Phew!  Where do I even begin?!  It has been MONTHS since I last posted and so much has happened!  I am a full fledged married lady now and I am just now getting back into a routine after spending 2 weeks traipsing through Morocco and biking through Paris.  While biking, you better believe there was unpasteurized cheese and beer in my basket!

Our wedding was absolutely spectacular, from start to finish.  It was everything we had ever dreamed of, and so much more, and are so happy all our friends and family were there to celebrate with us!  In the months leading up to the wedding, I saw my free time slowly disappear, and every day was filled with to-do lists, scheduling meetings and drafting emails. It was almost as if it was a part-time job!  I know that sounds crazy, but it's true.  I did my best to keep a high level mentality about the whole thing, trying not to get bogged down on mindless decisions and small details that at the end of the day would completely go unnoticed.  That being said, there were still plenty of details for me to obsess over!  I had to make decisions that I never even thought of; I almost had a breakdown when my linen supplier asked if I was having cloth napkins on the tables, and I all but burst into tears because I had NO IDEA!  I started panicking that we were supposed to, but were they included in our linen package, if so, what color did I want, and if not, how much were they?  

Seriously, countless hours were spent combing over minutiae like that.  It was exhausting!  Then there were the parts that I thought would come easily, 'oh sure we'll have a wedding program, I'll just whip one up!'  Nope, not even close.  I had to research parts of the mass, making sure it was all in the correct order.  I needed the names and composers of the songs we'd chosen for the ceremony.  We had to write the messages on the back to our friends and family, our parents, thanking them for everything they've EVER done for us.  We wrote a small paragraph about our wedding bands, how I used the savings bonds from my christening to purchase them.  And how we bought them from the same jeweler who made my parents wedding bands, and where my brothers and sister bought their rings.  IT TOOK ME TWO WEEKS TO WRITE EVERYTHING!  Something as simple as a church program took me TWO WEEKS to perfect.  That is something that I definitely didn't plan for.

In the end, all of our personal touches and attention to detail (rather obsessing over details), were met with glowing praise, people are still telling me how much they loved our program, and how it was the nicest one they've ever seen - that meant a lot!  We had the most amazing time, dancing and partying the night away with all our closest friends and family (all 190 of them!)

We didn't leave for our honeymoon until Monday afternoon, knowing that the last thing we'd want to do the morning after our wedding was jet off to the airport for a full days worth of travel.  In the spirit of full disclosure, it was also the absolute last thing I wanted to do on Monday, too!  We were so exhausted from the whirlwind weekend (not to mention the week leading up to our wedding, which threw us some not-so-much-appreciated surprises) that all I wanted to do was sleep and clean the apartment.  I didn't even have time to pack for our honeymoon prior to the wedding, so I rushed home Sunday night and packed in a legitimate panic, throwing absolutely everything I owned into an over-sized suitcase.  Then I spiraled out of control when I couldn't find my brand new passport.  It was safely in the FedEx envelope...under my bureau, but that didn't stop me from collapsing into a puddle on my living room floor.  But I promise, OUR WEDDING WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!

{I know what you're thinking, yes that is a marching band.}

{And yes, of course we ran out into the street to march with them.}

So, with all that said, I am back to my normal self, with a new sparkly ring in tow, and am ready to get back into the swing of things with blogging.  I am not sure if I am going to continue posting about my 101 things challenge (I have been taking my picture of the day, but will admit that a few days were lost in the months/weeks leading up to the wedding).  I want to continue blogging and am researching ways to redesign my site so that I can update more regularly about things that are going on, places I've been, projects I'm working on, etc., and am not held to an actual posting structure.  I really enjoying blogging, and people have asked me to start writing again (granted they were my mom and Ratty, but HEY! whatever, a fan is a fan) so I want to figure out a format that works for me AND for you.

62. July 11th, 2011 Picture.

Now that we live in our awesome new apartment [and yes I realize that I am currently blogging a YEAR in the past, it's cool, I'm willing to overlook the time warp if you are], and since we have the perfect farmers market outside our window every Sunday [I'll tell you right now, it get's OLD, real quick!], I scooped up this book and egg container at West Elm.  I am sort of obsessed with eggs, specifically farm fresh, and have convinced Ratty that when we someday own a house, it will come with a handful of chickens.  I want pet chickens!

