Wedding Wednesday: The Rehearsal Dinner

We tried to keep the rehearsal part of the evening as fun, casual, and short as possible. The wedding party met at 5pm and after a run through of how the next day was going to go, we boarded buses in front of the hotel to take us to the other side of the Lake for dinner at Gordy's Boat House.



We had tons of champagne and beer on the buses to get the party started and we got very lucky with patient and fun drivers, because we. got. rowdy.

This was the first of 3 full buses arriving at Gordy's for a night of Fish Fry - Wisconsin style! 

 

Last year, when my mom and I were checking places out to host the wedding, we fell in love with Gordy's private room. I'm pretty sure we booked it the day we saw it and it instantly became the foundation for our wedding.

After a few appetizers and drinks, everyone sat down and had an amazing dinner. The fried perch, spotted cows (the beer), coleslaw...the whole thing was so Wisconsin, and so perfect.

 The room also had a private patio that we took advantage of all night.

 

 

Everyone was in such great spirits and our group of people that we spent the night with were so much fun.

Joel and his dad gave such touching and sweet speeches. Joel always impresses me when he speaks in front of large groups....he turns into quite the politician.

 

And my bridesmaids surprised Joel and I with a slideshow of us with pictures from when we were babies, from high school, to our college dating years, Chicago, Los Angeles, Roscoe....the whole thing. It was amazing.

 

We stayed at Gordy's until 10 before we bused it back to the hotel - which was an entire show in and of itself. Thankfully we got smart and put the party people on one bus, and everyone else on another.

 A lot of friends and family had made it to the hotel, so we met everyone outside for a few more hours of drinking and catching up. I had told my girls that I had to be upstairs by 11:30, and all of us kept to that promise.  

I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record, but the rehearsal dinner exceeded my expectations. Everything was so well done, everyone had so much fun, and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Honeymoon Recap: Part III

One of our most anticipated dinners was at Red Salt in the Koa Kea boutique hotel. Their service and presentation were impeccable, but the decor is a bit modern for my taste.

I totally goofed up my favorite drink (French Martini) and told the bartender to make it with vanilla vodka, pineapple juice, and grand marnier (<chombord
). It tasted good but that one martini was freaking strong.

 The next morning we took off on a hike that was right off of our hotel's property. The major of the hike was along the coastline, which was amazing.

The water was so clear we could look down and watch the sea turtles.

 Joel carried our water in his backpack and hid a beer (that he had in a bag of ice) for us to open on the beach together. We sat on the beach, quickly exchanging sips because we thought we saw a state trooper, at 9am...but it was one of my favorite memories of the whole trip.

The night we made it to the popular restaurant on the island - Plantation Gardens. This was my favorite of all of the places we dined. 

 


It was the most "Hawaiian" feeling of all the places we were at. We sat on an open back porch, and even with no ocean view in sight, the grounds were so beautiful you didn't even miss it.



 Joel ordered the Lao Lao which is basically like a paella, but served and cooked in a giant banana leaf.



The next day, we work up at 5:30am to drive up to Waimea Canyon. Joel is an avid trail runner, and hiking the Kuku'i trail was his #1 must-do while we were in Kauai.



Thankfully the sun never came out, because it was the hardest hike I've ever done. It took us almost 4 hours to hike the 4 miles because it had such rough terrain and was really, really steep.



The views were gorgeous, but this particular trail was tough. I only did it for Joel and would probably try and find a better traveled trail the next time. We never saw anyone else on the trail and I felt like it would have taken days for our bodies to be discovered.

Joel obviously loved every second of it. 

Since he had put me through hell and back, Joel took me back to Josselin's for more happy juice sangria and small plates. 

To die for Rock Shrimp

 

Our last day on the island was 4th of July and so to celebrate both occasions, we decided to attend the Grand Hyatt's Luau. It is $100/person - but includes tons of food and open bar.



I'm so glad we decided to do it. It was a really entertaining performance and we ended up sitting by great people and having such a fun last night.

Our honeymoon was beyond perfection. Joel and I laughed and laughed, relaxed, and just enjoyed every freaking minute. We both felt like we took advantage of everything Kauai has to offer and we would both go back in a heartbeat. 

The best part of leaving this blissful trip was that we got to go back home as husband and wife, and start our newly wed life together.

Weekend Recap

On Friday night, Joel had a few guys over for pizza and beer, and Roscoe and I decided to crash their boys night. The pizza and beer were really, really good.

Since we've been back home - I've had a major nesting bug. We are cleaning and reorganizing our house one inch at a time - and Saturday's task was to invest in a safe to keep our super important files - marriage certificate, passports, etc.

To celebrate our new found adultness, we decided to meet friends for Mexican at El Cholo. If you sit at the bar - they will make the best jalapeno margarita's in the world.

Until you drink five of them and come very close to losing the battle against tequila.

My hangover wasn't as bad as it should have been, so we were able to get some more organizing done. We made another trip back to Crate and Barrel to buy out more of our registry and gussied up our front hall closet. 

Since having Roscoe, we have met so many other dog parents that we are like, "we need to be friends with them".  Finally, we are got around to having wine with our favorite dog owners and had wine, a doggie date, and tons of fun.

I broke in my kitchen-aid mixer for the first time to bring over S'mores Cookie Bars that were BEYOND amazing.

It was a great weekend, but I'm looking forward to the week ahead.since I'm still loving getting back into a normal life routine.

Friday Five

1. I'm sorry, but how good looking are my parents?

 

sneak peek at my cute flower girl!

After being home for so long, and seeing my family and friends so often during the engagement process, I'm already homesick for them. The next time I plan to be in Chicago is over Thanksgiving, but I'm trying to convince my parents to meet Joel and I somewhere half way in September or October, because there is no way I will last 5 months without seeing them.

2. We had to make a few Crate and Barrel returns after deciding that I really do not need 12 everyday sets of tea cups and saucers or 20 different types of serving trays. Luckily, we now have a really big credit and the first purchase I made was for a shelf. 

      

We have a ton of huge closets in our condo, so we cleared on out in our entry way and this bad boy is going to squeeze right in. I have a tiny kitchen, so it's going to hold all of our appliances and the other 10 trays I decided to keep. 

3. I'm obsessed with Below Deck. Have you watched it? Why does Bravo always suck me in?? The blonde girl is a hilarious waste face

4.  I made it to the Social Security office and after an hour I had legally changed my name. I was very excited, but I could tell my parents were a little sad. I did decide to change my middle name to my maiden name, because I just couldn't part with it forever.

5. After being off schedule for almost 4 weeks, this week back to work and reality took some major getting used to. I was never tired for bed and not even coffee could get me out of bed. Finally by Thursday my body started to remember what it's like to be a functioning adult, but Joel and I both felt like kids going back to school after a long, long summer.