It’s Official!!

We’re Married!!!

And the first official place I have been able to change my name, of course, Facebook. It is so weird/exciting to see Alina McGinty. I just love it.  I look forward to writing a nice re-cap (for all who actually read this) very soon of our whole AMAZING wedding weekend. But I am still trying to take it all in for now. But I will leave you with this…

The wedding weekend was a whirlwind of activity, love, laughter and fun. It was happy, warm and comforting, homemade, family oriented and intimate. All the things I hoped it would be and more. I hope everyone who attended enjoyed themselves and those who weren’t able to, will enjoy reading more of our favorite moments from our weekend coming up soon…

We’re a happy family!

It’s Wedding Week!

Well folks it’s officially wedding week!! Who’s excited?! We are!!

The weather is looking good so far.   http://www.weather.com/weather/weekend/USNH0003

Keep your fingers crossed and toes too!

Things are all coming together. I am meeting with a local farm near us about flowers today. That was the last minute thing that has been giving me a little stress lately because places are running out as the flower season is coming to an end soon and frost will be here before we know it.  So I will be glad to know that we are good to go with all of that today.

Finishing touches are all getting wrapped up this week and I am just hoping that I don’t forget anything. Brian’s mom will be coming up tomorrow night and staying with us and helping out with some last minute shopping etc that needs to get done. That will be great!

Then Wednesday is our last day of work for the week and Thursday is Brian’s Birthday!!!! WooHooo!! Then Friday we will pack up and head up to the farm for the weekend! I am so excited!  I get to marry my best friend this weekend and be surrounded by family and friends that love us. It is all just so unbelievable sometimes.

I am so grateful that we were able to even do this and I really hope that everyone enjoys themselves as much as I know that we will!!

I don’t have any pictures to post yet, but I wanted to just say here that I am so thankful for all of those who came and helped put on a fantastic wedding shower for me. Two weekends ago. The food was amazing and the gifts were so thoughtful and I had so much fun. Thank you all.  I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful people in my life that care so much. Thank you so very much.

Vows! Wow! & Mini-Moon Plans

When we first thought about writing our own vows, we were so excited! And, although we are still SUPER excited to read our own vows to each other, now it just seems to be a bit harder than we thought.

First of all, finding the time to just sit and start writing can be very hard to do when there are a million wedding crafts to do and house stuff to clean and organize and kids every other weekend and work all day etc etc.

Secondly, even just thinking of writing and reading such intimate things to each we both start tearing up. It seems like it will be impossible for us to do it without blubbering all the way through. Jeesh! (Good thing I got that extra waterproof mascara!)

But I do want to get them written soon or at least first drafts started as we only have…

23 DAYS left!!!!

Wow!

It is very exciting to think that I will be changing my name and joined with my best friend in such a meaningful new way. I really can’t wait. And I can’t wait to have all kinds of family and friends around for the weekend too!

Another exciting thing is that we have sort of realized this week that we are planning a fantastic little Mini-Moon! Very exciting because I didn’t really think we were going to have any sort of getaway for us but then we remembered that the weekend of October 8-10 we are going down to Pennsylvania for Brian’s Induction Ceremony to the Hall of Fame at his old High School (North Penn) for his amazing swim team. As this will be my first trip to Philadelphia and Brian’s old home town we decided to make a real adventure of it.

We both took that Friday off and will be driving down and staying in a nice  hotel right in downtown Philadelphia. Then getting up Saturday morning and going to the Art Museum there (a.k.a. the” Rocky staircase”, pictures to come of course), getting a real Philly Cheese Steak for lunch (yummmmm) and going to LOVE Park. As well as any more Philly fun we can come up with. Then we will drive out to Lansdale where Brian is from and go to his  ceremony and I will get to meet some of his friends that he spent numerous amount of time in the water with. Including one of his great friends Josh who unfortunately can’t make it to the wedding. And who I am excited to meet.

Then Saturday night we are staying here: Normandy Farm. Which looks really nice and we will have brunch there in the morning before we make the trip home. Sooo Yeah Mini-Moon!

A Peach Of A Weekend

Have you ever picked a peck of perfectly pretty peaches? Well we did this weekend with the kids and Grandma Ann!

We had such a great weekend with the kids and Brian’s mom who is up to visit. A full house and lots of full belly’s from all our good eats and treats. Now that is a good weekend! On Saturday we headed out to Apple Crest Farm in Hampton Falls to re-visit an old favorite spot for some Pick Your Own fun! This weekend’s fruit happened to be PEACHES! We will then take our bounty and squish it, cook it, jar it, and to turn it into Peach Jam. This will go along with the Blueberry Jam that Brian and I made earlier in the summer as giveaway favors for the wedding. Yum!

Here are some pictures from our adventures in peach pickin’:

Then from there we made a stop at the old Fish Market before going home so that we could buy some yummy lobsters for dinner.  The kids thought this was lots of fun!

Finally I took some cute pictures of Brian and Colin relaxing outside together.
They are the cutest guys I know of.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Why do I torture myself like this…

Farmers’ Almanac Long Range Weather Forcast

It’s ok. New England weather is unpredictable right. And if it rains, then we all get to play in the puddles!

On and up note. Brian and I were so excited to receive our first two RSVP’s in the mail yesterday. Keep ‘em coming guys! It makes checking the mail so much more fun!!!

Getting Closer!

