Wedding Bells are Ringing

Actually, the wedding bells rang over a week ago on June 20th for Justin and Christina. I am a little late in my posting but wanted to write about the wonderful week we had with the wedding festivities.


We got to Huntsville late Tuesday and were ready and raring to go on Wednesday. The next few days were filled with errands – wedding and non-wedding alike. We got to visit with a few friends and family along the way as well. The actual wedding festivities actually began Thursday night. They started with manicures and pedicures. It was Christina, her sisters and me. It was really sweet of her to include me in this “family” affair. Then it was off to dance practice. Yes, I said dance practice. Justin and Christina had a “surprise” dance at the reception. The dance started off with a slow song, then moved to “You’re the One that I Want” from Grease (just the 2 of them dancing), and then moved to “We Go Together” with the wedding party joining in (that would 14 other couples!). It was a simple dance but it took a little bit of time for 28 people to learn. After dance class a few bridesmaids came over to the Wright’s to finish up some last minute details.

Justin and Christina practicing their part of the dance. Yes, she got on the ground in her wedding dress!

Me, Christina and our wonderful mother-in-law

Friday was jammed packed as well. My day started with the Bridesmaids’ Luncheon at Victoria’s. Brad, Justin, their dad and one of the groomsman hit the links for a round of golf (in the 100 degree weather!). Next we all went to the Space and Rocket Center to set up for the rehearsal dinner. Rehearsal started at 6 and while we were there the power went out. Turned out the power was out all over SE Huntsville so it was a good thing the rehearsal dinner was at the Space and Rocket Center. The rehearsal dinner was fabulous with great food and great speeches.

The big day arrived and it was actually somewhat relaxing. I got my hair done, had lunch with my mom, and it was off to the church. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a ton of fun; Brad and I danced the night away!

The beautiful bride before the wedding. The headpiece she is wearing is the same one I wore for our wedding. We both borrowed it from Brad's cousin, Jamie.

All of the Zetas at the wedding. Christina and I were both Zetas at Auburn - one of the many things we have in common!

Justin and Christina cutting the cake.

No Wright wedding would be complete without an Auburn groom's cake. War Eagle!

Justin dancing with his mom.

Double Duty

Please say a prayer for me! Last week I started working my regular job and a temporary assignment as a team leader. Brad would describe this time as my "tryout" for the permanent team leader position.

Here's the background - we have 2 team leader positions on my side of the office. One of them was recently promoted. That leaves his position open. Instead of filling it immediately my boss has decided to do a rotational assignment for those who were eligble and interested. I am all about a promotion so when the opportunity was presented I jumped right on it. This may have been a mistake - I am the first in the rotation!

Needless to say, work has picked up and I feel like I am going non-stop. I think I would like this job once it really became available, but I am not sure if I would get it (office politics). Please say a prayer for me as I try to juggle 2 jobs, one of which I am muddling through.

Angels and Demons

Have you seen this movie? Brad and I saw this Friday night. I thought it would be fun to write a little movie review, so here we go. We were interested in seeing it because it is based on a book written by the same guy who wrote, “The Da Vinci Code”.

I would give this movie an A-. I think I liked “The Da Vinci Code” better, but this one was still good. Tom Hanks is the main character, Robert Langdon, and he plays a symboltologist (I think I may have just made that word up – he looks for symbols and interprets them). The story comes out of Rome when the Pope dies. Four of the cardinals are captured and Tom Hanks must find them before they die. You are taken on a scavenger hunt as clues are revealed to find the next cardinal in an attempt to save them before they are murdered. Also, to make it a little more interesting, they are searching for antimatter before it combusts and causes catastrophe.

This movie is a little violent. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say people die and it is not pretty. If you are interested in following clues and trying to figure what is going to happen next, then this movie is for you. I was actually very surprised when I learned who the real “villain” was.

As a side note, Brad and I were the only ones in the theater at first. We didn’t get there too early, maybe 10 to 15 minutes early. It was rather comical to be the only ones in there when the previews began. By the time they were over another couple had joined us. This was a special couple; they started smoking towards the end of the movie. Anyway, we decided the reason we were the only ones there was that we were seeing a late showing (9:40 pm – look at us staying out late – ha!), the movie has been out almost a month, and we live in a small community where there are 2 movie theaters. So, if you decide to go to this movie and you are the only one in the theater, don’t worry, you did not choose a bad movie (or at least I don’t think so).

The reason I give this an A-:
*Good story line
*Kept me interested for most of the 2 hours and 20 minutes
*Could probably wait for it to come out on video

Birthday Fun

Last Saturday was my birthday and we got to spend the weekend at the beach (one of my favorite places!!). We have taken some awesome vacations over our anniversary and my birthday so we thought it would be fun to get away like we have done before. It was wonderful to hop in the car at 3 and be at our hotel in Orange Beach in 50 minutes (and that includes a stop for gas). Saturday, we got out to the beach about 8:30 and stayed until after 5; it was wonderful!! There was a great breeze and I didn’t even need the shade of the umbrella.

Us in front of our hotel, Island House Hotel

The view from our room. Who would want to leave this?

Us at Cafe Grazie, our favorite place to go in Orange Beach. We got to sit on the enclosed patio and watch the sun set over the marina.

