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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wedding Wednesday

As the big day is drawing near, so much is going on and so many things are getting accomplished. I figure from here on out I will **attempt** to doa wedding post every Wednesday. This surely comes with a disclaimer. My schedule for the next 2 weeks is a little crazy with Super Bowl and then days later I head to San Francisco BUT once San Fran is over, I will be home until the end of March...well - for now. HA!
On the plane home from Malaysia I read a book "Words for Weddings" and tried to mark good quotes and ideas for us to look over. We need to plan our whole ceremony.. from music to every word spoken. Why I took this on beats me, but its been fun/interesting seeing all the options and how many different directions that we can go. We have a meeting with our officiant, Jerry Niederkorn, next Tuesday, so the pressure is on! We need a serious ceremony plan :)

We are having our invitations printed!!! YAY!!!!! I am so excited, they turned out fabulous!
A few weeks back I ordered all of the vases, votives, and candles for our flowers/centerpieces. Today I came home to this beautiful pile of glassware. There were a few casualties, but nothing that I cant have replaced!

I am so excited to have Raquel doing my flowers and for her creative mind to just run with my lemon yellow inspiration!

WE BOOKED OUR HONEYMOON!!!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! (Times a Million!!!!) Bob and Marianne!

Thanks to the Dunaways we are headed to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic - one of the BEST wedding gifts ever! Looking forward to the beach, a drink in hand, and NO blackberry! I wont know what to do with myself, it'll be amazing!

We are working on music - pre-ceremony, ceremony, cocktail hour, introductions, first dances, dancing, last dance.... the list goes on and on. Good news is we have decided on our first dace, our last dance, my processional.... and well, thats about it. BUT we're getting there.
I had dinner tonight with Mrs. Amber Massey. She has been my absolute rock and sanity during this whole process. Everyone needs to know this fact. She has been UH-Mazing. I am so thankful for her on a daily basis. She has been the best throughout this wedding planning and just as a general fact - She.is.a.GREAT.friend. Anyone who is blessed with her friendship should consider themselves lucky.
Still so much to do, but we're getting there... Sometimes I find myself hoping for May, but this process is once in a lifetime. And We are going to do our best to enjoy every minute of it, regardless of how stressful it gets.
Until next Wednesday!
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Sunday, January 9, 2011

Ringing in 2011

I know this is out of order, but for New Years this year we threw an impromptu "grown up" dinner party. The sweet Masseys and Jenna and Philip came over for cocktails, appetizers, a steak and crab dinner, and of course, apple crisp for dessert (the only dessert I know how to make from scratch)

Unfortunately, I didnt take many pictures, so most of these are stolen from Amber and Jenna.
Using our dining room for the first time ever!
I adore all of my new dishes/glasses etc!
Cheers!
Love these girls - they make my heart happy..
The J's out at the grillOur champagne of choice for the night :) LOVE the yellow!
The Cabreras joined us later in the evening to ring in the New Year and play some Apples to Apples.My love (Sadly only 1 of 3 pictures together the entire evening)So maybe it wasnt downtown Dallas, with the "boom-chicka-boom" music as J calls it, but we had a delicious meal, at a whole lot smaller price, got to be with some of our favorite people, played Apples to Apples until 2:30 am and moved onto poker until 5am. It's definately one of my favorite nights.. New Years Eve or not, a definite fav.

Going into the New Year, I have a few resolutions:
*Write more handwritten notes/letters/cards... snail mail is such an awesome surprise
*Like everyone else in the world, I want to get healthier.. I wont say I want to lose weight, blah blah blah, but I do want to watch what I am eating, how much I am drinking and make sure I am working out just to be healthy.
*I want to take J to Chicago this year. I l.o.v.e. that city, and I want him to see why.
*I want to be financially smart this year... post wedding of course. Lets all be honest: financially smart and weddings are oxy-morons
*I want to do vounteer work. Yes, somehow in my ridiculously hectic schedule, I can find more time to give to underprivelaged children. Its my passion and I miss it.
*I want to master my job.
*I want to learn to be a good wife and great at everything that marriage entails.