This past Sunday my mom and I had a fun girls day of shopping for a dress for her to wear to the wedding (which we found and she looks totally cute in it) and trying on fun shoes.

( I bought this fun pair , they remind me of the adult version of my old pink jelly shoes from when I was a kid! haha)

And a late lunch/dinner at the Olive Garden complete with girly martini’s. It was a great day.
Thanks Mom, I love you.

I am getting more and more excited for our wedding celebration and having everyone come together for a super fun day. Brian has been feeling better and better with his back since this last cortisone shot he received last week and things are looking up.

Be on the look out for invitations as I just finished bringing them all to the post office!

Updates, Updates

It seems like it has been a while since writing something. Things have been so crazy lately. My poor husband-to-be injured his back and has been out of commission for over a month now. He is about to go crazy, not being able to do much of anything. But there is hope. The cortisone shot that he received two Friday’s ago seemed to help a little and hopefully the second one coming up will eliminate even more pain he is experiencing. Otherwise we may have to talk to a surgeon.

So, besides all that we also moved to our new apartment in Nottingham, NH on Memorial Day weekend. Which was not the way I would recommend one to spend a nice beautiful long weekend. Next time we will re-think the timing of a move a bit. And, speaking of timing, the timing of Brian’s back injury was unfortunate for the moving process as well. So needless to say I felt like I was going to need a new back by the end of the weekend as well. But thanks to the help of my amazing Mother and her husband Don and the movers we hired as well, we made it in. And, poor Bri felt very frustrated and helpless watching me try to move all of our stuff. Which we have way too much of it seems… we will work on that later.

Other than all that we are doing great. The new place is very comfortable and fits us all in much better than the old place did. We went from ocean side to country side. It is great to be able to try a little of everything that NH has to offer. Maybe one day we will also try out  mountain side?

The bottom half is ours.

View of the field and the meditation room, there is a pond way out back there and trails in the woods that need exploring as soon as things settle down a bit.

Peacefulness in here…

So much green around.

The kids seemed to really like the new place as well when they came for their first visit this past weekend, there is even a little girl for them to play with right next door!  And of course Rufus is enjoying himself… like always. Much more critters and bugs to keep him busy.

We also had another visitor this past week. Ann,  Brian’s mom came up to help me out a bit with the new house, moving us out of the storage unit we still had to do and taking care of Brian but also, the original reason she had planned this trip before Bri got hurt was to make my wedding dress!!! Which she successfully completed after a few hang ups here and there. Using a vintage pattern and trying to alter from it a bit is no easy task. And she did great! I love it! It is so simple and special. So I send out many thanks to Mama Ann for all her hard work! Love you.

A tough game of Rummikub!

The dress pattern. The shorter one is the one we used. We did the neckline a bit different though.

Hotel Information

for our out-of-town wedding guests:

So I just wanted to let you all know that Brian’s mom Ann was kind enough to help us reserve a block of rooms at the Hampton Inn in Bow/Concord for anyone coming from afar, to stay at for the wedding. They are holding the rooms at a rate of $89 dollars a night. Accommodations include a hot breakfast, indoor heated pool and great beds! The hotel is located about 20 minutes North of the Manchester Airport and about 40-50 minutes away from the wedding site.

Please get in contact with me if you are planning to come to the wedding and are interested in reserving one of these rooms. The sooner you let me know the better, as you can always cancel later if you decide not to need one or not to come, but we would like to know if we are going to be needing to reserve any more than we already have before they are all booked up. As September is a busy NH month because of the foliage. Thanks a bunch! Can’t wait to see you all. 

Home Run Weekend

It was a great weekend, with summer-like weather. It started Friday when Brian came over to Manchester to pick up the kids with me and we went out to dinner and stopped over at the pet store to look around too before heading home. Saturday we went back over to Manchester for a Fisher Cats vs. The Redding Phillies Baseball game with the kids. We all had a fun time and ate hot dogs and got free hats! There was some great runs made by Manchester, Bri was of course rooting for the Phillies however.

Then Colin wanted to take one of me. Hi!

And he zoomed in to take this shot too.

Isabelle was the most excited for the game at the beginning and the most antsy to leave by the 5th inning. On the way home the kids had a nice nap, I think it was needed

On Sunday the kids played together all morning with Legos with no fighting or problems what so ever!
It was truly amazing.

After dropping them back off Brian and I had plans for that night to go out to dinner at Nippo Lake Golf Club in order to see “Lunch At The Dump” a bluegrassy string band play that we have been talking to about performing at our wedding. It was a great date and we enjoyed the band very much and went up to talk to them during their break. John who I have been in correspondence with, recognized us right away and said. “I know you guys, you’re getting married and I bet I can guess the date September 26th!” We even got our wedding announced when they came back from break and of course my face turned three shades of red when everyone in the room turned to look at us. I am very excited to have these guys at our special day.

This is John. He is awesome.

These guys go way back!

What our wedding guests have to look forward to! Should be a nice laid back, good time!

Save The Date

So, I think it is safe to say that it is official. There is no turning back now. The Save The Dates have gone out and hopefully everyone has received them by now and they are still in decent shape after going trough the mail. I designed them to be bright and fun, sort of how I hope the wedding will be. Also not very formal. Which I also hope the wedding will be. I wanted to cut cost and be more eco-friendly by skipping the envelope and making them postcards. Keep a look out for the invites to come. They will be going out before you know it!

There they go! Bye, Bye.