Christmas tree shopping!

We got our first Christmas tree today! Yay!

Life lately via iPhone pics...

Life has been super busy lately. Save the date cards were mailed out last week so I figured I should probably update this little bloggy here. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately...

Our fall/Halloween decorated mantle!

Some antique sewing machines at the Scott Antique Market last week.

An awesome local restaurant I was introduced to.

Atlanta Greek Festival! OPA!

Hehehe...in honor of college football season :) GO DAWGS!

Some more decorations...

Meet the new additions to our family!

When I moved in with Matt (yes..we live together and we aren't married yet ..gasp!!), Cali came with me..DUH!

Well, Matt decided that he was outnumbered and began looking for a little boy puppy to add to our little family.  We looked around for a while, but I wasn't totally convinced that it was the right time to bring a puppy into our lives.  That all changed when we found a listing on Craigslist (of all places!) for a couple who had an accidental litter of Golden Retriever/Chocolate Lab puppies.  We went and first visited the puppies at the beginning of May when they were about 4 weeks old.  Matt sat down and one fat, fluffy little puppy came up and sat right beside him the whole time.

Matt decided that this little guy chose him and we had to bring him home. I, on the other hand, was smitten with a tiny little girl who was beating up on all the other puppies around her.

(She's the one in the back)

I was convinced that SHE was the one that needed to come home with us.  Matt totally disagreed because she was not 1) male or 2) fat and fluffy like he wanted.  He instead came up with another idea.  He decided to get me the feisty little girl as a birthday present.  So, we would be coming home with two puppies, instead.  I thought this would be way too much and went back and forth on the idea.  Two weeks later, we went to pick up the little boy and as soon as I saw the puppies, my mind was made up! 

(Super excited on the way to bring the puppies home!)

Of course, I just HAD to take her home with us! She was so sweet and cuddly and I couldn't imagine leaving her behind.  Plus, I had figured that it would be easier for the puppies to adjust coming home together.

(First trip to PetSmart!)

We decided to call the little boy Farley, because we will be getting married at the Farley Plantation in Milner, GA.  The little girl we named June because of Matt's love for Johnny Cash (June was his wife's name, in case you didn't know) and we will be getting married in June! :)

We took them up to the lake the same weekend we brought them home and they had so much fun playing in the water, getting loved on, biting fingers and toes, and of course, sleeping a lot!

They have grown so much since we brought them home and it makes me so sad! They just turned 14 weeks old and Farley is about 23 lbs, while June is about 18.

  

(June at about 9 weeks)                                  (Farley at about 9 weeks)                                     (First time in the pool!)

They are a mess and I feel like our house has now turned into a ZOO, but I cannot imagine not having them here!

Oh yea..heyyyyy.

Well, this blog got off to a great start (not!). Not quite sure what happened but I have had so many blogging ideas that I wanted to do, but never had the inspiration to do them.  However, that all ends today.  I really want to use this blog as a way of remembering this time in my life as there are so many amazing changes going on right now.  So let's play catch up (with bullet points)!

-Wedding plans are progressing.  We have chose our ceremony and reception locations.  We booked our photographer a couple of weeks ago.  I'm trying to think of the little things that we need to get as the summer season wraps up in stores.  Things like beverage tubs, decorations, etc.  I am still collecting brooches for my bouquet (more on that later...I'm really excited about it!).  It'll look similar to this one, but in different colors.

I kind of need to find a dress, though.  I went and tried some on the other week, but nothing struck my fancy.  We'll see.  The boys need to try on suits too and we need some more birdcages for the reception! These we will be using as centerpieces...well, not these exactly, but you catch my drift.  I wonder what I'll be doing with all these after the wedding though...hmm...

-We got new cars! Woohoo! Matt started it all when he traded in his Dodge Ram for something a little more gas friendly.  He found a 2010 Jeep Wrangler Mountain Edition.

That's not it, but it looks exactly like that.  As we were looking around at all the cars waiting to test drive it, I found the Jeep Patriots.  I have always had small, two-door cars, so I was definitely ready for a change!  Matt got his Jeep and the next day we went back and I got mine.

 Isn't it so pretty!? I have always wanted a white car and I looove my big girl car! It's so weird having so many doors though! 

