Booked. Paid. Honeymoon.

So, this is my first casual blog post ever. Bear with me. After about two weeks of searching ALL over the caribbean for a honeymoon spot, and within our budget, we finally found the perfect resort. Affordable. Beautiful (as you can see below). And All-Inclusive.

We will be heading to the Punta Cana district of the Dominican Republic and staying at the Majestic Elegance from August 19-25. Now we just have to wait 131 days. Oh, and we leave at 6:10 a.m. on the 19th... so those of you that know me, that shouldn't be any problem at all.


Who would have thought booking a honeymoon could be so tedious? We decided not to go through a travel agency and do this on our own, which may or may not have made a difference in the time spent searching. Knowing us, and our inability to make decisions (mostly mine), it wouldn't have mattered. But I feel 100% confident we found the right place for us.


We are staying in the "Adults Only" section of the resort, or known as the "Elegance Club". I know, right? High class. We actually just wanted it to be as intimate as possible for both of us, and the pricing really wasn't much of a difference. Plus, we get four extra bars, a private beach area, 24-hour room service, butler service (again, I know, right?). The list goes on.

In addition, the lagoon-style pool (above) ... it's 400 meters long. FOUR. HUNDRED. METERS. That's equal to a quarter-mile for those of you calculating at home. And I'm swimming the whole thing. Maybe. Probably not.


Well, I don't want this thing to get super long but as you can tell, I'm really excited about it. I haven't been to the caribbean since a family cruise when I was maybe 15 years old, and I'm really just looking forward to spending a week alone with the love of my life, free of interruption. I hope she is too. Because it's going to be the trip of a lifetime!


Finally, one more photo. This is a photo (below) of the room we reserved. You can see there is a jacuzzi over in the back right corner there as well. Of course, because we're on our honeymoon, the resort is supposed to be upgrading our room for free, based on availability, so this could very well not be the room we stay in.

-R (because Landra signs with "L" for some reason)

shake it up!

So it's been a while... I know. Wedding planning was put on the back burner for a couple of weeks for a pretty darn good reason too!


March 9th a recruiter contacted me about a design position in Birmingham. He had found my information on Linkedin and thought I would be a great fit for the company! A little more talking, an "up all night" weekend of preparing my portfolio and I had an interview! I met with the company two different times and got very excited about the opportunity.


Rod and I talked, prayed over the opportunity, I was offered the job last Monday, March 26th, and I accepted the next day. I will be doing creative design, proposals, and production drawings for various projects. The company is Fravert Services and they do tons of signage and wayfinding signage for hospitals and sports parks as well as some churches and commercial businesses all over the U.S.! Rod and I are excited about this new opportunity and a new place to begin our lives together. You can check out their pretty cool portfolio here


Now, can we ask for some prayers for Rod a job in Birmingham?!


I start April 16th and my last day at SCS is tomorrow! I am super sad about leaving all of my great, encouraging, fun co-workers, but I am also excited about this new adventure!


Wedding planning is back on starting this weekend! I'm headed home for a few days to spend Easter with the family and help them out, as well as make the centerpieces for the wedding with my "Padre'"!!! They are going to be so great!


-L

save the date!

         Save the dates are being sent out today!!! I'm so excited (and partially relieved)! I can't wait for our guest to get them and I hope they enjoy them! We worked hard cutting out the magnets, applying the graphics ( I had some awesome help from Chris and Elizabeth in our graphics department at work!), cutting out the address labels, and applying them to the envelopes. I've checked over the addresses about 6 times... Hopefully they will all get to the right place! I've posted some pictures below. My next project will involve some green moss and the letter "B" as well as some burlap as our door accents at the wedding!!

Results of DIY Save the Dates and Invitations...

magnetic glimpse

Here is a quick glimpse of our Save the Dates! Rod's one request was that they be magnetic. I can't wait to get them all cut out, applied to the magnets, and sent to you guys!! That's they one downfall to saving money on them... I will be spending my weekend at work using the cutting mat. Good thing I like doing stuff like that :)! So excited about them!

boy with a registry gun...

This past weekend we accomplished 2 things! We registered at Belk and we got our edited engagement photos back! Woo hoo!!


We both had tons of fun registering. Rod got a little carried away with the registry gun, however. He decided to scan a wine cooler (because we are huge wine connoisseurs???). He also accidentally typed in 41 food processors and when she printed out our final sheet we somehow had 83 on there?! Yeah... And this was just Belk!!! Rod thought it would only take about 30 minutes and that we could knockout all 3 of our stores in one day. (HA!) We definitely spent 3 hours just in Belk. This was our first stop so hopefully the next two will go much quicker!!! 


Our engagement photos are in!! You can view them here on my Flikr page! We have all the rights but if you want any printed just let me know and I'll email you the form you need just in case anyone asks! 


We are already under the 200 day mark! August 18th will be here before we know it! Ahhh so excited!


-L

rain rain go away

    Tomorrow is our engagement photo shoot! We are super excited about it! We are meeting with our photographer, Jason Qualls, in Birmingham Saturday afternoon. I don't know what all he has in store for our shoot, but I've started on a couple things to help with designing the save the dates!!

    I grabbed some scrap vinyl from work and a scrap cedar board, stained the board, and cut out our date in a cute font in the vinyl!! I am going to tie some twine around the ends for us to hold it with.


    The picture to the right here is some scrap magnet material for our Save the Dates!! I'm thankful for a job that I can use something that would be trash and recycle it for my wedding. Makes me feel a little "green" plus it's saving us money too! Yay! 


Pray it doesn't rain too bad tomorrow. It's 60% thunderstorms. I know we could take some cute pictures in the rain as well as inside, but it'd be nice to not have to deal with the rain.

say yes to the dress!

    My mom and sister visited this past weekend! We spent the weekend discussing wedding details, of course, but it was also a good time just to hang out and catch up. The main reason for the trip was for me to model the dress I had chosen!! I had about 2-3 that I liked, but I kept staring at the picture of this one and smiling. I put it on again on Saturday and confirmed that it is definitely my dress!!! It'll take about 12 weeks for it to come in so now it's just sit and wait. Rod's mom and sister joined us as well. They were all supportive and loved the dress too! I can't wait!!! 
   

    We spent the rest of Saturday watching Rod's UAH Women's Basketball game (they won-making this year's Lady Chargers have the best starting record in school history!) We then headed home to watch Courtney Porter make it into the top 13 of Miss America!!! 

    Rod and I are getting engagement photos taken this Saturday! Rod is sad we are missing the Alabama National Championship Celebration... but with both of our schedules this was the only weekend we could do it. Gotta get those Save the Dates out soon!!!

-L