Wedding Weekend: Adam's wedding gift to me

I have to an entirely separate post for the wedding gift he built with his own two hands.

One of the (many) things I appreciate about Adam is that he may not be able to completely relate to my love of Baylor, but he does a great job of trying to understand this part of me.  

He wears Baylor shirts.

He takes me to visit Amanda & Joey in Waco & get a tour of campus.

And...he builds me a Baylor bench, with handmade lettering and green and gold paint.  

We walked out of the church after the rehearsal and this was sitting out there.  

So happy!

Love those dimples.

This bench has found a home inside our house, because it just makes me smile to walk by it and see it, and think about all the work that went into it.  I love it for many reasons, mostly the thought Adam put behind it.  But I also like it because it's similar to the green and gold swings that hang around campus, but it has it's own twist.  If you know me well, you know that I don't like to do something just because it's exactly the same.  This has a Shay-and-Adam spin on it, and I love it.

Weekend Eleven: Couples' Shower

August 20th, we had eight hostesses give a wedding shower for both of us.  It was such fun to have Adam around opening gifts and seeing people, and I loved getting to see tons of my absolute favorite people.  The house was decked out in a picnic theme, with red and white checked table cloths, dasies, sun flowers and photos of Adam and me. 

One of our BSB friends, Vicki, made my favorite chocolate chip cookies.  We used to go on vacation with the Billman family, where she'd let us help make cookies.  We got to eat chocolate chips when we did math problems.  Her son, Brett, is infinitely better at math (he's an accountant now) always did better at these problems, but I beat him in spelling.  Makes sense, now, huh?

I'd like to point out that this was a seated dinner for 70 people.  Yes, 70, and yes, seated.  Everyone had a spot.   Because what's worse than to eat pulled pork sliders and have corn on the cob roll off your lap? 

Delicious food.

Vicki C., Aunt Laura, Sue and Kelley (BSB friends)

These dads preferred to sit in a pow-wow circle instead of at a table.  Whatever floats your boat.

This is where AMP and I sat for approximately 20 minutes to eat.  We enjoyed chatting with our friends at this table, but then it was time to make the rounds to our other 60 friends all around the house.

Papa and Claire became buddies when they were both in the Christmas program at Prestonwood last year.  I love this fun fact very much.

Molly and Nathan came and knew just about everyone in the house.  They are just so Baylor-y.

Megan and I are becoming good friends because she knew Amanda in Waco (who came up to visit for this!) and Molly worked for Amanda as an intern in Waco in college.  Did you catch all those connections?  If not, that's ok.  Just know we're mutual friends.

There was much laughing and mingling.

Tom and Susan opened their home up for this party, and he gave a little welcome and blessing for us.  The eight hostesses went to great lengths to make this such a special evening.  They had lots of special touches, and handed out these pretty prayer cards to people as they left, with specific verses to pray for us. 

This is when they were talking about us, before we started opening presents.  I have no idea why we were laughing, but there was a lot of that going on that night.

Smoo was there with her iPad taking notes as we opened presents for an hour and a half.

Handmade aprons for each of us!

Adam was so excited about all the tools he got!  His reactions were priceless, and I'm fairly certain he entertained the whole room.

The card for this read, "Every fireman's house should have an ax."  He couldn't agree more.

SMoo just working away!

Baylor friends!!

Troy was still in town, so he came too.  I'm so glad!

All of our loot.

Sweet hostesses.

So excited about their Crate & Barrel boxes

Here I am laughing, and Adam rolling his eyes. 

After everyone left, Adam went and pulled out some of his new tools. 

Mom was checking them out, too.

It was such a fun night!  We got in the car, exhausted, and realized that's what we're going to feel like after our wedding, but even more tired.  I did dream the other night, though, that we didn't get to dance or eat at our wedding because we were talking to people the whole time.  Hopefully that won't happen!

My first shower was really fun, but I really enjoyed having Adam there to open gifts, too, and really experience how excited everyone is for us.  We both felt very loved, and had a great time. 

Weekend Nine: Adam comes to BSB

Baylor Summer Bunch weekend is jam-packed full of family, friends and fun.  It is always fun to catch up with these friends.  This year was a big deal for me, because I got to bring Adam.  I was super excited for him to be a part of the weekend...I pulled photos of all nine families from Facebook so he could see that he'd already met half of them.  (Clearly, very excited.) 

I was so excited that I didn't really put myself in his shoes until we walked in the door to my parent's lakehouse and all the moms turned and gave a high-pitched, "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"  I thought he might just turn around and leave--ha!  Everyone was excited to meet him, and Adam hung in there and met all 40-some-odd people. 

After the initial shock of meeting all these new faces, Adam settled in and learned all about the BSB from his buddy, Gerald.  We have three scrapbooks ('80s, '90s and '00s) with birth announcements, wedding photos, Baylor Homecomings, Christmas Cards and BSB trips.  (I know...we might be slightly over the top.)

Because of this crazy heat wave and lack of water in the lake, we spent a lot of time indoors.  Not everyone stays at our lakehouse (we rented a few more nearby), but it was the hub of all the activities, so it got quite loud sometimes.  At some point througout the weekend, most everyone had to go outside and collect their thoughts, I think.  It was just SO LOUD! 

We played games Friday and Saturday night.

We hung out and played with the new babies.

We boated.

We tubed.

We played more games...this was the "Minute to Win it" night.

This was everyone hanging out Saturday night in the den.  That's a lot of people.

More "Minute to win it" games.

We ate a lot of yummy food and all hung out and chatted.  Adam stayed until after dinner Saturday night before heading back home to go to work the next morning.  He was such a great sport!

Sunday mornings, we have a little singing and devotional time.  Troy played the guitar this year while the three Deily sisters sang.  They did great.  :-)

We also celebrate the high school and college graduates and pray for them as they "launch" a new chapter in their lives.  Scott was the youngest in the group, and he's starting at Baylor today!  The photo above is the first "launchees"--Lauren, Laura and Allison, and the last, Scott. 

Our parents have said once Scott was launched, the kids aren't invited, and they'll all go on a cruise instead.  We'll see how that plays out next summer!  :-) 

Then we pose for group photos.

The Dads.

The Moms.

The girls.

The boys.

And Laura and Allison with their newest additions, Emma and Madeleine!

Loving the bows.

Emma and Madeleiene.

Whew.  Just looking throuh these photos makes me tired again!  The fun part is that normally we see these friends again at Baylor Homecoming in November, but it was fun to say, "See you at the wedding!"  :-)