here comes the bride

Not yet, but she did go to her shower!

(I’m terribly behind; her shower was MUCH earlier this month.)

“T” for Tatlow. Beautiful name cards and a framed invitation on the table at the bottom of the stairs.

Abigail worked her little rear end off transforming their church basement into a colorful wonderland of bubble lanterns and tissue-paper flowers!

Each place setting had a placemat, napkin with ribbon ring and a small Mason jar with decorative top as a ‘favor’ for each guest.

Glittery “Mr.” and “Mrs.” decorations for the gift table–all made by Abigail.

The food was great–so impressed with how it all turned out!

Watermelon with feta and mint (!)…

Andrew’s mom made these cupcakes with white chocolate petals!

I made three kinds of treats:

Luscious lime…

Strawberry blondies…

…and those chocolate brookies that everyone loves.

Another cupcake Andrew’s mom made:

…and the main dish: Wegmans subs! They were fantastic, and I thought the presentation was nice.

There was socializing and some game-playing.

Hi grandma!

And of course, there was gift-opening:

Here are Abigail and Carolyn with all the Hedges girls–they’ve been friends from birth, practically.

The bride and her maid of honor:

The family:

All the bridesmaids:

The happy couple:

And even Andrew made an appearance; thanks for helping clean up! Love you, sweetie 🙂

happy summer to me

Good morning and happy summer!

Just finished my last test for Nutrition 102! If only all my classes could be completed while still in my jammies and seated comfortably at my desk at home… Sigh.

Hurray for finally getting to experience true summer freedom! For a month at least; I’m sure on e we close on the house I’ll be in hyper-drive to get it all set-up before REAL school starts up again in the fall. But that’s the GOOD kind of busy; the kind I’ve been longing for for more than a year now.
My reward today for finishing up school: cleaning out my closet and switching my winter clothes for summer clothes! (Only someone as into organization as me would understand…) I might even skip the gym I’m so excited about it! I’ve been waiting to cross that off my list now for weeks.
Side note: Victory! When I thought about a reward just now for finishing school, I didn’t think of food! Hurray! (And yay for beginning the purge-and-organize prep for moving!)

coffee taste-off

The other day I happened to be in East Aurora over lunch and decided to continue my quest to try various coffees and form an opinion about how they taste. This isn’t the point of this post, but I’ll go ahead and tally up my findings so far:

-Tim Horton’s: terrible! It’s bitter and acrid and burned-tasting.

-McDonald’s: not bad, certainly acceptable in terms of drive-thru coffee. Not a huge fan of their McCafe drinks–they’re way too sweet, but when I ask for less syrup, they seem ‘off’ to me.

-Starbucks: LOVE their new blonde roasts (Willow and Veranda). Whether I get plain coffee or a “fru-fru” drink, I’m always happy. Plus, they’re happy to accommodate my “may I have half the pumps of flavor, please?” requests.

-Orchard Perk: it’s the cute little coffeehouse here in the village that is oh-so-convenient on my way to and from school. However, whatever roast I had the other day wasn’t all that great. I’d be up for going back to try another roast, if they have one.

-Taste: their coffee is OK (their fru-fru drinks always cool down too much!), but it’s the atmosphere you go for, anyway. They have multiple roasts, and now that I’m becoming somewhat of a coffee ‘connoisseur’ (ha! hardly…), I feel like I can make a good decision when presented with options.

-Firefly: Perhaps the best brewed and most extensive selection. They source from two different small-batch roasting companies and have multiple roasts (with descriptions!) available at all times. Each cup is hand-poured or french press, so while it might take five minutes, it’s worth it. I keep getting Stumptown’s Columbia roast.

-Panera: LOVE their hazelnut roast–who doesn’t?? AND they have all-you-can-drink iced coffee in the summer! Fantastic, except for that time I was studying and lost track of the time, and the number of cups I’d had…

-@ home: we have a Keurig and a tried and true favorite is Gloria Jean’s Butter Toffee (we’re high class, I tell you….)

-Dunkin’ Donuts: LOVE their coffee! It just has a really smooth taste and I’m always happy no matter what I get. I typically just order a regular cup and add plain cream and sugar since I like the flavor so much. The problem, of course, is that there is one in East Aurora, so I can go ALL. THE. TIME. The only thing that prevents me from going more is that it’s located in such a spot that makes it a little hard to get in and out quickly, nor do they have a drive-thru, so it’s not the quickest of stops. But then again, I’m not exactly known for lightning-fast decision-making, either. (My husband is falling off his chair laughing right now, I just know it.)

Shall we say I might be a bit over-caffeinated? I blame school.