Desktop pic

I love this picture. It's my current desktop pic at work.

When Eric and I began browsing around online looking for a photographer and getting ideas about what we liked, we found a guy who had taken some wedding pics of a couple, and their puppy was in some of them. I remember seeing one or two where the dog was in focus and the couple was hanging in the back, and I LOVED it!

I'm so happy that Danielle was able to capture this one just perfectly.

Wedding photos

Our photographer, Danielle, emailed me today with a link to see all of our wedding pictures. If you want to see them, follow these instructions:

1. Go to www.seemyprints.com
2. Search for Heidi and Eric
3. Enter in the password: hande
4. Type in your email address
5. Voila! You can see all the pictures that span from wedding prep through most of the reception.

Enjoy!

Wedding ceremony programs

This is what I'm working on today. I've spent the past two nights designing our wedding programs and starting to put them together. Since I don't have to work today, my goal is to finish them today (or at least make a huge dent!).

It made me really happy to learn that you don't need to make a program for every single wedding guest. You only need to make them for about 75-80% of guests. Awesome.

What I'm doing is using the left-over green paper I had from the invitations. Luckily I had a big pile of paper left that had already been cut to the exact same size. So I'm using that as an outer cover. Then I typed up our ceremony, wedding party and readings and just printed them on plain white printer paper. Then I made a little square text box with our names, date and location and printed those on cream card stock that I already had from previous projects. Final step is to put all the white paper inside the green cover, put the square with our names, etc on the outside front cover, and then sew it all together. The sewing part is the easiest and way faster than I think it would have been to tie it with raffia or something.

I can't take full credit - I found a similar idea online and then made it my own.

Anyway, I should get to work. Just wanted to share one of my final wedding projects! 8 more days til we get married! And only a handful of things left to do. :)

Busy summer

This summer has been quite busy. With my internship, planning the wedding, going on fun weekend and week-long trips...I have neglected my blog. Sorry, dear readers (if any of you are out there...?).

Last week, I finished my internship at Children's Hospital. I really liked the hospital setting and working with kids again. There is so much variety to the SLP's schedules -- it would be awesome to work in a setting like that, at least for a bit. When I left, my supervisors were offering to write letters of recommendation and they said they'd keep me posted on any job openings in a year. So keep your fingers crossed! I would love to do my clinical fellowship year with them. We'll see...

So now, I'm just working 20 hours/week at the U and spending the rest of my time getting wedding things ready and hopefully cleaning our house. Things like dusting and sweeping and just de-junking really get pushed aside when life is busy.

Today was my first Monday off, and I spent it babysitting Finley this morning. (See the video in the previous post.) Then I met my aunt Katie for lunch -- she is due any day now and she is really ready to pop! I really hope Madison arrives early so she can attend our wedding! Then I came home to make some wedding-related phone calls and upload photos and relax. Tonight, there is talk of dinner with Ashlee, so life is good. I love this part-time work deal!

Most recent exciting wedding news:
- We booked our train tickets from Paris to Brive.
- We booked our rental car in Brive.
- We put our ceremony together and we are both very excited about it.

We still have lots of things on the "to do" list, but we are making progress every day.

Here are some pictures from lots of our summer adventures - click on the album below.

Summer09

Boats, weddings & pies

Hello from the harbor in Grand Marais!

We spent the weekend on the north shore again -- this time with my mom and Eric's parents (and Indy too). We finalized more wedding plans -- wedding reception food/beverages, rehearsal dinner location and food/beverages, dessert from The Pie Place, flowers and fudge. Whew! It was a productive weekend.




















In between appointments with wedding vendors, we took time out to attend the wooden boat show. Eric's dad's new business venture is with Langford canoes (Fall River Trading is now the only company in the U.S. distributing Langford canoes). Check out these dedicated employees hanging out at the boat show.















Here's a cool boat I found. Maybe we can register for that?

Wedding website

We caved and finally created a wedding website. We're hoping it will help guests by giving them info about lodging, directions, etc. Check it out: http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/EricStone&HeidiGehrman

A little more wedding planning

This weekend, my dad and Beth came to visit and drove up north with Eric and me to scope out the resort, chat with the caterer and help us figure out other details. It was really fun to show them the resort and get their vote of confidence in our pick. And it was really reassuring to talk with the caterer (who seems to have a lot of experience with weddings and various events) and hear that everything will work out with the space we have available. I was a little worried before that it might be too small or something, but I think it will be lovely now. We still have some things to figure out, but this trip made me feel like everything's coming together.