So here's to 2011!
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Friday, January 7, 2011

T minus NINETYNINE



Double digits! YIKES! Originally I started this blog to keep my far away family and my friends updated on our new lives starting together and to update the wedding progress as we went along. This big number made me go back and look at all of the posts I have done about the wedding… Thaaaat would be a big fat 3?! So I guess I haven’t been keeping everyone as posted about the wedding as I had hoped, but you guys have gotten an ear-full on the “life” part and all our randomness that comes with it!

So here is a little catch up post for over the last, oh, EIGHT months!

The People:

One of my 3 awesome wedding posts I have written. I asked all of my girls nearly the minute we got home from San Francisco. Jarrett, on the other hand… well, let’s just say that reading my first post ever of this blog would be the only way that they know they are part of our day. Jarrett has a running “to-do” list to help me out with all the things to get done for the wedding.. & I am about positive that “Formally ask the Guys” is the longest running thing on that list! Boys!!! I just DON’T.GET.IT.

I will give J credit for formally asking ONE of his ushers, Philip, who gladly accepted :) This will be his first wedding to be involved in – we’re so honored! J still has one more to ask… which he has had endless opportunities, so we will keep this a surprise until he gets his ducks in a row… if ever!

The Place:

After many “I FOUND THE PLACE!” false alarms, we finally did “find the place!!!” Avanti Fountain Place to be exact. Let’s all pray for good, warm, dry weather come April… but as we all know Texas weather isn’t one to be counting on, so bring your umbrella! My ceremony IS happening outside; rain or shine!

Conveniently enough, The Fairmont hotel is located almost AT the venue. A tunnel connects the 2 lobbies and will be how myslef and the girls will go unseen before the ceremony  (You can reserve your room at https://manage.passkey.com/portal/ or 214.720.2540 and let them know you are with the Lally/Dunaway Wedding)

The Attire:
The first dress I tried on is the one we bought! I am so excited for J to see! It is currently hanging in “my” bedroom at my parent’s house, and I need to get my fittings schedule all taken care of.

ALMOST all of my girls have ordered their dresses… there is 1 left on my delinquent list, but it’s ok – I personally would think its comical if she has to walk down the aisle nakey in just her **color** shoes! Who cares if that shifts the focus off of me, it would be UN-forgettable!

**Color** I will be keeping the shoe colors a secret, but the great shoe debate is still a full fledged war, but we will get there…. Sooner or later!

We have started to look into the guys formalwear, and it is on J’s “to-do” list, but as previously stated, some things get pushed to the way side; so he may need a nudge or 2, but I can promise that the boys won’t be nakey on wedding day… NO ONE wants to see that!

DJ & Photographer – Booked!

Cake:

Yet another tasting on Saturday… and I can promise this will be my last. If this bakery doesn’t work out, I quit. And J is on his own for his sweet tooth craving!

Lists:

If there is one excuse for all Bridezillas, This.Is.It! 150 people isn’t a lot, and it’s not a little. But when you have a big family, like mine, and a lot of amazing friends, like both J&I do, the list is not fun. Let me re-iterate - NOT FUN! So we have done the best we can do, and I cross my fingers and toes (& eyes, for that matter) that no one is upset.

Flowers:

My sweet friend, Raquel, has just graduated from TU (sorry… I bleed maroon, it has to be said this way on this blog) and has started her own floral company RLove Designs! I am so excited to have her be the mastermind behind everything floral: Bouquets, Boutonnieres, Centerpieces, Aisle etc etc etc… you name it, she’s doing it! And beautifully at that!

Diet/Work-Out Plan:

I am a great procrastinator.. I didn’t know this until recently when I realized 8 months had flown by and all of my goals hadn’t even been started. So last week while we were off, I took Layla for walks, and did a 30-day Shred Video with Jillian Michaels. I hate that bitch. Not only was I laughing at myself while doing the 20 minute video because it was so pathetically apparent that I am EX-TREM-LY out of shape, but for the next 4 (F.O.U.R.) days I couldn’t walk normal. LITERALLY. Every move I made was accompanied by a groan, grunt, or God knows what kind of other noises I somehow was making. I have yet to do the video again. I have great excuses – Saturday, I have Jenna’s Dance Party Birthday, so for obvious reasons I need to be able to not only walk, but DaNcE! And then next week I go onto back to back meetings… which requires a lot of standing.. See, I told you I have gotten good at procrastinating! BUT if I take my gym shoes halfway across the world, literally (Malaysia) I better damn well use them. So although I may not be dying with Jillian in the next month, I’ll at least be walking/running on a treadmill. Maybe it will make the 3 minute segments of cardio not as pathetic when I get back to a normal routine.