When we got home Sunday, I was welcomed by cards and birthday wishes. One of my favorites comes my from college roommate, Marie. I was checking my email and in my inbox was this sweet picture -

Daniel, Marie's sweet son, wishing me a happy birthday. This made my day!!

Happy Birthday Bill!!

Happy Birthday Bill! My fabulous step-father is getting another year older today! We wish we could be there to celebrate with you and we love you!

Engineer Day

I think it is common practice among government agencies to have an annual picnic. We at the Corps have our's around the time of the Corps' birthday (sometime in June) and this year it was Friday, June 5th.

When I found out this was going to be on June 5th I got kind of excited because it meant that I would have every Friday between May 1st and July 17th out of the office.

This was my first picnic with the Mobile District. Here's how it compared to my Huntsville office -

1) Mobile's picnic was on a Friday, Huntsville on a Thurday. I think Huntsville has the right idea. There is no way you could get me out there on my day off. Some of the girls from my office came even though it was their day off, but they had kids and this was more kid-oriented.

2) It took me an hour to drive to the picnic and an hour to get home - not fun! I was about 20 minutes away in Huntsville, definitely more up my alley.

3) Everyone told me that for the Mobile picnic you needed to see the right people then you could leave. I parked next to my big boss (check him of the list) and I immediately saw my boss and team leader (check, check). I stayed about 2 hours...long enough for me. In Huntsville, the day was shorter than a normal work day but I was there longer than 2 hours. Last year I was in charge of games so I was one of the first ones there and one of the last to leave. It was fun and I didn't mind doing it with that group.

4) The Mobile picnic is very kid-friendly. They had lots of inflatable jumpy things, games (like a dunking booth), snow cones, etc. There was also softball and volleyball for the adults but it is kind of hard to really get into it when there are potentially 1300 people participating. In Huntsville we had a few kid games, just enough for the number of kids that came, and we had the adult games of volleyball and horseshoes.

Overall, it was a good day. I got out of work for day so I can't really complain.

Katie (Lauren's sister), Jackson (Lauren's baby), Lauren (my co-worker), Janet (my co-worker)

5 Year Anniversary!!!

The past 5 years have been an amazing journey. I feel like we have accomplished so much. Like, we bought our first house, we sold our first house, we got Ellie and later we got Madi, we made the huge decision to move to Daphne, I got my Master’s degree, and Brad was pharmacy manager at Bruno’s, then completed a pharmacy residency at Huntsville Hospital, and is now a professor at Auburn. I can’t wait to see what’s next in our journey.

Thinking back over these five years makes me realize how much I love Brad and how this love keeps on growing. He is my best friend and never stops supporting me through the good times and the bad. I think the new Brad Paisley song, “I Thought I Loved You Then” sums up my feelings. The song takes you through a couple’s relationship – from the time they first met, to their engagement, to their wedding, and to their future. At each stage in the relationship, he thinks he loves her as much as he can but then he gets to that next stage and realizes he loves her even more. Happy Anniversary Brad! I love you!

1st Anniversary

2nd Anniversary in Hawaii

3rd Anniversary in Barbados on our cruise

4th Anniversary - no picture :(

Mandisa Video

Back in January my friend, Rebecca, met with Mandisa to shoot a video about the song "You Wouldn't Cry" (the song Mandisa wrote in memory of Rebecca's son, Andrew). Check it out if you get a chance!

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=980a2cb94bf283772d30

Fun in the Sun

The weatherman kept saying that last weekend was going to be the best weekend all year. Once I heard that I decided I needed to spend as much time outside as possible! I spent Friday afternoon lounging by the pool. It was great! I think I got my love for the pool from my mom. She taught me the fine art of reading by the pool and dipping in to cool off. I felt kind of bad though because Brad was at work. Luckily, he got off a little bit early and we got to enjoy some time on the back porch. Later that evening, Ella came over and we got to babysit. It was so much fun!! She only stayed a few hours but we had a great time swimming and watching cartoons. One funny thing, as she was getting ready to leave, she looked at me and said, “LeeAnn, you’re little”. It cracked me up because she is going to be taller than me within the year, so to her, I seem very small. She also told she thought I would be five on my birthday. That works for me. Oh, also, don't worry Jamie, we still want kids (she was afraid after watching Ella we may not want kids)!

Me and Ella swimming

Saturday, Matt, Jamie and Ella treated us to a day on the water. We took their boat down to Lulu’s for lunch. I had wondered what you wore to Lulu’s when coming off a boat in the summer. I took a normal swim cover up and hoped that would be ok. I was right; I think I saw more swimsuits than normal clothes. Get this - there was a wait at 1 pm at Lulu’s. That place is crazy busy. I can’t imagine what the wait is at dinner. On our way back we saw a family of porpoises. I think there were 5 or 6 in the group. I never would have thought that porpoises would be in the Mobile Bay.

Matt, Jamie, and Ella at Lulu's

Saturday evening we went to a coworker of Brad’s birthday party. Every year Allison has a crawfish boil in her backyard. We had a good time visiting with all the people from Brad’s work. I will have to say that we did not eat any crawfish. Neither of us really like to work for our food and I think the crawfish still had their heads. There was no way you were going to get me near that.

Our fun in the sun weekend was finished off Sunday with an afternoon by the pool. I think I could get used to being so close to water (the pool and the gulf) and this wonderful weather!