Ten for Tuesday: Best Moments of 2011

So, I haven't posted in about three weeks. Yikes. I guess that's what work overload, the holidays and a little baby nephew's birth will do to you. But I'll expand on that in a bit.

Since 2011 is almost over I figured this would be a good time for me to cover my favorite moments of the year. After all, this was probably the biggest and most exciting year of my life so far!

Ten Best Moments of 2011

1. Getting engaged and...

2. Getting married. Clearly some of the biggest life events I will ever go through, and I couldn't think of a better person than Drew to experience both with!

Of course, these are the reasons I started this blog in the first place, so I could share my excitement and frustrations with wedding planning and marriage preparation with my family and friends. But more than being able to write about these experiences was actually getting to experience them!

It's crazy to look back on 2011 and have it be the year that I not only got engaged, but got married too! Probably a shorter time frame than most people would go with, but Drew and I aren't much for conventional time frames (after all, at this point in the year we've only even known each other for just over two years!). I love that we're just at the beginning of our story as husband and wife and have so many more amazing years to spend together.

3. My first nephew's birth. That's right, I am officially an aunt! On December 8 my older sister gave birth to her first kid and my first nephew! Drew and I got to finally meet him on Friday, and he is honestly so adorable.

Baby nephew!

4. Moving in with Drew. I've already mentioned how exciting finally getting to live together has been (and how much I was looking forward to it), so I won't go into it again here. Suffice it to say we're having a lot of fun living together and learning more about each other each day.

5. Spending Christmas with my family(s). Growing up, my family spent every Christmas at my grandparents' house near Chicago. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make the trip for the last THREE years, but Drew and I finally made the trip this year! We spent my four-day break from work spending time with my grandparents, parents, some cousins and, of course, our trip to meet our new nephew!

Since we spent Christmas weekend with my family, we had to celebrate Christmas early with Drew's family. The week before Christmas we headed up to Saginaw for family time, presents and the new Muppets movie. Awesome.

Drew and I also had a little Christmas celebration of our own so we could exchange stockings. So I guess we technically had three Christmases this year. Crazy! Maybe next year we'll simplify and keep it at one or two, but I loved having a celebration with each of my families during my first year of marriage!

6. Our honeymoon. Now that there's snow on the ground outside, my desire to be in Florida and Disney World is even worse than normal. Good thing Drew and I got to spend our honeymoon there a few months ago! Check out my Wedding page for a list of all my honeymoon recaps.

7. Writing more & starting this blog. Anyone that knows me knows that writing and public relations are my top career goals. Although I am so incredibly far away from that in my current job (boo!). BUT, I have started to make more serious efforts in changing this in the past year, and I have a good feeling that my work will pay off in the next year. That sounds like a fortune cookie, but whatever. I'm trying to be optimistic.

Part of my re-dedication to writing and achieving my dream job has been starting this blog. No, this isn't anything I would put on my resume or use as a writing sample, but this blog has given me the push to write on a consistent basis and give me the practice I was lacking. When I first started this blog I felt like I had completely lost my touch with writing and using my "voice," but I feel much more confident about my abilities again. Next step: convince other people I know how to write well and get that dream job!

8. My cousin's wedding. Now that my cousins and I are all grown up and living all over the country, we don't get to see each other too often. Luckily my dad's entire side of the family was able to make it to my cousin's wedding over the summer so we could have a mini reunion!

I had so much fun catching up with everyone and, of course, celebrating and dancing at my cousin's wedding. What an awesome time. I love my family, and I can't wait for our next chance to (hopefully) all be together at another cousin's wedding in August!

9. Moving to our new apartment. This probably isn't exciting to anyone except me and Drew (and I guess our new landlord), but our new apartment is so much better than our previous one. More space, cheaper rent, better location and it feels like our place (as opposed to my apartment where Drew happened to live).

We still have a ton to do to make our apartment look and feel more home-y, but we've got a good start in the month we've lived here.

10. Having LOTS to look forward to in 2012! Seriously, I am so excited for next year and all of the changes that will happen. I have a good feeling 2012 will be at least as good as 2011, if not better. I've already started a list of things I want to accomplish in the next year, so look out for that next week. I am so ready to rock the new year.

Thankful Thursday: Family, Fall & Fun

What a crazy week it's been! Having Monday off for Labor Day has really made this week fly by, which means we're one week closer to the wedding and our Disney honeymoon! I think the only thing that's going to get me through work this month (it's an extra-crazy time for us) is knowing I get a week and a half off for our wedding/honeymoon.

I had an excellent holiday weekend and have some fun plans for this weekend, so I have plenty to be thankful for this week.

