A Beginning and an End

I'm a few weeks behind on all things blog but I'll try to play catch up a little. A few weeks ago, my younger cousin (who was closest to me in age in the cousin crowd) got married. Her husband was actually her brother's best friend growing up so we've all known "Johnny," (who now like to be referred to as Jon since he's all grown up and an army Doc) since childhood. Holly and Jon began their new life together as "The Hardys" on July 10, 2010.

It was a beautiful and elegant wedding and the whole family got involved in the fun! Holly asked me to be a bridesmaid and sing a little number with one of her good friends Allie. My mom served as the pianist and organist and my dad stepped in the day before as the official videographer. He also served as the only photographer for our family so the few pics I captured must also be credited to Jerry Becton.


My Aunt Lanette with Holly, the beautiful bride.


The Becton/Spencer family


All the men in my life.


The bridal party with Holly.


Allie and I cranking some tunes on the mic.

So now for the end...it's not really an end...just a transition, but one of my closest friends is moving to upstate New York next week and William and I hosted a little going away bash for them at our house lase weekend. Leslie and I knew each other from a distance at Baylor but quickly became close friends after re-uniting in Dallas. Over the past four years, she has become an accountability partner, encourager, and one of the first people I turn to for advice in a crisis. None of these things will change with her moving, we will just have to learn to do it over the phone instead of face-to-face...unless I finally catch up to 2010 and get a webcam and microphone and learn to use skype...but that's another post for another day.

I was a little busy keeping everything moving in the food department on Saturday to take pictures so I borrowed these from Leslie's recent post about the party. Leslie, please don't sue me for copyright infringement. Please notice the "Adios Leslie and Justin" sign...my first attempt at Arts and Crafts in many, many years, as well as my table decor with the flowers in some of my bright glasses from the college years. That was actually a tip from my mom that I was skeptical about but, it turned out well.

Leslie and I share a common love of Dublin Dr. Pepper.


Everyone who was still there at 10pm.



Justin..the other half of the honoree couple with some of the boys.


Some of the guests going through the food line.

Truly, Leslie and Justin are 2 of William and I's best friends and they will be greatly missed in Dallas. I'm still working on the details (aka convincing William) but a trip to New York to visit is already in the works!

Florida Wedding Fun

Over July 4 weekend, William and I headed to Orlando, Florida for the wedding of his best friend Jason. Jason was the best man in our wedding last year and William returned the favor as his best man last weekend in what turned out to be a rainy, multicultural, and amazingly fun 4th of July weekend.

We got there Friday evening and headed straight to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Because Jason's mom is from Hong Kong AND that's where he met his British bride, Lindsay, the rehearsal dinner was at an amazing Chinese food restaurant in downtown Orlando. I forgot to take pics that night so you'll just have to trust me that it was great and good times were had by all.

Saturday turned out to be the big adventure. We were supposed to be ready by 1:45pm to meet up with some of Lindsay's friends from London and catch a bus to the wedding (which was scheduled to start at 4pm). Erin Proctor and I were actually on time to meet up with our English friends and we headed to their house to wait for the bus. Since we were getting picked up 2 hours early for the ceremony, Erin and I anticipated a lot of lag time and packed books to read and comfy shoes in our bag to wear up until the wedding...which turned out to be very ironic by the time the day was done.

After waiting at the house for a bus to come by until 2:45, we decided to call our own taxi to the ceremony (which was a 45 minute commute from the house). The taxi we called told us he could be there in 30 minutes to pick us up, which would make our arrival time at the wedding EXACTLY at 4pm IF he actually showed up in 30 minutes. One of the English friends had a rental car and we decided we should probably just drive ourselves but about 2 minutes after we left the driveway, we got a call from the bride letting us know that the wedding planner was sending a car to get us. We turned around and went back to wait for the car. The rest of the story gets quite lengthy and complicated but I'll just say after 2 more attempts at driving ourselves and receiving calls to go back because our taxi was almost there, we were finally picked up around 4:15pm and walked into the country club at 5:09pm. Because it was smaller wedding and all the guests were out of town, and due to 4 accidents on the major freeway that everyone took to get to the wedding, we ended up arriving only about 20 minutes after the other guests and they just held the start time of the wedding until everyone arrived. It was an intense day and we really bonded with our 3 new friends from London through the experience. Here we all are after finally making it to the wedding and witnessing the beautiful ceremony!



I made William pose for a bunch of pics with me because the site of the wedding so beautiful!





Wedding Highlights....

Pics of the beautiful bride and groom and wedding party





Lindsay's amazing grandfather from England. I chatted with this guy as much as possible and he was on the dance floor ALL NIGHT! He kept reminding everyone he was in his 80's and if he was still going, we should be too!



This is the most amazing ice sculpture I've ever seen. They poured drinks through the middle and even served the drinks in frozen ice glasses. Amazing.


We spent the rest of our time in Orlando celebrating with Jason and Lindsay, shopping some amazing outlets and visiting Universal Studios! Here are some photo highlights of the rest of our trip!

Erin and I on the boardwalk at Universal celebrating July 4th!



Will and I at Universal



The new Harry Potter ride...this room was filled with pictures that moved and talked to each other just like in the movie!


The wizarding world of Harry Potter...I'm not a huge fan, but it was pretty cool.