Posing for Engagement Pictures

So now that our save-the-dates have officially gone out to (almost) everyone - we're still having issues with the Outlook.com account we created - I can finally share our amazing engagement photos! We only ended up using two of the photos for our cards, but I still didn't want to let the cat out of the bag too early, then have none of our family and friends be excited or surprised if they had seen them already on the ole' bloggy-blog. But now the time has finally come!!

We took these way back in April, in St. Augustine, Florida. We were oh-so-very blessed and fortunate, because Jeff's Uncle Phil is actually a professional photographer! So he very happily agreed to shoot our engagement session for us in St. Augustine, especially since he lives in Jacksonville! Even though it rained on our entire shoot, basically the whole day, Phil did such an excellent job capturing so many beautiful pictures!

Get ready for pictures galore - "This is the event you've all been waiting for......and away we go!" That last part is a movie quote, and if anyone can guess it, I'll send you some Julep fingernail polish ;) Anyone?

This is one from our save-the-date, that Jeff Photoshopped the "5" in, since our original date was the 12th.

This one is definitely my favorite! There's just so many things about it I love.

This is the second one we used on our save-the-dates.  And this is my Mama's favorite one :)

We chose to do the photos in St. Augustine for a couple of reasons:

1. It was close and convenient to Phil and Tammy, without making them drive three hours to Tally. 
2. I went to school there, at Flagler College, so the small town was my home for four years during college, and I loved it so very much. 
3. It was the very first trip Jeff and I ever went on together, way back in 2011, to attend his Grandpa's funeral (in Jacksonville actually, but we also spent time in St. Augustine that weekend as well.)
4. We've gone back together multiple times since then to visit all my old friends who still live there, and Jeff has come to love the city too!

And for all those reasons, St. Augustine is a special place not only for me, but for us as a couple. And it really meant a lot to be able to have our engagement photos taken there as well, in this gorgeous little town that we both now love so much! All of these were taken in the following locations: historic downtown, the Castillo de San Marcos fort, the Spanish Mission, and Flagler College.

I am so so happy and pleased with the way the pictures turned out. I mean, you can't even tell that we were being rained on during the majority of these. For real - we were standing in the rain for at least half of the pictures above, and they still look amazing! Huge props to Uncle Phil (and his lovely assistant/wife/Aunt Tammy) for all they did for us that day, and the beautiful photos they created for us! If you're in the Jax area, check him out here.

Glad I'm finally getting around to sharing these with y'all, and thanks for being patient and waiting for the past three months! I promise not to take so long sharing our wedding pictures in a couple of months! :)

Much Love,
Halie

Patio Dining & Sunshine: Reasons I Love Florida

I'm feeling a little tiny bit creative today, coupled with a feeling of just really loving where I live. So I've decided I want to come up with a list of the reasons why I love living in Florida. It won't be anything fancy, but ya know, it'll do :) So the following is a quick list of some of my favorite things about Florida.

+ It's nickname is "The Sunshine State," and that right there is enough reason for me to love it. I mean seriously, it's sunny here about 89% of the time (I totally made up that statistic on my own, so don't quote me or anything), and I'm a girl who loves my sunshine. I mean even during the months of November through February when the majority of the country is drowning in rain, snow, sleet and hail, we can still have gorgeous blue skies and a bright shining sun. I love the sunshine.

+ Hand-in-hand with the glorious sunshine, are the gorgeous beaches that surround 89% of the state (that's a made up statistic too, in case you hadn't already assumed that). I mean, did y'all see that picture above? That's not taken on some remote, Caribbean island. That was taken on the Gulf Coast, at St. George Island last year. Beautiful. Am I right, or am I right?

+ Florida State football is perhaps the greatest in all the land of college football. Don't even try to argue with me on this one, or I'm pretty sure we can't be friends anymore. The Florida State Seminoles are my absolute favorite. And plus, I look pretty good in garnet and gold.