The book is filled with recipes that call for eggs, so I will be well prepared for when we have copious amounts from all the chickens that will be running around!  Plus, I really like the container - it's very Giada.

62. July 10th, 2011 Picture.

Since we had spent the night at the Hull house on Saturday, we got to enjoy Sunday on the infamous porch!

I woke up bright and early, even though we had gone to bed a mere 5-6 hours earlier - it's really hard to sleep on a 75 year old bed with a picture of Jesus above you.  A really creepy picture of Jesus.  

I also vaguely remember my cousin Susan telling me a story about how she thought the Hull house was haunted and it was somehow tied to the calendar from 1940 that hung in one of the guest rooms.  Obviously I can't remember even basic facts about the story, she told me when I was about 12, but just thinking about how the house might have the potential to be somewhat haunted, maybe, is enough to get me outta bed!

We spent the whole day sitting on the porch, soaking up some sun, drinking beers and eating burgers.  It wasn't totally warm enough to go swimming, but that didn't stop me from taking a dip and trying to sun myself on the beach.  I've been known to go to the beach on a miserably foggy day, just because it was a summer day.  I think it's safe to say I'm obsessed.

Here we are anxiously trying to shoo a mouse out from under his grandfather clock.  A real live Hickory Dickory Dock, apparently!  And yes, I am standing on a chair. 

After spending the entire day sunning ourselves, we headed back to the city for an impromptu BBQ at our friends house.  The weekend was crazy busy, with us getting home after midnight, but that's what summer is all about, right?!

62. July 9th, 2011 Picture.

Saturday night Ratty and I headed back down to Hull to spend the night at my Uncle Paul's house.  Since Ratty wasn't able to make it to the impromptu party on Thursday, it was casually suggested that we stay at the house on Saturday night, guaranteeing Ratty's opportunity to hang out with some Downey cousins who were in from out of town.  We headed down to the Gunny [short for Gunrock, named after the beach across the street] and spent the night drinking beers and playing darts.  It was pretty low key, the Gunny is a total dive, but it was really fun.  Judging by this score card I *think* I won at Cricket, but it's kinda hard to tell plus my memory is a touch fuzzy since it was almost a year ago.  All I remember was that I kept hitting bullseyes but couldn't get a 17 to save my life.

After spending the majority of the night playing darts and watching my Uncle Paul run the pool table, we headed back to the house for some good porch hanging.  Susan had made a batch of Sangria the night before, and by Sangria I mean she just threw in odds and ends from various liquors into a pitcher and added red wine.  It was interesting to say the least, but we all drank it anyway.  We stayed up far too late, chatting and listening to music, but that's what happens when everyone is having so much fun!

62. July 8th, 2011 Picture.

July 8th was a Friday, and it was also the night of my friend Mark's surprise 30th birthday party!  You all remember Jamie's 30th I'm sure, well it was Mark who put that whole shindig together, and this time it was Jamie's turn to return the favor!

We headed to Barlows in Southie, where we had a group of tables reserved in the bar.  I'd carpooled with Ratty, Erin, Butchie and Kevin, who had all been at my apartment prior for some pre-party adult bevvies.  

Jamie did a pretty fab setting this whole baby up, there were tons of flair and even a Polaroid cut out for us all to pose with.  You'll see what I mean below.  There were LOTS of photo ops.

SURPRISE!  We were actually on the other side of the bar at this point, so Mark's eyes were darting around, trying to figure out, first off, where the noise was coming from and second, who we were screaming for.  He was pretty shocked when he realized it was all for him!

Yay!  Party time!

So much flair.

Get my Polaroid description now?!

Jamie went to great lengths to create a really awesome party.  There were faux lips for us all to pose with, noisemakers, buttons, Mardi Gras beads, you name it, she had it!

Strangely, this mustache actually works on Butchie.  I could see him having one in real life!

Oh hayy Justin Bieber!  Casual cameo.

Me and Kev!

It was a really fun evening, where we all celebrated Mark, drank beer, took silly photos and ate way too much delicious cake!  When the party decided to move locations and hit up Lucky's next door, Ratty and I said our goodbyes and headed over to Eastern Standard to meet up with some of his friends from college.  Oh the life of the popular crew - it's so hard being us!