Finishing our place cards. Drew had downloaded a free trial of Photoshop to recreate the most awesome place cards ever, but the trial expired this weekend before we were completely finished tweaking our version of the cards. Oops. But Drew's awesome so after a 12-hour day at the ball park working, he came home and banged out the rest of our place cards so we're all set to go! What a guy. All we have left to do is add individual names to the cards, but we can do this without Photoshop. Score!

My cousin got engaged! Yep, my lovely cousin in Boston got engaged last week! What a year it's been for my family - another cousin was married in July, my wedding is in October and another cousin just got engaged! My family knows how to have fun at wedding receptions, so I'm pretty pumped we'll have another one on the horizon after my turn. Plus, we're all so spread out that it's hard for the whole family to get together anymore. Family weddings are the perfect excuse for us all to see each other and catch up and, of course, have fun celebrating!

I'll be married in one month. Holy moly. Sometimes I still can't get over the fact that I was excited when we made it under the 200-days mark in our countdown when the wedding is only 30 days away right now! We still have quite a bit left to do for the big day, but I'm pretty much at the point where I don't really care. I just want to be married to my best friend.

All-girls fun breakfast this Saturday. Our church has a men's event on Saturday morning, so while all the guys are busy with that (minus Drew who will be at the Michigan State game), the ladies are getting together for a fun family breakfast! It's going to be awesome and delicious. I love breakfast (and my new family).

Our honeymoon is paid in full. I was a serious stress case a couple of weeks ago when the final payment on our honeymoon was due. Using a whole paycheck for a Disney vacation is exciting, but also kind of annoying. I like lots of numbers in my bank account, and our final payment resulting in us having not-so-big numbers for a bit. Thank goodness for paydays, though, because our savings are back on track and now we don't have to worry about spending anymore money on our honeymoon! I'm also thankful for everyone who helped us pay for our trip - you're the best :)

Fall is practically here. Okay, I am not at all a fan of cold weather (yes, I think 60 degrees is cold), but I really do enjoy fall. Now that the weather is starting to reflect the change in seasons I'm getting excited for all the good stuff fall brings: apple picking, sweatshirt weather, Octoberfest, the leaves changing colors, cider donuts, Halloween... all good things. I may love spring/summer weather the best, but fall is when Drew and I met and when we're getting married. This season definitely holds a special place in my heart. Plus it's cool enough outside that I can wear my moccasins which is also exciting. Now let's just skip winter and everything will be just grand.

All right, my lunch break is almost over, so it's back to work I go. I hope everyone has a great weekend (I know I will)!

Wedding Recap #2

Last weekend Drew and I drove to the Chicago area for my cousin's wedding which was our second wedding of the summer! We stayed at a gorgeous hotel, saw lots of family (or in Drew's case, met my family), and had a great time celebrating with the happy couple and getting pumped for the next Thomas wedding - ours!

Just like I did after Troy and Kelley's wedding in May, I'm going to recap my cousin's wedding and take note of what I especially liked about it and what I learned for my own wedding (which, by the way, is officially less than 3 months away!).

The Wedding/Reception
The ceremony took place at my cousin Marie's family church in Naperville, IL. This was the first time I was in their church for anything other than Christmas Eve mass, so the place felt so huge! The wedding ceremony was kind of long, but was really beautiful. Marie and Drew (yes she married a Drew too!) looked so happy and absolutely in love. Marie and her bridesmaids looked stunning as well.

The wedding and reception were nothing flashy or over the top, but everything was still so beautiful and exciting. This was a good reminder that weddings don't have to be outrageous to be fun. Sometimes keeping the details simple and personal make for the most memorable weddings.

What I Liked
Okay, I'm a little biased, but what I liked best about this wedding was seeing my entire family  and enjoying the awesome reception! I was so happy (my) Drew got to meet my dad's family because we all have so much fun at wedding receptions and aren't afraid to make fools of ourselves on the dance floor! Drew told me he's even more excited for our wedding now after seeing how much my family gets into everything. We all had a great time last weekend, and the party will continue in October for sure.

What I Learned
Mostly what I learned from this wedding is that I have a fun, loving, awesome family. Which is a pretty good take-away, if you ask me!

As far as more practical I-want-to-steal-this-for-my-own-wedding ideas, Drew and I both really like how this reception had place cards for each couple or family as opposed to each individual. This would save time and resources, and really just makes more sense anyways (at least to us).

This wedding also caused us to revisit the idea of having favors for our guests. We nixed favors almost immediately when we started planning our wedding, but for some reason warmed up to the idea after my cousin's reception. Maybe it's because the blue and green jelly beans we received are an easy and cute favor to give out (and matched their color scheme). Or maybe it's just because we really like eating candy and figure other people might like it too, especially after all the dancing that will surely take place at our reception. So if you're a guest at our wedding, you may just get a little treat bag for yourself. Or maybe not. We're still debating.

Also, for anyone who may have missed it, check out my last post on where to find all the practical information about our wedding (hotels, directions, etc).