our first bridal shower. awww!

LAURA HERE!

I sit here writing as my soon-to-be husband sweeps and mops the floor. Am I lucky or what? We are supposed to be doing our "chores" and mine was to write a blog, poooooor me!!

Anyway, back to the subject of the blog, today we had our first bridal shower! It was joint between Ian's school (Cracker Trail Elementary) and mine (the Kindergarten Learning Center.)

BOY DO I FEEL BLESSED!!

I really feel like we are both part of such an awesome family down here in Sebring--the family we have at our schools! They are so supportive and loving and kind and generous. I can't even express it!! We were truly surprised with how many gifts were given to us, they will be so helpful to us now and in the future!

It's finally becoming real, and I'm more excited than ever!! Oh, and you had to know we'd include tons of pictures!! Pay no attention to the funny faces, you know Ian and I are comedians. Notice the shirts that were made for us! Definitely a keeper.

Sebring Relay for Life!

Laura and I had the oppertunity to be on teams for RFL this past Saturday. It is really quite an amazing event, actually the single largest non-profit fundraiser for cancer reaserch! We worked all morning (yes, even Laura got up to work, hehe) and then walked from 2am-4:30am!

Ian's team raised over $5,000-- silver sponsorship

Laura's team raised about $2,500 -- bronze sponsorship (pretty good for a brand new school)

Cool things to do in GR while you are there!

We are excited to be having our wedding to be held in the city that Laura grew up in, and Ian lived in before we moved to Florida. Here, are a few prized destinations and unique diversions for you to indulge in if you are visting our host city, Grand Rapids. If you have other ideas, post comments!!

• DeVos Place
• Gerald R. Ford Museum
• Van Andel Museum Center
• Grand Rapids Art Museum
• Grand Rapids Children’s Museum
• Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park
• Civic Theatre
• Spectrum Theatre
• Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium
• Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
• John Ball Zoo
• Woodland Mall
• RiverTown Crossings
• Van Andel Arena
  

There are also some beautiful and quaint cities that surround Grand Rapids, including near the Lake Michigan shoreline.

• Michigan’s West Coast
• Holland
• Grand Haven
• Saugatuck
• Douglas
• Muskegon

Announcing our wedding registry at Longaberger

Ian's Mom should be proud. After 46 days of nagging (hehe), I finally updated our site to include Longaberger.

www.ianandlaura.com click REGISTRY (or just the image above!)

Enjoy!

Going BANANAS!!!!

Laura here!!

Today, some people from Ian's work invited us to go visit "The Center for Great Apes" in Wauchula, Florida, about 1/2 hour from our house. It is a place that houses rescued apes and orangutans that have been in show business, circuses, or have been bought to have as pets when it was still legal, and then abused. RJ Gators in town is doing a fund raiser to "feed the monkeys." It costs about $15,000 to feed an ape for one year. I think I speak for both Ian and I when I say it was one of the most fascinating things we've ever done! There is a huge facility with cages, and wire walkways for them to travel all over the property but still remain in cages. We even met some celebrity apes, such as the orangutan from the Tang commercials, and the ape that starred in "Dunston Checks In." It was really interesting, the tour guide said that the apes like looking at us as much as we like looking at them, and a lot of them were doing "tricks" for us, like pushing their bowls around the cages, or clapping, etc. The orangutans on the other hand were much more shy and docile. It's awesome that we have a place so close to here that cares so much about the treatment of these animals!! My favorite pics:

I'm so excited, I just can't hide it...

Ian here...and this is my blog!

We were told that it is hard to tell who is posting the blogs because our usernames are too ambiguous, so we are opening each blog with a "Ryan Seacreast" sort of intro. I don't think that either of us really idolize him, but his iconic status is strangely catchy.

Dara came home with a dress last night, because apparently UPS thinks that she is a desperate house wife who stays at home all day waiting for her prince charming dressed in brown to arrive. I think not. We are teachers, and being paid by boxes of oranges may be more lucrative, but whatever. I digress.

It became more apparent over the past week and a half that reading is not a job requirement of the UPS drivers because she signed the back of the little slip that they left on the front porch three times. I guess that doesn’t count for dresses, it is possible that one of the little old ladies here in the Country Club has nothing else better to do except go door-to-door looking for left boxes on the doorsteps of young people like us who pay their social security?

Anyways, it was exciting to see one of the girls dresses on, live in person. Since in my last blog, I wrote about how guys and David's Bridal is a toxic mix-i guess in my own home it does not count.

Yeah for a dress, yeah for another day closer, it is 99 days and 22 hours til WE are married. Cool.

Ian, out.

wedding nightmare!

Last night I had my first in a series of "bad wedding" dreams!!!! After sharing my dream with other family members, I have come to find out that others have had bad dreams about my wedding as well!! :::::gasp:::::

HERE goes my dream. The reason it is so vivid is because I had it in the last 10 minutes of my snooze cycle.

First of all, the wedding was at 5:00 and I still wasn't ready by 6:00. This is why:

I forgot to get my dress steamed, so it was wrinkly for the wedding.

Ian forgot to buy my wedding ring, so all I had was my engagement ring. We had to try to find some fake ring to go with it!

Ian forgot to do the music, (something I know he would NEVER do) so we had no idea what we were dancing our first dance to, what we were entering the reception to, and all that jazz.

I had the biggest zit ever in my entire life on my chin, and makeup wasn't even beginning to cover it. The more make up I applied, the bigger and redder it got.

I was driving on Eastern AWAY from the church and I turned down Hall to take a short-cut to my "Grand Rapids house." (If you are from Grand Rapids, you know this is not a shortcut to the house I grew up in.) The reason we took this "short cut" is because we had to drive to David's Bridal at 4:00 to try to find Kim a bridesmaid dress because she didn't have hers yet??? And we couldn't find anything in pool, and it was a very unorganized David's Bridal, with dresses thrown all over the place.

You all might not think this part is a nightmare, but seeing as I'm convinced I currently match my wedding dress in all it's whiteness, i was pale as a ghost in my dream, as I "forgot" to go tanning before the wedding.

My favorite part of my dream is that I decided to walk down the aisle wearing my favorite shoes: