Teal and Black Wedding : Par-tay!

I had a lovelly bachelorette party planned for me, with a few of my favorite ladies.  When asked if I had any ideas, I said nothing crazy, a low key night would be appreciated.  Maybe a spa day and dinner. Bingo!

We had a great time, we started at spa, the price included 2 services, I chose a massage and a pedi.  This was just what I needed the week before the wedding.  Everyone contributed to the delightful snacks and drinks.

After our pampering we headed to my parents for dinner.  My Mom set up a lovely sit down dinner for all of us.  Yummy salad and lasagna.

 Then the games began!  I received a care package from my Bridesmaid Beth with a few things to contribute since she was unable to make it.

 I had a constume change as I received not one but two fancy shirts!  The above from Beth and the one below from Stacy and Kylie.

 In my care package along with some other fun items was a game the man of the night...

 After our pin the kiss on the bachelor game...my Mom brought out the kareoke machine and well my friends thats where the pictues stop.

I had a great time, it was just what I wanted, a girly good time with my friends, good food, and some pampering.  Perfect way to send me off to marraige land.

Teal and Black Wedding : The Girls

In hopes to fully document my wedding by our first anniversary, I'm kicking it into high wedding gear.

my little personal touch, I made and sent all the girls these cards. they all said yes!

Let’s meet the ladies, shall we?
My Maid of Honor, my sweet sister Liz. Sweet in more ways than one…she’s a pastry chef and also made our delicious cake!

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Bridesmaid, Beth. College roommate and forever friend/Biznit!

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Bridesmaid, Kelli. Witnessed the beginning of our relationship, and long time friend. Jay her hubby was Josh’s Best Man and visa versa.

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I was able to get all the girls and my Mom together to go dress shopping at Alfred Angelo’s. They had a fun time getting all dolled up. It was like a fashion show. We found some duds…and after trying on just about all the dresses there we all decided on the one they are shown wearing above.

I had my eye on it before we went, it just looked simple yet sophisticated and cute. I thought they all looked great in it. Oh and the price was right, plus they all got $$ off because I bought my wedding dress there, cha ching!
Did I mention the colors that we picked, I don’t think so. We chose a deep teal and black as the colors for our wedding. So black dresses worked out perfectly. And since the day of our wedding was a chilly and rainy one I snagged some shawls the week before that were the perfect teal color. The girls took charge in figuring how to wear them and I think they looked pretty sharp.

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Cupcakes

Since someone is so anxiously awaiting my post on todays adventures here it is, just for you Dad.
Don't you just love how last minute plans end up being the best?  A few days ago I got in touch with my Biz to see if she was available this weekend to meet up.  I was amazed that the two of us had a weekend day free.  We decided to check out the Philadelphia Premium Outlets, you  know me and my bargains.  While I regret taking pictures of our illigal cupcake eating at Ruby Tuesdays, and ourselves weighted down with bags of goodies, I do have some stats.
First up tip number gazillion...always do your homework.  Check out the site and see if there are coupons.  Lucky for us, Gap and Banana Republic had 30% off this weekend!

awesome lantern I scored from Yankee

We first made a stop at Banana Republic and were amazed by the prices, Awesome!  I walked out of there with 2 shirts for the hubs,  2 shirts for me and a pair of pj pants for a grand total of $31.46, would have been  $13.49 more but I did my homework and found 30% off coupons.  Express I found another work shirt for $9.99, Gap I scored a nice jacket for $20.99, Champion I found 2 gym shorts for vball for $16.78, at Columbia nice swimming trunks for the hub $6.98, and finally Yankee Candle a surprise for me mum at $5 and 2 super cool lanterns for $10.  So for 5 shirts, a jacket, pjs, 2 shorts, swimming trunks, and candles and lanterns I spent $101.40.
The Biz also had a successful shopping trip, her hightlight was the 2 dresses she found for work for $36 total!  Looks like this outlet is legit, but as always check prices not all the stores were as good as the ones I mentioned.
We had a great day shopping and enjoying each others company.  Can't ask for more than spending time with a dear friend and a successful shopping trip!

Toasted Cheese

The past few days have been filled with tears, sorrow, joy, heartache, fear, anxiety, stress, smiles, hugs, kisses and most of all Love and Memories.

The love that this family has for one another is amazing.  They have been nonstop at the pops side for everything.  When I think about all the love, I get overwhelmed.  That is just in the immediate family.  The love that surrounds us is overwhelming as well.  So many people reaching out to help with anything we need, thoughtful phone calls, emails and texts, just dropping off meals with out even asking.  Sending flowers, delivering flowers, the mailbox full of cards.  Thank you so very much.

Memories are filled of hope, that everything will be okay and comfort, that everything is okay.  The past few days has been a rollarcoaster of emotions.  Saddness equaled out with happiness when talking about memories.

One memory that keeps coming up is one between Sandy and her grandson.  The toasted cheese story has been referenced atleast 3 times, probably more, in the past several days.  One day when Cameron was over, Sandy asked if he would like a toasted cheese sandwhich.  Unsure what a toasted cheese sandwhich was, Cameron said no, I'd like a grilled cheese.  And to Sandy that was a grilled cheese, so she had a few giggles and it has now become a family inside joke.

In the hard days to follow, memories and love are what we have to be strong and carry on.

Do me a favor, stop dwelling on the petty stuff and focus on what is important.  Family and friends.

Love

The past few days have been difficult, sorry I have been missing from blogworld.  The world lost a wonderful, caring, sweet lady on Sunday evening.  My mother in law passed away from a very aggressive lung cancer.  She had been going through several bouts of chemo and multiple surgeries the past year and half.  The lung cancer metastasized to the liver and there it went haywire.  The past few days have been spent helping the family make arrangement, reminiscing, going through pictures and consoling.  This family is a strong one and is doing well, considering.  They are thankful that she is not scared or in anymore pain, I am also thankful.  Tomorrow we will honor her full life with many family and friends.

While going through pictures we came across this one.  Her and my father in law at their junior prom in 1958, High School Sweethearts.

Times like this make you reflect on your own life and what is important.  Cherish the times that you have with family and friends.  Life is too short.
We thank everyone for the love they have shown myself and family through this time. We are so blessed.

Buy me some peanuts and AW SHUCKS CORN...

One recent hot August night we gathered a bunch of our friends and family for a good old fashioned baseball game.  Everyone (I hope) had a great time, lots of laughs. 

Sometimes at the expense of others. ~but really...if my zipper was busting out of my skirt I honestly would give you permission to make fun of me for it. literally busting at the seems~

The Hubs' sister rented out part of the Party Patio a few months back at Coca Cola Park for the Iron Pigs.  What better way to spend a summer night with a bunch of your favs!  On top of spending quality time, we lucked out in getting to see Victorino play in the game.  Here he is first time up to bat and making it to first.

For those of you non-Phillies fans (shame on you) he's on the baseball team, the Phillies.  That was almost embarrassing to even type, shame on you.

Oh and what is Aw Shucks?  Only the best corn on the cob you could ever possibly buy.

Ps. did I get Take Me Out To The Ball Game song stuck in your head?  Good, me too.

Spinning off of Mrs. Chicken Leg's blog entry about friends, which she so nicely illustrated,I would like to introduce you to my new 'friend'. Her name is also Jenny, she's pretty famous, and she makes my muscles ache.

Photo from GameStop

After getting married in October, we went on our honeymoon to Cancun. As we got a recommendation from a trusty friend

photo by PaPartyPix

we booked the Sun Palace all inclusive resort. Lovely resort and would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.

my photo -view from our balcony at Sun

Josh and I looooove food. Josh went to school for culinary arts and hotel and restaurant management, and while he doesn't have a job in that field, he makes up for it when he cooks. At the Sun you could eat/drink anytime and as much as you want. And so I gained 10lbs, ugh. And then Thanksgiving came and Christmas and it has just all been down hill from there.

my photo- our daily breakfast at Sun

I am reminded time and time again that my first word was ‘fries’ . To this day I LOVE fries, the super crispy kind. Mmmm fries…..

photo found on this site

So Jenny was sitting under our Christmas tree Christmas morning, for me. So the deal is, she’s my trainer, she tells me what to do and I do it to the best of my ability. A web cam comes with it so you hook it up to the wii and boom you are famous and on TV. So you have yourself on the right of the TV screen and Jenny on your left.

Photo found at GameStop

I think Jenny tried to kill me the other night…she kept doing leg lifts for 4 counts. So laying on your back, feet in the air slowly lowering your legs to the floor as you count to 4 and then back up for 4. I swear she had me do it like 50 times. So I think there might be a flaw in the program.
Last night she only made me do it once, I’m okay with that. I like it because you can choose to do a 15 min. work out and that’s easy to squeeze in to my busy nights.What is your secret fitness tool?

The Beginning

Hi, I'm Jenny G. So here's the story...I've been thinking about blogging for some time but really is my life that interesting that someone wants to read about it? Ah who cares! So I was out to dinner with my bff biznit Beth who was talking about starting one and I thought lets do it! Let's do the blog thing and see how it goes. So here I am.

Here is a list of somethings I want to blog about....

-my favorite day ever...aka. my wedding

-my wonderful family

-my funny and loving friends

-my daily random thoughts and adventures.

I think I will start with my biz, Beth...as we had an adventure tonight at The Melting Pot

yum- freiken- o. So good! So we decided to do away with Christmas gifts and do a nice dinner....sure we could get each other power puff girl and blues clues paraphinalia but that is sooo 10 years ago

--- Oh btw I did horrible in English so if you think I'm going to edit or are offended by my miss use of commas and excessive use of exclamation points then you should probably just leave now...

Anyway....Melting Pot was great, and even greater spending time with my biz.* We've known each other since freshman year of college. We have some great stories...too bad I didn't have a blog back then...it would have probably been much more interesting. Here's a pic of us 'back in the day' in our dorm hallway...one of our dress-up days? I guess? I don't know I admit we were weird..strange..crazy but we had fun and to us that's all that mattered!!

Since then...we both graduated, got good jobs, got married, bought houses, and kinda grew up...makes me wonder what the next (almost) 10 years holds for us.
Time is so valuable these days...so that is what we gave each other for Christmas, time together. And it was just what I needed. Nothing like a night out with your favorite girl.

*yes we call each other 'biznit' and can't remember where we picked it up...sometime in our college days.