Goin' To The Chapel: Part II

Saturday finally came, and it was Julia's big day! We started the morning off with a ladies brunch, and then we headed to the salon with my mom and grandmother to get our hair done.

Julia's friend doing her makeup

The bride's bouquet (the wedding colors were purple & green)

Bridesmaid bouquets

Flower girl flowers

The lovely maid of honor, Laura

Getting dressed

Wedding cake at the reception

Groom's cake - made by the groom's sister Dana! Their family has a history in the logging business, hence the theme for this cake!

The food was so good!!!

My dad's Aunt Virginia

My Uncle Tim, Aunt Lori, and cousin Erin

Father - daughter dance

The cutest little kid you've ever seen - Dana and Seth's little boy Liam

My cutie grandparents Jean & Howard

Aunt Susan & Uncle John

Julia had so many friends travel to be there!

Off to the honeymoon! I just realized that this is the only picture I have of Darrell and Julia together! ooops! Well it's hard to take pictures at the ceremony when you're in the wedding, and things are crazy at the reception! Oh well... I'm sure my family memebers will have plenty of pics to share later :-)

Goin' To The Chapel: Part I

My sister is married! This weekend was the big celebration. Brent and I traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia on Thursday with my entire family and stayed until Sunday to marry off my sister and send her on her way to her Hawaii honeymoon. It was a great weekend and so fun to see family, get to know Darrell (my new brother-in-law), and get to meet Darrell's family. It was a weekend packed full of parties and get-togethers and it's safe to say that we showered them with all the love we could.

The weekend's festivities began on Thursday at an Irish Pub (on St. Patrick's day... we're not the brightest.) It was fun to reunite with my whole family. My cousin Lee bet Brent that he could not come up with the source of the reference on his t-shirt (can you?). Brent did, so Lee had to buy him a drink. I did not win, but I am married to Brent, so I won by default. Lee was nice enough to buy me a drink too.

The next morning, we started the beautifying process at the nail salon. Everyone knows you can't have a southern wedding without manicures and pedicures.

After the mani/pedi party, Brent and I had a chance to tour the UVA campus where my sister is currently getting her PhD. Did I mention she's smart? It was truly beautiful and made me want to learn more history. The entire campus was designed by Thomas Jefferson.

Here we are on "the lawn". The lawn is flanked by the Rotunda and dorm rooms that were designed by Jefferson himself with original fireplaces, floors, windows, and doors. So cool!

My & My daddy

The row of dorm rooms, each with firewood stacked outside for the fireplace! So cool! Some people even had rocking chairs outside their doors that had me at hello.

Each dorm room has a garden behind it like this one. Because obviously you need a garden like this when you're in college. The walls are "serpentine" and Jefferson made them like that just because he wanted to.

Inside the historic rotunda

Beautiful trees in bloom (cherry blossom?)

Friday night we rehearsed at the church and had a lovely BBQ dinner also at the church. Here's my fam before the rehearsal minus Brent. We had to get to the rehearsal like two hours early, so he opted to come later at the regular people time :-)

Julia and her adorable new nieces and nephews

Insider view of the rehearsal

Me and my Aunt Robyn. Love her.

The theme was "country store BBQ" and they had mason jars of candy at each table. My husband brought new meaning to the phrase "kid in a candy store".

My momma. She's nice. We like ruffles.

The ladies from my mom's side of the family: cousin Melissa, Aunt Susan, me, mom, Aunt Robyn, Julia

Cousins! May I remind you that I'm wearing 3 inch heels in this picture and I still look remarkably like an elf. I never think I'm petite until I'm around this crew.

Bridesmaids and house party! Me, Casey, Laura, Julia, Chrissy, and Monica

... and that was just Thursday and Friday! We haven't even gotten to the wedding yet! Check back soon for Part II.

Red Hot Cupcakes

I'm amazed at how long cupcakes have been in style. What has it been now? Four years? It doesn't seem that they are going out of style anytime soon. I am not a baker, so I can not even hope to create those beautiful cupcakes that you see in books and magazines. However, every once in a while, I get a cupcake craving. Around Valentines Day, Brent & I went on a date to Sprinkles, and I had a wonderfully delicious creation called a Red Hot Cupcake. I became obsessed. Brent got me some red hot cupcakes from Sprinkles for Valentines Day (it's like he read my mind!), and then I decided to try and recreate them myself. They were probably the best cupcakes I have ever made. They were very cinnamon-y! And ridiculously easy. I went with the "semi-homemade" method.

Here's the Sprinkles version that I copied. Mine did not look anything even remotely close to this. haha. Oh well, they tasted good!

Cupcakes:

I used Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix. I just followed the directions on the box for cupcakes, but I added about 3/4 cup of red hot cinnamon candies just before pouring into cupcake holders.

Icing:

I used Duncan Hines whipped cream cheese frosting. The key was mixing in about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon extract (found on the baking aisle!)

Decorating:

After baking and cooling, I spread on the icing and topped with red hot candies. Delicious and embarrassingly easy!!