August!!

It is AUGUST!!!!!

(can you feel my excitement?!?)

There are a lot of good things happening in August, here is the rundown:

August 11th

 My amazingly beautiful sissy's 30th birthday!

We are going to Boston for the weekend to celebrate

this beauty! I can't wait, it is going to be an awesome weekend

with some great people! I can't wait to 

celebrate my fab sister's birthday!

August 21st

One Month until our BIG day

 I hear wedding bells!!

via 

August 22nd

 My 2nd wedding dress fitting. 

 I am really excited to see what the alterations look like.  

Please keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Sorry no sneak peeks of the dress here since I know

my future hubby is reading over my 

shoulder.

August 24th

 Leaving for VEGAS!!!!! I am so exciting to finally go to Vegas

with my sister! It is going to be so much fun with

my favorite person.

via

I can't wait to share all my great times from August with all of you.  

Have you ever been to ....

Boston??

Vegas??

Favorite spots in either one of these cities you want to share?

xoxxo

Vegas Countdown: 20 days!!

Wedding Countdown: 48 days!!

Tuesday Date Night

The last thing we want to do when the sun is shinning is sit in our apartment. 

After work we went for a walk downtown

We stumbled across a new brewery downtown.  It was their

"soft" opening.  

Druthers 

check out their site:

http://druthersbrewing.com/

The drawing on the home page gives you a really great idea of what the place looks like.

It was an old alleyway, now open for outdoor seating.  They have a full bar and seating inside as well.

We were treated like royalty here.  Our waiter was awesome, he made sure we had good seating out of the sun and made sure we were happy with everything.  After dinner Trevor and  I went inside to check things out.  The manager, Drew came up and offered to give us a tour and also gave us some good size samples of the beers we didn't try at dinner.   Here is the run down on Druthers ...

Let's start with the beer:

Trevor had the "All In IPA"

and loved it!  

I had the Brevity Wit

and loved it!  I am a wheat beer kinda girl so I 

was very happy this was a choice.

We both sampled the "Last Straw Pilsner" and "Simple Truth Porter."  Let me say this ... I HATE, HATE, HATE dark beer, but the "Simple Truth Porter was amazing!! There was a strong coffee taste to it and we both loved it!

For Dinner:

Trevor had the Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos 

I didn't try them, but he said they were really good.  He loves some spice and 

these were definitely spicy. 

I had From The Garden Mac & Cheese

This was seriously the best "grown up" Mac & Cheese I have

ever had.  There were tomatoes, summer squash and mushrooms in it.  I ate every 

last bit.  

We loved this place and will be coming back to try more beer and food.  I am so happy

that we went out for a walk and found this place.  If you live in the area

check this place out!! You won't be disappointed. 

xoxxo

Vegas Countdown: 22 days!!

Wedding Countdown: 50 days!!

Best Bridesmaids

I have the best Bridesmaids ever!!

Since the 6 month mark until the wedding my thoughtful bridesmaids have sent me a special gift every month leading up to the wedding.  ♥

6 Months

I got these beautiful flowers at work from the girls! 

5 Months

My girls know me so well!! They sent me this great cupcake

baking package!  

4 Months

A fancy "bride" robe to get ready in on the big day!

3 Months

(missing CJ♥ - we really need to get a picture all together)

My fabulous girls gave me the most amazing Bridal Shower(read about it here).

2 Months

"Mrs. Bogan" hanger for my wedding dress on the big day!

Thank you to all my beautiful bridesmaids - Christina, CJ, Meghan and Michele for making this chapter in my life so special.  I couldn't imagine my life without any one of you and I am so happy to have you all as my best friends.  I love you ladies!!

xoxxo 

Vegas Countdown: 29 days!!

Wedding Countdown: 57 days!!

Track Season is Here Folks!!

It is officially Track Season here in 

Saratoga Springs, NY!!!

We were unable to go to open day on Friday because of work,

but we hit up the races

on Saturday.  

This is a picture from last year 

(I didn't take a pictures of the actually

races this year ... oops!)

Enjoying the race 

Making some bets 

Losing all our money!

Despite the fact that we only won ONE of about twenty-five bets (a whopping $1.99 win) we had a wonderful time.  

Saturday night we went to Scallions for dinner, a local restaurant with lots of healthy and gluten free options.  The food was great and we even got a free round of drinks because Trevor was 0-2 on ordering beers they were out of. 

Saratoga was mobbed all weekend, but we did get out for an afternoon walk on Sunday to enjoy some of the sunshine.  After a few stops in the local shops, I found this little gem that I had to have for $22.

ceramic popcorn bowl!

"That's All Folks!!" is written on the bottom

of the bowl :)

Trevor loves when I make popcorn on the stove.  Once you have stovetop popcorn, you will seriously never go back to eating the microwavable crap in a bag! 

Have you ever been to a horse race in Saratoga? What is your favorite part?

Do you make your popcorn on the stove or in the microwave? Any special toppings

you would recommend?? 

Vegas Countdown: 32 days!!

Wedding Countdown: 60 days!!

xoxxo

Bridal Shower

Bridal Shower

June 23, 2012 

I would like to start by saying a BIG Thank You to all my family and friens who made this day so special for me.  I am truly blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.  A special thank you to my bridal party who put so much work into making the day perfect!  I love you ladies!

I hope you enjoy all the details  ♥ 

THE INVITATION 

I loved the invitation ! 

CENTERPIECES

 All the table names were places in Saratoga

PLACE CARDS

 DESSERT

The most delicious cupcakes ever!  Of course the Red Velvet was 

my #1 choice!

 LOTS OF WINE!

