. Finger foods are always yummy, smiles all around and presents. Seriously it makes my brain want to explode with happiness when I'm in those moments. This past weekend my camp friends and a few bridesmaids gave me a little last party to celebrate my last days as a Caulder. The party was at Magan's (bridesmaid) house where she kicked out her husband for the night and let us all have a slumber party. Plus she is pregnant so that was very brave of her to invite fifteen girls over! Oh my, let me just tell you, it was WONDERFUL to catch up with friends. In fact I turned my cell phone off and vowed not to go near a computer. I simply spent some quality time soaking in the beautiful people in my life. We played a few games, ate lots of food and I got some well ummm necessities for marriage. As any true slumber party is, we stayed up so late laughing, eating some more of course and being silly. I'm so thankful for the women in my life! I could have spent a whole week with them like that!

College friends

 No words needed.

 Camp friends

 Saturday we went out to lunch and I was picked to crack the egg. It was not a good experience. I didn't do so well and I got burned but no hard feelings, it was still fun.

Wish I could post all the pictures but those go in a vault. Only parties left to go are bridesmaids luncheon and the rehearsal dinner. I can't believe we are so close! Ah, the happy tears are flowing!


-S

One Year Down, One to go.

Whoa, this is the first time I've beat out Sara for two posts in a row.

I finished my last exam today and turned in my final audio project so, hello sweet summertime! As fast as this year has flown by, I'll graduate in no time.

The audio documentary was no easy task. Because of the editing equipment needed to do any work we have to sign up for sessions in the audio labs (in which there are only 3). Well there's only 12 of us in Audio II and probably around 50 Audio I students who have dominated the available lab times for the last few weeks. Granted we've had all semester to work on our projects as Audio II students, my last month has been consumed by a 20 page research paper that I finished last week. To make a long story short, I fueled up on coffee and energy drinks and powered through some editing in the lab this morning from 3:30 - 9:00 in order to get the project in by the deadline. I left the lab this morning so delirious. Even worse I went straight home to study for my final exam at noon. Needless to say, I passed out for the remainder of the day. Sara called me around 9:30pm which finally woke me up. I've never been so disoriented. I thought I had slept through the night and it was now morning. I'll see if I can throw the doc up on the blog in the next week or so for those interested.

Now I can finally get in to wedding mode. Which is in 24 days, FYI. And in 25 days, Sara and I have this to look forward to...

Now I'm wide awake and it's almost 2 am. No good.

Until next time,
-Todd


p.s. I realized we've had commenting restricted to just registered users, which was not our intentions. So comments are now welcome from all.