62. July 7th, 2011 Picture.

Since my family will pretty much jump at the chance to hang out, no special occasion required, it seemed pretty fitting that we would have an impromptu get together at my Uncle Paul's house in Hull on a Thursday night.  I mean, why not right?!  A few of my cousins were home [they live in Florida, Virginia and Canada], so I guess it wasn't completely random, but getting cousins together from all over the area on a weeknight with limited notice is no easy fete.  It's summer - who cares about work or responsibilities!  The days are longer, the sun is brighter, the weather is warmer, it's impossible to be in a bad mood when the weather is gorgeous.  I just love it.

Unfortunately, Ratty wasn't able to go, though that didn't stop me from calling him and telling him to hop on the ferry and I would pick him up at the Shipyard, I think I had him for about 10 seconds before he thought better of the idea.  Oh well, I tried!

We spent the whole night laughing, eating, drinking and staring off into the fantastic view from my Uncle's porch.  Seriously, I am not sure if there is anything better.  I'll have to research this and get back to you.

I think this has to be one of my favorite porches of all time.  It's the perfect party porch! 

I cannot wait for summer to get here - I am itching for the warm weather and all the awesome other things that summer brings!

62. July 6th, 2011 Picture.

Now that our apartment is somewhat set up, let's take a little tour, shall we?

This is our coffee corner.  We love our coffee.

Kitchenaid Mixer is finally out of the box!  YES!

The first and only piece of artwork hanging on our wall.  I've talked about this picture at length, which you can read about here.

Our bed, complete with our amazing brick wall, which is pretty much the only decoration you need!

And finally, the ONE closet that both Ratty and I share.  One.  Just one.  This should be interesting...

62. July 5th, 2011 Picture.

Check out my plants I snagged at the farmers market!  We've got Thyme, Rosemary and Mint.  We have really wide window ledges, so I plan on making one into a little apartment garden.  Let's hope I don't kill them!

Full disclosure: I do.

62. July 4th, 2011 Picture.

Since we were moving over the 4th of July weekend, we had pretty much written off the holiday.  We figured we'd still be getting settled into our new place, and really didn't want to over schedule ourselves during an already insane weekend.  But, when all was said and done, we still wanted to do something nice for the 4th, and since the weather was absolutely spectacular, we decided that drinks by the water were completely necessary.  We hopped in the car and drove down to Marina Bay [which is perfectly acceptable during the day, at night it's a totally different story!]  We got a seat at the outdoor bar on the dock at Captain Fishbones and had a few frozen drinks to keep ourselves cool.  

After enjoying some frozen mudslides [but seriously I am RUINED by the ones at The Gazebo on Nantucket] we walked around the pier to The Water Club, not to be confused with the other restaurant/bar called The Ocean Club, and grabbed some lobstahhh rolls.

It was a really nice afternoon, filled with sun, drinks and yummy food - just what summer should be!  

We headed back to the South End and decided to walk one block over to Peter's Park to see if we'd be able to see the fireworks out over the Charles.  We thought we might be able to see them over the Boston skyline from our neighborhood - and we were right!  They were pretty spectacular, even with the Hancock building in our way!

I'll leave out the part about how I was worried about getting shot.  I told Ratty that the best time to shoot someone would be on the 4th, during the fireworks specifically, because no one would hear you, or would mistake the gunshot for a firework.  Seriously, this is the way my brain works.  It wasn't because our neighborhood is unsafe in anyway, it's because I'm insane.

62. July 3rd, 2011 Picture.

Our first Sunday in our apartment means our first SoWa Open Market!  I know I've shared a few shopping trips on the blog before, and I am super excited to now live, LITERALLY, right above the market.  I know the first picture isn't the finest quality, but I wanted to show just how CLOSE we are to the market - this is the view from our living room window!

I was actually pretty surprised at how quiet the set up was - some vendors arrive as early as 6am to start putting their tent together, so I was ready for lots of clanging around and maybe even some yelling.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet they were, Ratty even uttered the phrase 'quiet as a church mouse' at some point.  Fast forward a few weeks and we won't feel the same way, they started bringing speakers and playing music - that gets old REAL QUICK.