+ We have some of the most amazing entertainment places within just a few hours' drive of anywhere in the state. I mean hello? Orlando is like the top tourist spot in the country or something, right? (I guess I could have actually done some research to give y'all real stats, but I'm not all about that today...) Orlando alone is home to Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Harry Potter world, Epcot, Sea World, Wet-n-Wild, and about 15 other amazing amusement parks.

+ Just about every restaurant has a patio for outdoor seating, and you can sit there almost the entire year. There's just something a little bit special about eating at a restaurant, but still getting to sit outside. Do y'all agree with me on this one? Especially the places at the beach where you can just walk up off the sand, and plop down right in your bathing suit and still get service. Those are the best.

+ And for more entertainment, there are of course zoo's and aquarium's, and there are even some pretty neat museums too. (Nerd alert over here for this girl!) But more importantly, you can take airboat rides in the Everglades. Which is pretty stinking awesome. And they even let you hold baby alligators.

+ I can wear flip-flops and dresses basically year-round. Yeah, people will sometimes be all like, "Hey crazy girl! Aren't your feet freezing?" And yes, sometimes they are. But sometimes I just don't care. And I hate having my feet all confined in restrictive shoes, so I'd rather just brave the "cold" and wear my flip-flops in December. And I know all you Northern girls love your Hunter boots, but I barely even know what those are. (Never heard of them before this past winter in fact.) And I'm glad I don't have to wear them just to make it to my car to prevent my feet sinking down in the snow and having frostbite start setting in before I even make it to work. No. thank. you.

There really so many other reasons I love living in Florida, but I think it's time to wrap this up for now. Maybe I'll do a Part II to follow this up sometime in order to rub it in your face how awesome Florida is fully detail why I love my state.

If YOU live in Florida, what are some of your favorite things about living in this sunny state of ours? Let me know, and I might include it in my next list. :) But if you don't live in Florida, I want to hear why you love the state you live in! I guess some of the others out there are pretty cool, so let me know about that too! In fact, we may even make it a one-time link-up, but I don't know yet. I just threw that out there as my brain thought of it, so let me marinate on that a bit more. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, and I'll let y'all know later if it'll actually be a link-up or not!

Much Love,
Halie

Pool-Crashers & Water-Splashers

Good morning lovely ladies! Hopefully your Monday's are off to a decent start. Mine seems to be good so far. I'm in quite a nice mood, and I don't really even know why. But you certainly don't hear me complaining about it! I think it might be because I got more sleep last night than I have in the past like 10 days - so that's definitely a good thing. And it was necessary for sure after the fun and busy weekend I had! Wanna hear about my weekend shenanigans? Well,

This Weekend I....

Friday
+ Went to dinner with my parents at Applebee's, and even though we had a good time together, we weren't impressed with our meals or our server, so we probably won't be back for quite some time.
+ Then I met up with Jeff and the boys for a quick trip to Publix, to grab groceries for Saturday
+ Rented "The Rise of the Guardians" from Redbox, and watched the first half before the boys fell asleep
+ Then Jeff and I finished our week-long game of rummy, and clearly I blew him out of the water
+ Oh, and I made some delicious "redneck" caprese to take as part of my lunch on Saturday. I called it redneck because I forgot to buy fresh mozzarella, so I just cut up some string cheese sticks :) And it was soooo good. I'll be buying more tomatoes and cheese tonight to make this again, ASAP.

Saturday
+ Woke up early-ish and headed back to Jeff's house to get packed for the day, then we met my friend Lacey and her daughter, and we all headed down to swim at Wakulla Springs for a while! Since it's a natural spring, the water is always 72 degrees, and even though that doesn't sound particularly cold, it actually feels freezing. So the "big kids" didn't really do too much swimming, and instead just supervised the little ones in their floaties.

+ Then Jeff had to run the sound booth at his church for a wedding, so Lacey and I took the kids to a local apartment complex, and crashed their pool. There's no security guard or code or gate or anything, so we just walked right in. It was a great find, and we'll definitely be visiting many more times this summer!