As for recently, I have have been enjoying my summer break.  Next week is my last full week off before the school year starts up again.  We go back a little earlier than other counties because we get a week off every 9 weeks or so.  I am trying not to think of the fact that my summer has literally disappeared in front of my face.  This summer has been filled with beach time, pool time, Braves games and grilling out and I'm not ready to give it up yet!

The story of us...

I guess it would be nice to give a little background information on Matt and me and the beginning of our life together.

Well, this is always such a funny story to me! Back in December, I was joking around with one of my coworkers, Whitney (and the only other person my age in that building) if she had any cute, single cop friends that she could introduce me to.  Her boyfriend is a cop so I figured between the two of them, they knew of someone.  I was half joking when I asked her and didn't think anything would come out of it.  She told me she knew of someone that she knew I would get along with, but he was kinda dating someone.  My response? "Oh that's ok, it doesn't matter!" 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I was joking around and I didn't really think that anything would come of it.  I kinda knew that they weren't all that serious at that time and I kept joking to Whitney that she needed to hurry up and introduce us so he could go ahead and fall in love with me!  Well, after Christmas, Whitney and I went to hang out with some other school teachers and then Whitney decided we should go over to Matt's house to hang out.  That was the first night we met and like I predicted, he fell in love with me that first night ;)  I didn't hear from him for about a week afterwards.  Him and his girlfriend had broken up and we messaged each other back and forth a couple of times over Facebook.  He finally got up the nerve to ask me out on a date and being the meanie that I was, I totally left him hanging.  My reasoning? I didn't want him to ask me out over Facebook messages! He had to do a little more work than that! ;)  

He invited me to a friend's bonfire and I was SO NERVOUS! I was really afraid it would just be awkward! Luckily, we hung out a couple of times with other friends before we went so we were able to get to know each other a little bit.  I was definitely nervous for no reason at all.  The entire night, I felt like that was where I was meant to be.  I felt so comfortable and so at ease being with Matt and his friends.  It was like that from day one and that's one of the main reasons why things progressed as quickly as they did for us.  

At the beginning of January we had a week off of school and we were able to spend all that time together getting to know each other.  Whitney and I ended up staying at Matt's house the entire week we had off.  We started "officially" dating on January 12th.  Matt proposed on February 12th. :) 

I know, I know..a whole entire month after we began dating!  Talk about a long wait! ;)  I moved in with Matt at the end of February and we getting married June 9th, 2012.  

It's always crazy to me to tell people this story because I know exactly what people are thinking.  We always say that it might seem that we're moving fast to others, but to us, we're just moving at our own pace ;) I knew from the moment I met Matt that I would spend the rest of my life with him.  He is the most amazing man I know and he does everything in his power to make sure I am happy.  I just couldn't let him go ;)  And there you go! That's the story of the future Whitmans :)

Engagement Pictures

Back in like March, we went to the Bridal show in Atlanta.  My Mom, Grandma, Matt, and one of my bridesmaids, Whitney (who actually introduced Matt and me, but that's another story for another blog post!)  were all in attendance.  It was so overwhelming because there were SO many vendors there and I didn't know what to expect! We entered all kinds of drawings and signed up for numerous mailing lists, but one of the best things that we walked away with was a free engagement session! So we met with with Julie and J.J. Reynolds in Piedmont Park about two weeks ago to do our session.  It had STORMED so badly the night before and it had dropped down to like 50 degrees that I was really worried that the pictures were going to turn out horrible.  You know..shivering with frizzy hair is not cute.  I figured we'd just go with it since we weren't paying for them.  I got the email from Julie this past weekend that the pictures were ready and I was very please with how they turned out! Here are some of my favorites...

Of course I had to put on on here of my amazing ring! He picked it out himself and

let me just say..he did GOOD! :)

We've decided this one is going to be blown up and put above the mantle.  I 

just LOVE the colors! And yes...we are actually sitting IN the tree.  Maybe next time I will show all the bloopers and the pictures of me trying to get DOWN from said tree.

I am so, so happy with how they turned out!

I wanna play!

I totally want to be part of the cool kids and join this blogging world.  I was talking to a friend of mine and she told me how much she wished that she had started blogging during her engagement.  So I thought I'd try it out for a bit and see how it goes! I can't wait to put our story down "on paper" so to speak. :)