Clearly this section is to make you laugh at me, and hopefully to make me realize I need to get my ass in gear, but either way it makes ME laugh the most!

Upcoming:

The showers, bachelor/ette parties, etc. all start next month. The FUN stuff! Don’t think that these will be at leisure though, like everything else in my life, I will be a crazy fool. I get home from San Francisco the morning of the bridal shower… don’t worry, I just have to catch a 6:00 am flight to make it.. haha And two weeks before the wedding you will find me in Vegas running a 1800 person meeting…

I sound like I’m complaining, but in reality if I had too much time on my hands, I probably would be a bridezilla, but thankfully DFF is keeping me on my toes and keeping me relaxed and sane about the wedding.

I am so excited to see all of my family, my cousins, my friends, EVERYONE all in one place, at one time. Most of all though, I am just excited to be married to the man I love most. But maybe a twinge more than that, I am excited for the wedding to be over, and to get back to our crazy, busy, ridiculous life that we have together, but by then it will just be a little sweeter as “The Dunaways”


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Saturday, January 1, 2011

2010 Recap

My intention when thinking about writing this blog, was to have 1 picture per month... But 2010 had A LOT going on.... so this is what I could narrow it down to:

Ringing in 2010 at the Aloft Downtown - had no idea that this year was going to be so amazing!


Our first trip! New Orleans.... take me back! A champagne diet for 4 days is right up my alley!

I convinced Jarrett to go see Pat Green at Billy Bobs - it was such a fun night and his first "country experience"


We made a trip down to Austin for South By SouthWest (SXSW) - this picture is ridiculous and so was the weekend. Just ask Zak.... well he may not be able to tell you much about it... :) The biggest plus to SXSW is I get to see my cousin, Nick (and his adorable girlfriend Tina), every year, without fail.
Jarrett turned 27!

We got engaged!
And then jet set off to an amazing post-engagement trip to San Francisco & Napa
Jarrett got to "get in" the Pacific Ocean for the first time
I got to see some of my family's oldest friends from Chicago while in Napa. Mama & Papa Strout :)
I also got the chance to see 2 of my oldest, and best friends from my childhood this year.
Scott came to visit over his Spring Break:


Among all of my travels this year with DFF, I was in San Diego this fall and got to spend the afternoon with Matt before I had to get back to Dallas

Second Annual Dunaway Beer Olympics was a success! (even if team Sweden didnt get a medal)
Layla turned 3!

Kayla & Joe got married!
I got to go international for the first time with DFF - Budapest, Hungary! (next up Malaysia!)
Kai Baby turned 1! Such a freakin cutie!
This was our first combined family holiday - Lallaway Thanksgiving 2010

I turned 27 :(
Justin and Jordan got engaged!!!!

J3A "Homies 4 Life" - So excited!Future Dunaways!
Well, for New Years we were supossed to be headed down to Wimberly, Texas with one of my best friends, Katie and her new man. But Jarrett unexpectedly had to work all week and we wouldn't have made it down until late on NYE.
So, in light of the situation we had an impromptu Dinner Party at our house (which I'll blog later) But it was a great ending to 2010 and an even better beginning of 2011.

TwentyTen provided us with so many amazing moments. We have been so blessed this year with great friends, amazing families, and progressing jobs.
I cant imagine a better year, yet have a feeling that 2011 is going to surpass 2010. For me, work is going to be crazy busy, thus far I know I will be going to Malaysia, the Super Bowl, San Francisco and Vegas, all in the 1st quarter. Jarrett has new things lined up for himself at work, which is promising and exciting. We get married - crazy! This means that ALL of my cousins will be in Dallas for at least 2 days all at the same time - brace yourself Dallas! Getting married also means we get to honeymoon and I am ALL ABOUT the vacay! Travis and Jacqueline will be welcoming Baby Boy Tapella. Bobby turns 60... this is a cause for serious celebration! Justin and Jordan get married! Our friendships will continue to grow, and who knows what else is in store for us, but I am so excited for the journey, and starting our life together as husband and wife.
Good Bye TwentyTen, it was fun and exciting, but now on to TwentyEleven - the year of the Dunaways :) Loves!
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