+ After the wedding, Jeff came to meet us finally, so we got groceries, and cooked dinner for everyone at Lacey's house that night, and the kids all watched "The Rise of the Guardians," twice. And luckily I got to see the end of it the second time around. And it's such a good movie! For real, so good people.

Sunday
+ Went to Sunday school and church with my parents, and then met my sister, brother-in-law and step-brother for Father's Day lunch at Beef O'Brady's
+ Saw "Man of Steel" for Father's Day, and it was so good!
+ Cleaned out under my bed, and even though it's not completely done (still a DVD player and some other random things under there), it's about 95% done, so I'm crossing it off my list
+ Took the boys to swim at one of their church-friends' house for a couple of hours. And we spent a good amount of time working with them on learning how to swim more (they got so close last summer), and I think they've just about got it now!
+ Came back to Jeff's house and got some good snuggle time before heading home

Lots of activities, lots of sun, lots of water - lots of fun! (I love when I accidentally rhyme...) We had such a great time this weekend, and I realized how blessed we are to have such great friends for us, and for the boys, that we can hang out with all the time. I also had a great time celebrating Father's Day with my dad and siblings. And of course, just like everyone else on just about every Monday morning, I only wish it could have lasted a little bit longer! But we do have a couple fun things planned for during the week, and we definitely have fun things planned for next weekend as well!

How were y'all's weekends? Hopefully you enjoyed it, no matter how busy or relaxing your weekend was.

Much love,
Halie

Picking A Wedding Venue - The Final Part

So our first option was a beach house. Then that was gonna cost an arm and a leg, so we nixed that idea and decided to look for outdoor venue options around town. Our next choice was Maclay Gardens State Park - and we loved it. But we weren't quick enough and it was already booked for our original October 12th date, and the whole rest of the month too. Then our next option was The Dogwood House. It was a good option, and we definitely liked it, we just weren't in love with it, and were a little hesitant to book it.

So we looked around some more, and then last week Jeff and I and my parents finally went to go visit the Wakulla Springs Lodge, at Wakulla Springs State Park. And we absolutely loooooved it. Like a lot.

The bad news was however, that there was already a wedding booked for October 12th. Sad news. However, pretty much every other weekend in October was available, so we talked about changing our date. It ended up being a really quick talk though, because we both loved the Lodge so much, that we could find no real reason not to change our date. The next day (last Thursday), I contacted the Lodge once more, to get the contract started! And that afternoon I sent in our signed contract with our initial deposit. So our new wedding date is October 5, 2013!

Now I guess I should share some pictures of the place, right?! This pretty little gazebo is where we'll do the actual ceremony. Jeff and I and the pastors will stand in it, with our bridal party down on the stones, and then we'll set up chairs facing it, obviously. I want to try to decorate it a bit by either doing something on the backdrop, or something around the front two columns. Not exactly sure what yet though, but I'm trying to think of something!

And then the reception will be just about 200 feet away, back inside the main lodge building, on the glass-enclosed terrace room. We're not doing a full, sit-down meal, but just appetizers and hors d'oeuvres and cake, so we won't have tons of tables and chairs taking up too much space. However, the room itself is pretty huge, and is actually way bigger in real life than it looks in the pictures. It's so pretty in there, and I think it will make a really gorgeous place for our wedding reception! (The first picture below is just to show you how close the gazebo is to the main building.)

This is the door leading from the main lobby, inside the terrace. And it's gorgeous!

So our venue has officially been booked now! And we both couldn't be more excited about it. Seriously. And this beautiful place is only about 20-25 minutes outside of Tallahassee, which makes it easy for us to visit and plan, and easy for our guests to get to as well. I'm already trying to envision how we'll decorate and set everything up, and I think it's going to be so great and gorgeous and I just can't wait to get started on some of the projects in my head! So glad we finally have this huge detail finalized, and that we can now move on to other things. That's one big stress lifted off my to-do list now, and I'm so thankful for that.