Here's me and Eric on the deck overlooking Lake Superior. This is where the reception will take place.
















Here's me and Dad on the rocks along the shore. This is just a staircase away from the resort. If the weather cooperates, we should be able to have some wedding pics on this shoreline!
















Here are more pics from the weekend.

Rings, suits & dresses

Some other exciting things we've done this week is pick out bridesmaid dresses, Eric's and the groomsmen/ushers' suits and our wedding rings.

Em and Sam will be wearing latte-colored, knee-length dresses that we got super good deals on while in San Francisco last weekend. And the men will be wearing khaki-colored suits with white shirts, a brown tie for Eric and green ties for the others. Still up in the air what we're doing with the dads. We'll figure it out soon hopefully!

As you heard previously, Eric made my initial engagement ring out of a Euro and a diamond. Of course, I plan on hanging on to that and resizing it for a different finger (Eric, we need to bust out the knife sharpener again soon. :)) This time around, we ventured to R.F. Moeller in Highland Park and picked out our wedding rings. Mine is technically an engagement ring, but I am sticking with being a little different and just plan on wearing it without a wedding band later. I like the look of it by itself a lot more than with another band. The ladies at the store said "lucky you!" to Eric when I said I didn't want a band. Well, if I had a wedding band, it would block the view of the cute little "peek-a-boo" diamond that sits under the crown and peeks out the side of the band. You don't want to block that - it's my favorite part! See for yourself below.

Photo extravaganza

Can you tell I'm catching up with finally getting photos online today? Here is an album of pictures that Eric and I took in March when we were up north looking for places to have our wedding. All the pics show sites (Gooseberry Falls, Temperance River State Park, Chateau LeVeaux) that look pretty cool in the winter, but will look completely different and beautiful in the summer for our wedding too!

Click on the album below to view all the pics.

Winter 2009 Up North

Here is a brief sampling:

Where the heck have I been?

Hello dear readers,
I'm sorry it's been so long (almost a month!) since my last post. Life has been insanely busy lately with final projects, wedding planning and wrapping up my practicum in the St. Paul Schools (my last day was last Tuesday...sad...I miss them).

Here is a not-so-quick update of what the heck I've been up to during this long blog absence...

Grad school stuff:

• Doing research about TBI (see post below from March or April). I ended up finding 11 studies, which is pretty good. I'm giving a poster presentation on Wednesday night -- students, faculty and the public (like, real SLPs from the community) will show up and wander from poster to poster and I need to pretend like I know what I'm talking about and give them the quick 'n dirty summary of what group treatment should look like for adult TBI patients.
• Working on other school projects for my motor speech disorders and augmentative & alternative communication classes. Both very interesting, but they give us way too much to do with far too little notice. I'm very over-tired and ready for this semester to be over! (are you bored yet? are you still reading?)
• Finishing up my second year of grad school! Only one more year left! I wish I was done this year...but I know the rest will fly by.
• Realizing that I really like working in the schools! The flexibility and laid-back atmosphere is really nice. I even surprised myself by also realizing how much fun I had working with the kids in the Autism program. I never thought I'd feel comfortable working with kids who are low-functioning, but it was really fun. I will miss them a lot!
  

Wedding stuff:

• Bought some fun paper and other supplies at the Paper Depot (which rocks!) to make wedding invitations. Yes, I might be crazy, but have you met me? I love crafty projects, and I'm hoping to get all paper cut and ready and then have a little army of friends over to form an assembly line of invitation makers. :) Food and drinks will be provided, of course.
• Bought some cute mason jars and different size vases from some garage sales to use as candle holders and vases for centerpieces for the wedding. Here is my inspiration:

• Booked a bluegrass band called The Fishheads! They play a huge mix of stuff, all with a bluegrass twist. I chatted with Kim (member of the band) yesterday, and she wants suggestions for songs or artists to be played at the wedding -- they've done everything from Aerosmith to the BeeGees, so if you have any ideas, let me know! Should be great fun.
• Eric's been doing research for our honeymoon, and the latest and greatest idea is to go to the Loire Valley in France! Oh la la! C'est fantastique! Seriously, best idea ever. We can apparently rent bikes and bike from Chateau to Chateau, drink wine and stay in cute little cottages off the beaten path. Nothing is booked yet because we're watching airfares waiting for the prices to go down a bit. Eric et moi, nous sommes deja practiquer notre francais!
  