This was my favorite thing about the shower.  Everyone brought a bottle of wine with

a wine tag(sent with the invitations) that had advice for the Bride & Groom.  Trevor and I 

are having so much fun reading all the tags and trying new wine.  

GIFT TABLE

FAVORS

S'mores are my favorite so naturally I was excited for these!

The Bridal Party 

minus one(love  you CJ, can't wait to see you!)

"Merkl" Ladies

My sister & Mom 

Mom and her friends

My future Mother in Law :) 

Gift Opening Time!! 

A gorgeous serving bowl from Nancy.

One of my favorite gifts!

"Mom where did you put the card"

Got it!

Some "sexy" stuff for the wedding night from my sister

After a great bridal shower, my ride showed up!

Love you babe! 

Thank you all again for a wonderful day!!

xoxxo

Happy 4th Of July!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!

We sure did ... 

Luckily, we had off Tuesday and Wednesday to enjoy the beautiful weather and holiday.   Tuesday was one of the best days we had in a long time.

We took a drive up to Lake George to do some hiking.  After getting a little lost we ended up hiking a different trail then originally planned.  We wanted to hike Black Mountain, but ended up on Pilot Knob.  

It was a fairly short, but intense hike to the top.  

The view was amazing!!

After taking in the view for awhile we decided to explore a little more.  We went on another hike from the top of the mountain towards a waterfall.

There wasn't much water, but it was still beautiful.  We got a little lost during this hike, but

it was so much fun trying to find our way back.  

Here are some pictures of us enjoying the view:

We plan on coming back to find Black Mountain because it is a higher mountain.  In total we hiked a little over 5 miles.  It was a great workout!!

After our hike and a long shower we headed over to Kimberley's A Day Spa for a couples massage.  

It was the perfect end to our day. 

Wednesday morning we woke up and took a nice bike ride to the gym and had a good workout.  Then it was on to the wedding duties: 

We went to Longfellows for our tasting and to nail down some other details.  The chef was awesome and the food was delish.  Talk about being FULL after!   

Exhaustion set in, but thankfully we were able to catch the Congress Park fireworks from right outside our door.  

It was a perfect 2 days!

xoxxo

  

Wait....What?!?

OMGosh!!! It has been almost 4 months since I have been able to blog!  Where does the time go??  Wedding planning, working, summer and just life have been non-stop.

To catch everyone up ... here is a little bit of what went on over the past 4 months:

March

St. Patrick's day celebration in Saratoga Springs  :) and that is about all I can

remember from March!

April 

Easter with the family!!

My 26th Birthday! 

via here

I have NO pictures from TAP this year!!  I even searched fellow tap goers facebook 

pages and NOTHING!  

I know there has to be a group picture out there somewhere!

BUT ...  this picture was in the TAP book this year!!

There we are! Me and my brother from TAP 2011! 

Please note: we are the only people with sunglasses on inside..HA!

May

CDPHP Workforce Team Challenge - this was such a fun event!!  It was a little over a 5k course through downtown Albany, NY that you run/walk with your co-workers.  About a half a mile into the race, I ran (pun intended) into my sister and got the finish the race with her!  It was awesome!

During Mother's Day weekend both mine and Trevor's family got together for

the day at my parents house:

It was so fun to see our niece(Trevor's side) and nephew(my side)

play together. 

I can't to see them at the wedding! They are our flower girl and

ring bearer!!

June

Me, Christina and Jamie

35th Freihofer's Run for Women - 5k run through downtown Albany.

This was mine and my sister, Christina's 2nd year doing the race. 

All the women lined up ready to go. 

Over 4,000 women from the Captain Region ran! It was a fabulous day to celebrate women!

Last, but definitely not least ...

This past weekend was my Wedding Shower and Bachelorette Party Part 1

This will be a whole other blog within itself, but I want to say Thank You to all my

amazing family and friends for making this day so special.  It was

absolutely perfect. 

p.s. I promise you will be hearing a lot more from us.  We have lots of adventures coming up over the next couple of months!

Wedding Countdown: 83 days!!

Weekend Part 2

And the Adventures continue ...

On Saturday, we had lunch at Ravenous in Saratoga.  The place was hopping and now I know why.  It was the most delicious lunch I have ever had!!!  It was so good, I didn't take any pictures because I couldn't stop eating.  Their speciality is crepes... breakfast crepes, lunch crepes and dessert crepes.  We chose lunch crepes, but I can't wait to go back for a dessert crepe.  

I had the Crepe Heloise - Crepe filled with mild goat cheese, grape tomatoes, scallions & fresh basil.  Since crepes are warm, the goat cheese was melted.  I loved every bite of it.

Trevor had the Grandfather's Garden - Crepe stuffed with portobello mushrooms,  fresh basil, diced tomatoes, roasted garlic and mozzarella cheese.  He was equally in love with his crepe and  I will have to take his word for it since I couldn't tare myself away from mine to try his. 

It you are ever in Saratoga Springs, NY stop by Ravenous for a delish crepe, you won't be disappointed.  

Ok enough raving about Ravenous.  

I forgot to mention a little stop in the saratoga tourist store  my favorite store before lunch where I saw these adorable little guys:

After lunch, we marched our full bellies back to my favorite store to buy these adorable little guys because in my exact words, "I couldn't go home without them."

Saturday night we went to Hibachi dinner with Trevor's co-workers. Great food with great company, couldn't ask for more :)

Sunday

My sister, brother-in-law and nephew came over for some quality time.  My sister, Christina and I hit up the bridal show at Longfellows in Saratoga to try to find and florist.  We were in and out in under an hour, which was OK with me because I got to spend more time with this little guy:

He is such an entertainer!! Love him!!  What a great way to end the weekend!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

xoxxo