At dinner with my parents after visiting the Lodge last week.

P.S. - My awesome and amazing friend and blog designer Erin has been working for me the past week or so, and things should be changing around here today! Get excited for that folks, because I'm super pumped about it!

P.P.S. - UPDATE! The blog redesign is now complete, and Erin did such a great job bringing my ideas and visions into a real life layout and design. And I absolutely love it. Check her out if you're looking for great design work, at awesome prices, from someone who's incredibly easy to work with. Seriously - go check out her design page!

Puddles & Pictures & Play Time

So far this Monday morning is off to a pretty great start (despite my lack of sleep), because I'm still coming down off my high from an amazing weekend!! Jeff and I drove over to St. Augustine for the weekend, and we were able to spend some amazing time with my wonderful friends from college, but we were also able to finally take some engagement pictures!!!

FRIDAY
Left right after work and Jeff and I drove over to St. Augustine
Met up with Kaley, Dani, Jenni and Cally and had dinner at Mango, Mango's - one of our favorites!
Went back to the girls' house to play cards and laugh and have fun

SATURDAY
Woke up semi-early, got ready, grabbed Dunkin Donuts coffee and met our wonderful photographer! (Jeff's uncle!)
Spent the hours of 9:30 am - 3:30 pm dodging the rain and tons of puddles and taking pictures
We also had a yummy lunch with Uncle Phil and Aunt Tammy at Cruisers, another favorite of ourse!
Came back to the girls' house to rest for a while, Facebook stalked people, chatted, Jeff napped, ate a snack
Got ready and went downtown to eat at our friends' restaurant, Catch 27, that he just opened in January!
Went next door for some yummy desserts from Bon Ami
Bundled ourselves up for winter weather, and sat on the beach for an hour or so just talking and laughing
Went back to the girls' house, where more friends joined us, and we just hung out and had so much fun together!
Made a couple Vine videos, and VidRhythm videos, and stayed up wayyy too late being silly

SUNDAY
Luckily everyone was able to sleep in a little bit, then we got showered and dressed and had brunch at Cafe 11
Hung out at the house for a bit, packed our stuff up, then Jeff and I wandered around downtown for a while
We stopped for a coffee break, then hit the road back to Tally!
It was super windy and a bit rainy still, so we drove home slow and finally got back around 8:30 last night
Got some essentials from Publix, and a turkey sub from Jersey Mikes, then went to Jeff's house
And our photographer was already done editing and had uploaded all our pics already!
Sat around looking at the 60 beautiful images Phil & Tammy created for us, in such awe how they turned out!

This past weekend truly was amazing! We had such great times with my awesome friends, had an wonderful photo shoot with some talented family photographers, and got to spend quality time with people we love. We both felt so happy and blessed after such a great weekend! Oh, and in case you missed the subtle hint up there, I finally jumped on the bandwagon for Vine (about a million years late), and I'm loving it so far. Already can't wait to take some more random videos! (Search for me with my Twitter name, "HalieRenee88" - I think that's how I signed up for it...?) Also, my friends and I all love Instagram, so here's a collage of all of our IG pics from the weekend! Ooooh - and we found a new app we like a lot too, called InstaPlace, that is pretty neat. Those are the top left and bottom right corners below.

At some point, I will be writing a much more detailed post of the engagement picture session, because I definitely want to remember that day, but it's a lot and I want to save that for later. And of course I'll be sharing more of the pictures, but I want to keep some of them a surprise for now. (The very middle of the above collage is my favorite from the day.) I will however give you a little sneak peek preview of them though, with another one of our favorites!

So to recap - we had an amazing weekend, we now have beautiful engagement pictures, I love my friends from Flagler so so much, and I love my fiance so so much too! I am a very blessed woman.

Linking up today with Covered in Grace, Sami's Shenanigans & Synfully Delicious.