Two Become One

As wedding season comes to a close, the weddings-to-be-attended list is dwindling. At least for this year. I think my bank account is secretly happy about this.

Steve and Michelle, both of whom I know from our years at Creighton, got married in Minnesota. It was a beautiful wedding of two beautiful people.

As always, it was ah-mazing to have a good majority of my college friends in once place again. They traveled from all across the country to attend, and it was another memorable weekend.

I didn't capture a lot of the decor, but here are some of the highlights of the weekend.


The wedding ceremony at the Basilica

 

The Reception, at a country club somewhere in the Twin City-ish area

 

I caught Miche's bouquet, and here's what ensued.

If you know Mikey, I'm sure you can create your own captions...

As you can probably guess, it started with "WHOA! WHAT? NO!"

and ended with him giving the bouquet to a little girl who was walking past.

And this is how the night ended. A definite success.

Congrats to Michelle and Steve.

Thank you for a memorable weekend,

and wishing you all the best in your marriage!

The Fruits of Labor

As the Nebraska summer carries on, we are left with blazing heat and tortuous humidity. And vegetables fresh out of the garden.

We have enjoyed many meals with these fresh ingredients, and there are many more to come.

Compared with produce bought from the grocery store, these flavors are richer and the textures more varied. The shelf-life isn't as long with these, but it leaves me with peace of mind knowing they aren't filled with chemicals and preservatives.

I hope your gardens are just as fruitful (uh, vegetable-ful?).

Cupcake Delivery

Between four days in Florida and four in Minnesota, I worked 40 hours and baked 3 dozen cupcakes... in a 3-day period.

Who needs sleep anyway?

A friend asked me a couple weeks ago if I'd make cupcakes for a meeting she was hosting. Absolutely! She didn't have any flavor or decor requests, so she got my favorites. I boxed them up real cute and delivered them. At 6am. I'm so glad someone else has as weird of hours as me. No wonder my bedtime is 9:30pm.

But despite the time crunch and the early delivery, they still got rave reviews.

"Hey Amy! Just wanted to let you know that your cupcakes were a HUGE hit!! Everyone loved them!! Their fav flavor was the pink lemonade!! ... Next time I'll have to order more.  Since there weren't leftovers my poor husband didn't get one."

Buy your stock now.

It's the beginning of a booming business.

A Happy Birthday Surprise!

Well, after a 4am wake up, 5 hours of travel, and plenty of turbulence, I have arrived... In Florida! With much collaboration and cooperation from her boyfriend Jason, I flew here to surprise my friend KT for her birthday. We successfully kept the secret for nearly 3 months. Jason left their house to "pick up lunch" but rather than returning with pitas from Pita Pit, he picked me up from the airport. I walked into the house and found KT in the office studying diligently for grad school tests. She looked up with a blank face, stunned. The shock was shortly followed by a few high-pitched shrieks, jumps, and hugs.

I'm so happy we were able to keep it a surprise, and I'm so happy to be here with KT. What a great weekend it will be... I'll have a full report when I return home.

Happy Friday, all!

Sugar and Spice

I hung out with Kayla and Miss Kasey earlier this week and attempted to snap some precious pictures. Kasey was minimally cooperative, but I can't blame the girl. She gets cranky when she's hungry... I can relate.  But regardless, she is absolutely adorable! Such a precious little one.

Isn't she a doll?

An Afternoon with Jakob

Little Jakob is now nearly three weeks old. He is growing like a weed, and was much bigger and more awake than Sasha and I had planned, but we had a great time anyway.

Here is some of what we captured. Excuse the amateur-ness of the photos; this is the first time I've done a baby shoot. I don't have a very expensive camera or expensive editing software... yet. So you get what you get.

But I'm sure you will fall in love with him anyway, just as I have done. Enjoy!

Midnight Ride

The Owl Ride:
What: Late-night bicycle ride around Omaha benefiting the Meyer Foundation for Disabilities
Distance: 16 miles
Time: 11pm-2am
Riders: 2,000

At 10:30 we finished loading our bicycles into the car and were on our way downtown. We parked, unloaded, buckled our helmets, and switched on our lights. We lined up with the other 2,000 riders at the starting line -- on the overflowing riverfront. Luckily, the street was open only for bicycles, and was closed to motorized vehicles because of the flood.

We took off from Rick's Boatyard in groups so that the streets wouldn't be too flooded with tangles of wrecking bicycles. We took to the streets of the Old Market, and onto the first "Owl Perch", or rest area, at Midtown Crossing. We passed through this point, as it had only been about 15 minutes of riding. We continued onto Dundee, Aksarben Village, and Field Club where the remaining Owl Perches were located. Each stop had cold water which was necessary, on a 90-degree muggy night. The streets weren't closed to traffic, so we dodged parked and driving vehicles. We stopped at stoplights and cruised through the greens. Volunteers and police officers were at intersections and turns, telling us which way to go.

It was quite a sight seeing so many bicycles decorated with headlights, red flashing tail lights, and neon glow-sticks riding through town. In various neighborhoods, house parties of people came out, beer in hand, to cheer us on. I'm not sure why, but "USA! USA!" was a very common chant from on-lookers.

We finished with a ride through ConAgra Plaza, past the Qwest (ahem, Century Link) Center, and back to the Riverfront. We ate some less-than-delicious breakfast burritos, were interviewed by the news crew, and relaxed on the riverfront landing.

Owl Perch in Aksarben Village

Joe, Emily, and I at two of the stops

Cooling off at the riverfront landing

The riverfront. Left: Rick's Boatyard and pedestrian bridge, and riders after the finish.

Right: The flooded river--you can see how high the water is on the lights and benches.

What a great night of riding with great friends.