Matt and Kitty's wedding

This weekend, we traveled to St. Paul Minnesota for a wedding. This was my first trip up there, and we had a great time. St. Paul is a really beautiful city, and the wedding was just perfect. I also got to visit the Mall of America. I think overwhelming is the best way to describe that little experience. Here are some pictures!

Above is the church, House of Hope Presbyterian. It was beautiful inside and out, lots of stained glass, which I love. below is some of the stained glass. The church is on Summit Ave, which was lined with homes that rival the houses in Charleston (yes I said it!)

Next we went to the reception, which was just down the street in a beautiful old house.

One of the mantles with the bouquets.

In lieu of a wedding cake, they had dessert shooters. They were layers of genoise and mousse, and they were really yummy!

And there is the happy couple. Funny enough, the first time Kitty ever came to griffin with Matt was for our wedding!

This last shot was from the after party at Kitty's parents house. They had pizza, beer and games set up for all the wedding guests. I thought that lining the steps up to the house with the bridesmaid bouquets was a super cute way to decorate the front of the house.

Craft Night

Last night, mom and I did a craft night at church. We had a great time making these necklaces. I had pulled the idea out of a magazine a few years back, and I have always wanted to try making them. We are going to start doing this at First Pres every few months, I will post details for the next one!

Did I mention I made cupcakes?

Cherry Blossom Cake

This weekend, I did a cake and cookies for a wedding shower a friend of mine was throwing. The wedding shower was for her sister who is getting married in Mexico next month, which I know will be so much fun and beautiful on the beach :). I did a cherry blossom themed cake and sugar cookies for party favors.

Baby Shower Day

Today, I went to two baby showers. I have been working on my gifts for the past week, and now I can post my projects because everyone has seen their gifts!

For my friend Julie, I made two pillow case dresses in UGA and USC colors. Carolina's parents have two favorite teams, so I couldn't show any bias :) Mimi was a great help (again) and did the monogramming for me.

The next shower was for a friend that just had twins. Madelyn and Kendall's mom loves riding, so I picked out a bandanna pattern for their dresses. Last weekend, I had some of the girls from the youth group over to tie dye (we bought shirts in belize),and I used this as an opportunity to try some onesies. Here are some pictures of those.

Etsy Shop!

I finally created an Etsy shop! I have been wanting to do this for a while now, and I figure with Brian going to law school, I will have plenty of time for crafting. Here is a link to my first submission- http://www.etsy.com/listing/53817782/ivory-flower-hair-pins
and here is a pic of my first listing, thanks to Elizabeth for modeling :) I think that these would be great for a bride, so pass this along if you know anyone planning a wedding!

Strawberries!

A friend of mine had her daughter's 1st birthday over the weekend, and the birthday girl loves strawberries. So, I made strawberry cupcakes with fondant strawberries and flowers.

You Better Belize it!

I cannot believe that it has been almost a month since I got back from Belize. This was my third Son Servants trip, and this one was just as great as the first two! We shared our week in Corazol Town with another church from Pennsylvania. While we were there, the work groups spent time at 2 different churches. At the Corazol church, the groups worked on a pathway and a block fence. The groups at the Calcutta church did a vacation bible school and finished a septic tank. Below is the church at Calcutta. It has been in progress for several years now.

Above is the septic tank that was finished while we were there. Several groups spent the last 3 years digging out this pit. So, it was amazing to see it blocked in and covered up in the week that were there.

Courtney tying rebar to build the top of the septic tank

And there is the finished project!

Here is what VBS looked like in Belize. The kids came in the afternoon, and we would sing, do bible stories, and crafts.

One of the super cute kids with his creation!

The kids loved playing sports. The world cup was going on while we were there, and soccer fever had taken over the country. The people who lived around the work site would keep us updated on the football scores.

Above is my soccer injury. Yes, I am so coordinated that i kicked a child and not the ball. My foot still hurts!

Here are some of our twins with a set of Belizan twins.

On our free day, we visited a place called Jaguar Paw. You can see their website here. The two options we had were cave tubing and zip lining. as you can see below, I chose the tubing.

This is where we ended our tube. We wore headlamps and floated along under 3 different sections of caves. I am not a huge fan of caving (ask anyone who was in Kentucky with me during my thesis research, that is another story for another day!), but this was the most relaxing thing.

Here is where we stayed. We were very lucky to be in a hotel for this trip.

Even better than being in a hotel was getting to look at the water everyday!

The food down there was amazing. I love spicy food and cilantro, which was good because every meal had those two elements involved. I don't know if the kids were always thrilled with what was offered, but we made trips down to the grocery store each day to buy chips and cokes, so no one starved :) For example, when we arrived, the Son Servants staff walked us across the street to a restaurant (if you have ever been, its the big building with something about Jesus painted on the outside). The first thing the kids saw was a chicken claw hanging out with the food in the steam table. I don't think it made a good first impression. I did eat there, but I made sure to pick something that was not hanging out with any animal appendages. Below is the little beach shack where I got the best bar b que chicken I have had in a long time.

An orchid, you didn't think I could travel someplace where the national flower is an orchid and not take a picture, right?

And ending with the welcome sign. I would have put it up higher but I am still having trouble formatting on blogspot. Side note- the rotary symbol was on every sign in this town.

Golf Cake

My friend, Elizabeth, has been living in Tulsa for the past few months (thankfully, she is moving home soon!!!). Since she and Adam were going to be out of town for Adam's dads birthday, she asked me to bake a little cake and take it over. Thankfully, Adam's dad loves to golf, so that made it very easy to decorate a cake for him.