Other stuff:

• Eric and I have been doing lots of yard work. Poor Eric tried to plant some seeds to grow vegetables, but Indy saw him digging and thought it'd be a good idea to help...so pretty sure the seeds are strewn about randomly (some in the grass, some in the flower bed...). We might end up with zuccini growing in the middle of our lawn?
• We have tulips in our yard. What a lovely surprise -- they weren't there last year when we moved in, so this was a delightful spring surprise.
• On Thursday this week I will be going to San Francisco to visit my dear friend and old college roomie, Emily (and Sam will be meeting us there from Denver, as well). I am soooo looking forward to escaping for a bit and taking a much needed vacation after the stress of this semester. We're planning on running/walking the Bay to Breaker 12K, which is a pretty well-known run through San Fran that involves people wearing costumes and sometimes having adult beverages along the way... Our team is going to be dressed as Where's Waldo. :)

If you've gotten this far, I would like you to leave a comment consisting of your favorite song to hear at a wedding. Thanks. :)

It's official

Eric and I are getting married on August 22, 2009 at Chateau LeVeaux, a resort on the north shore of Lake Superior. Check out the website to see how cool it looks: http://www.chateauleveaux.com/.

Things we've checked off our to-do list so far:

- wedding dress! (Stacy and Mom helped me shop for dresses on Sunday and Monday, and I ordered one on Monday night! It's whimsical, according to Stacy. It made me feel like I was floating, and it also made me want to dance, so I thought it had to be the one. :))

- location for ceremony and reception

- lodging for guests (we're going to have the entire resort all to ourselves!)

- ceremony music (cousins Jess and Joe Carey)

- hopefully food will be figured out soon

There are still lots of things to do, but we are having fun trying to straighten it all out. Next step is finding someone to marry us. Anyone know a great minister or other type of officiant in northern MN? Oh yeah, and we are trying to find a bluegrass band for the reception. Anyone know of any good groups that are either up there or would travel?

Anyway, just wanted to update on wedding planning. It's very exciting now that it's all official and really happening in only 5 months!

For your viewing pleasure, I leave you with this picture of our ring bearer. See how good she is at carrying things already?

The Family Stone

From We're engaged!

Not only is The Family Stone a great movie, but it is also what I'm about to become a part of!

Eric proposed on Saturday night before taking me out to a lovely dinner at the Como Park Conservatory. (They had a special Valentine's dinner event -- normally, you can't eat there, but we got to sit right between a Cocoa tree and a water fountain.) In case you haven't heard the fun story, I'll share:

After getting ready to go out to dinner, we exchanged gifts. I made Eric a snazzy card, and he had wrapped my present hours earlier -- it sat waiting for me on the dining room table for all that time. So first, I opened a shoe box that contained a ticket stub from our first "fake" date to see Superbad (the most romantic movie ever). He is quite the sentimental guy. :) Then I saw a little ring box....And right when I opened the box, Eric said, "I made that." And I was like "what?" And he said, "Yeah, I made it and wanted to use it to ask you to marry me." Next thing I knew, he was next to me and down on one knee asking me to marry him. I quickly said "Of course," and then "What do you mean you made it?" There was a lot of "Really?" and kisses and hugs in there too. :) It all went too fast. Now I want him to do it again.

About the ring:

Eric had mentioned a while ago about how he had thought about doing something different for an engagement ring -- more like a fashion/casual ring instead of THE ring. But I never imagined he would MAKE a ring! So instead of buying an engagement ring, he researched ways to make a ring. And then he figured we'd go out shopping for wedding rings later together to make sure we get what we want, etc. He ended up learning about how sailors used to spend their spare time making rings out of quarters or other coins by hammering around the edges and then drilling through the middle. My ring is made out of a Euro (which he got out of my piggy bank from when I studied abroad) and it has a little diamond embedded in it, and then there are two more little decorative indent-things. I think it's pretty freakin' creative and also a little crazy that he has spent the last two months making a ring while I was in class or working.

What a thoughtful, dedicated, creative, loving guy! Thank you, Eric! I'm really excited to become your wife!

So, do you want to see some pictures from our night? Just click on the picture or link below.

We're engaged!