unexpected vacation.

The last week and a half have been unexpected and exhausting for the new Kruegers! Without getting into too much detail and to cut a long story short, I was at home in Texas since for a week because of a health scare. After a few tests and some stressful days of sitting around waiting for results, all is well and I am perfectly healthy. Definitely an answered prayer. Although this has been a stressful time for my family and me, it has reminded me of how very blessed I am to be surrounded by such incredible family and friends.

We just got back to our apartment and are exhausted from a day of traveling and a long week for both of us. Due to my incredible sleepiness and the fact that I need to unpack and get ready for the week, my recap of the past week is coming to you in list form.

Last week.....

• Kyle started his second year of grad school
• I joined my mom and aunt on a trip to take my PaPa to the doctor
• Enjoyed lunch with Mom, Aunt Mary and my cousin, Kelsey
• Shopped and had lunch at Brookwood with my mom and Kim
• Caught up with two wonderful friends, Sara and Jessie, and enjoyed an evening of pizza, the hot tub and some good ol' girl talk (LOVED getting to see you both!!)
• Had dinner in Clear Lake with Meredith (thanks for leaving your island to spend time with me!)
• Celebrated good health by dining on a delicious meal with my parents and Kyle
• Indulged in a mani-pedi date with my momma
• Newlywed double date night with Troy & Ivy (fajitas, a tour of the new apartment, and a night of playing games)

My family and I are very thankful that the week ended so well. Kyle and I are excited to be back in Atlanta and don't have any travel plans on our agenda until October. We are looking forward to enjoying some time here in our new home!

Now I am off to unpack and start some laundry.... or maybe put on my sweatpants and enjoy that In Style magazine that is eyeing me from my coffee table....

happy birthday momma.

Today is my beautiful mom's birthday. I'm sad that I am far away in Georgia for this extra special day but will get to see her very soon for some belated birthday celebrating!

Happy birthday to a fabulous shopping partner, the person who gave me my extreme love for Mexican food, the lady with the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen, a wonderful role model, incredible wedding planner and the very best mom I know. You have taught me so much about how to be a wife, sister, daughter and mother (although I'll hold off on using that skill for a while!) I love you so much Momma. Hope your special dinner was extra yummy and that you get to open some fantastic presents!

At her last parent's weekend (8 years in a row...)

Bridal luncheon

Graduation day

I love this one from our rehearsal dinner

Beautiful, wonderful Momma

happy engagement to...

MY BIG SISTER AND JASON!!

Jason and Jennifer got engaged tonight on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I just got off the phone with Jenn and am too excited to even know what to do with myself. Jason is a wonderful guy and I cannot wait to welcome him into the family.

Congratulations to two of my very favorite people. Love you both and I am beyond excited for the two of you!

I'm sure I will have more to say about it later, but for now just enjoy this picture of the beautiful couple. I'm just way to excited to even know what else to say!

YIPPEE!!!!

weekend wrap-up.

We are back in Atlanta and feeling a little under the weather. Kyle has been sick with a cold for about a week and I finally managed to catch it too. I'm spending the day on the couch but wanted to share some pictures from our amazing weekend celebrating Troy and Ivy.

We had a fantastic time and were so honored to be involved in their special day. It was wonderful to spend the weekend with their family and friends and watch them finally become husband and wife. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and Ivy was a stunning bride.

The happy couple is now honeymooning in Mexico and we are very much looking to hosting them here in Atlanta (seriously, come visit us!!)

Rehearsal dinner

With my handsome groomsman

Adorable ring bearer and sweet flower girl (cousins of the bride)

The Ruths!

The fellas

Beautiful cake (made by Ivy's cousin, Edet)

Yummy candy bar (the provider of our airplane snacks on Sunday)

Brash, Troy and Kyle

The Ruths + The Kruegers

(have I mentioned that we want you two to come visit?!)

Hope you all had wonderful weekends!

show us your life-wedding reception

It's time for another glimpse into our beautiful wedding day. Head over to Kelly's Korner to browse some other amazing weddings. If you are new to my little corner of the blog world, feel free to say hello!

