Dordogne

This is the cottage we will hopefully be staying in during part of our honeymoon in France!

I'm waiting to receive official booking forms, but the cottage is available and talks are underway!

We'll spend the first three days in Paris and then five days in this cute place in the Dordogne region in the southwest of France, about an hour from Bordeaux.

I don't think I can contain my excitement for another month and a half...

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.

Down by the cool of the pool

Yesterday, Finley and Stacy were reading a story together. Finley really likes reading -- she's a smarty pants and already knows that each page says something and she needs to help turn the pages. :) Sometimes she tries to talk louder than Stacy. She's a feisty one.

Girls weekend

A couple weekends ago (right after finals), I had a relaxing vacation getaway to the San Francisco area to visit Emily (and Sam came to meet there from Denver as well). College roommates reunited always = fun times and lots of laughs.

We spent the weekend eating (homemade crepes, authentic Mexican, thai, pizza from Cheese Board in Berkeley--highly recommend it!), chatting, sitting in the sun until we were (ahem...I was) burnt (I know...should have used sunscreen since it was the first time my delicate winter skin had seen the light of day since last August, but it was breezy, so who knew the sun's rays were so powerful?), hiking, flying our cow kite at Berekely marina, and just hanging out catching up at Emily and Bryan's new house. Oh yeah, and we found our bridesmaid dresses at a cute boutique in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood!

We also took part in the Bay 2 Breaker 12K, which was ridiculous. It was like Mardi Gras or a traveling frat party with people of all ages there. Our Where's Waldo team looked pretty awesome in our red/white matching outfits. The funny thing was our idea was soooo not original. There were like five other groups of Waldos. We made friends with them most of the time. But there were also some snotty Waldos that didn't want anything to do with us. Rude. The oddest thing/or at least the thing I guess the race/walk is most known for is its nudity. That's right. One minute you're walking along happy as can be laughing at some tasteful Dunkin' Donut costumes....the next minute you glance to your right and see a naked 70-year-old man with a sun hat on just watching and taking pictures of the parade of costumed people walking past. Yep, I saw lots of naked or semi-naked people. You really have to be bold to do that--lots of groups wanted their pictures taken with the naked peeps. Me? Absolutely NOT. The whole thing was fun to do once -- you know, to say "Oh yeah...I've done the Bay 2 Breaker" and then reminisce about it with your friends who were also there. But would I want to do it again? Umm....probably not....well, maybe I'd run it and finish it ahead of all the crazy costume people (like Sam did this year) and then just watch them all afterwards. Except I'd wear more than just a sun hat. It is good people watching (it's like a crazier, nakeder State Fair).

Here are all my pics from San Fran - just click on the album below:

May - San Francisco

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:

Bring on summer

This is me with my poster at my Adult Language & Cognitive Disorders final ready to talk to people about group therapy for TBI. This was the last final of the semester. Hard to believe that was already 1.5 weeks ago! So far, I'm definitely enjoying my summer with evenings and weekends free to do things such as:
- watch episodes of 24
- watch movies from Netflix
- take Indy for walks and to the dog park
- take care of wedding planning details
- sit in the backyard and enjoy the weather
- spend time with family and friends who I feel like I've neglected for the past semester

Does this diaper make my butt look big?

Spent some time with Finley last night. Although she had been crying a bit, she's still cute as ever. Don't you think?

PS I added more recent pics to my Finley album on Picasa. Most are from my two babysitting adventures with her and Eric.

See the album here.