This table held our guest book (if you look closely you can spot my mom, Jenn and Jason in this pic!)

wedding photos from Kyle's side of the family

and from mine (these pictures were located in the hallway that guests walked through to reach the cocktail area and ballroom)

place card table (just before entering the ballroom)

Sweetheart table. My parents bought us that bottle of champagne-we also had it the night we got engaged and they gave us another bottle for our first anniversary (thanks Mom and Dad!!)

these yummy cookies were the wedding favor

I knew we wouldn't have time to sit down and thank our parents at the reception, so we wrote a thank you note to both sets of parents and had them placed on their tables to read upon their arrival at the reception.

beautiful

I am in love with our wedding cake

The groom's cake was pretty fantastic as well!

We chose rose petals for our exit-I loved it!

We got to leave in this beautiful car (thanks Kim and Scott!). It was a perfect way to leave our wonderful reception. We loved getting to see the stars on our drive downtown.

Hope you enjoyed this week's pictures. We were incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so many dear friends and loved ones on our wedding day. Kyle and I talk all the time about what a perfect celebration it was and how much we loved every minute of our wedding day. It was truly a beautiful, joyful, amazingly fun experience!

tuesday trinkets.

I will admit, I don't have any fabulous new internet or shopping finds to share with all of you this Tuesday, but I will let you in on the project that I have been working on over the last few days.

Kyle and I registered at Pottery Barn and in addition to receiving many generous gifts from our registry, we also received many gift cards. I have had a hard time parting with many of these gift cards. I know that I'm not always going to be able to stroll into Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn and walk out with some great finds, without ever having to hand over my credit card. I am very thankful for these gift cards (and all of the incredibly generous gifts we received) and have been trying to be wise about how we spend them.

When I received an email from Pottery Barn that their wood gallery frames were on sale, I decided these would be more than worthy of my precious gift cards. Jenn bought a few of these frames the last time they were on sale and they look great in her apartment, so I decided to follow her very stylish lead and pick up a few of my own.

Here are some photos of our bedroom before the purchase of the frames (and before any of my decorative influence whatsoever), during the process, and after:

the bedroom (pre-Stephanie)

figuring out the layout

the almost final product

I am pretty proud of how it turned out. I took on the project all by myself and only required Kyle's occasional thoughts on how things were looking. There may be a

few lot of extra holes in our walls, but I think the final result looks great! We are going to fill the frames with pictures from the wedding s I will post a new picture once I have chosen the pictures and filled our pretty new frames. I am hopeful that picture selection will be a little less time consuming than the task of hanging 9 perfectly level, evenly spaced frames.

Now I am off to do some tidying up around the apartment and start packing for Troy & Ivy's wedding. We are very much looking forward to a weekend of celebrating our wonderful friends!

one year ago.

I was updating my calendar today. Adding a few exciting upcoming events (Kyle starting school, my family coming to visit, the family heading to visit Jenn, weddings this fall...) and flipped back to see what was happening in my life around this time one year ago.

One year ago tomorrow marks the day I moved into this precious room in Bryan.


One year ago this week my mom and I visited 2 potential wedding florists and a potential hair/makeup artist (do you think we made good decisions??)


And one year from this Saturday (the day that Troy and Ivy will get married!) we loaded up a u-haul and headed to Georgia to move my then fiance into his new apartment.


Whew! It makes me tired just looking at my planner entries from this time last year.

This upcoming weekend should be no less exciting than it was last year! We are heading back to Texas (yippee!!) on Wednesday to start celebrating Troy and Ivy's wedding (well, Kyle gets to start celebrating on Wednesday, I get to start Thursday afternoon!). We cannot wait to see our families, celebrate two great friends and enjoy a few days back home.

Before we can enjoy our fun-filled weekend, we have a full day of not-so-fun activities lined up for tomorrow. We are starting off with a visit to the local DMV for some Georgia drivers licenses, then we will have the pleasure of car inspections and if we are really, really lucky, we will be taking care of our car titles as well. The perfect way to spend a Tuesday, don't ya think?

Hope you all enjoy your Tuesdays and have something a little more fun than the DMV on your schedules!

ps-I am 1/3 of the way through with a pretty fabulous decorating project I have been working on. Hopefully I will finish up tomorrow and be able to share some pictures!