Anywho, it was really awesome to just pop downstairs, grab some lunch off a food truck, walk around to the other side of the building and grab fresh veggies from the farmers market and do some window shopping.  I love our new place!

62. July 2nd, 2011 Picture.

After our world wind couple of days, we decided to take it pretty easy on our first official day as South End residents, I mean, we deserved a little break, RIGHT?  We walked through the neighborhood, grabbed lunch on the patio at Pops, complete with raspberry mimosas, and spent some quality time at the dog park [with our invisible french bulldog, Cisco] soaking up all the adorable little puppy faces.

 

Then, after spending some quality time immersing ourselves in our new neighborhood.  We went home and continued to unpack.  So.many.boxes.  Pretty sure the unpacking will never end.

62. July 1st, 2011 Picture.

MOVING!  Day 2.  Here we go.

Our awesomely fabulous movers met us bright and early at our new apartment to help us unload all our stuff/junk into our new, spacious, gleaming South End .  I make this sound so much easier than it was, we ended up moving in around noontime, as we had to wait for the painters and cleaners to finish sprucing up our place.  Honestly, after all the nasty apartments I've moved into and bedrooms I've had to paint on my own, I was more than happy to wait for our new place to sparkle.  I picked up our 'keys', I say this because they are actually fobs, which are keyless tokens that we keep on our keychain.  We just swipe to get in our front door - we don't own real keys!  Welcome to the swanky South End!

Moving in was SO MUCH easier than moving out.  I felt like the process was a breeze and our stellar movers got us completely in our apartment in less than an hour.  AN HOUR!  They had a dolly which was amazing, plus the fact that we had an elevator made everyone super happy.  YAY!  I'd say we loved moving, but we all know that is a straight up lie.  I'm just all caught up in this recap.

So!  Take these photos with a grain of salt, I snapped them right after we finished bringing in the last load of boxes, I couldn't wait to document our new place!

Our bedroom:

Ugh, don't you just LOVE the brick wall?!

View from our bedroom door into the living room:

[Warning: we have A LOT of stuff!]

Our awesome new kitchen that is totally going to ruin us when we start shopping around for houses:

I've since learned that our awesome cabinets are IKEA, so I might not be totally ruined.

My mom painted this fab armoire for extra storage [our new digs only have ONE closet, le sigh].  My only request was that it be painted the same color as the Sparkling Lemon candle from Yankee Candle.  Those of you who know me know that I am not joking in the slightest.

SO!  What's the first thing you do when you've finally completed your 2 day move?  

GO TO IKEA!

Our completely logical rationale for this was the fact that we needed to buy a couch.  We had a nice blue Ektorp sofa all picked out and the only way it was making it from the IKEA warehouse to our apartment was in the UHaul.  I drive a 2 door Civic, which means that I can never transport something larger than a medium sized overnight bag, so we figured that while we still had our massive moving truck, we should use it to pick up all the big ticket items at IKEA.  See!  There is rhyme to our reason.

We loaded up on all the apartment necessities, like a pillow top, mattress pad and bedskirt for our bed.  Can you imagine that Ratty never had any of these things?!  Men.

But the biggest, BESTEST purchase from our IKEA outing was our couch!

Wait!  I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Amy said they were getting a BLUE couch?!'  And you're right, I did say that.  We had gone in with the intention of getting a nice navy couch to compliment our nautical themed life [seriously, who doesn't love a good nautical theme], but when we saw the cover in person I was underwhelmed.  It was more of a denim blue that I compared to a sun faded couch on a frat guys porch.  Yes, I went there.

Ratty still liked the blue couch, but I wasn't feeling it.  I dragged my feet through the rest of IKEA, internally feeling all blah about our lack luster couch.  Earlier in the week I had floated the idea of a red couch to Ratty [I seriously love red anything], but he didn't like it.  With our yellow armoire, gray kitchen and dark floors, he was having a hard time picturing a bright red couch, but in my head, I could see that it would look awesome.

I tried unsuccessfully to convince Ratty to forgo the blue, but he just really couldn't wrap his head around the red.  I own a white slip cover for this couch, so I just assumed that we could swap out the blue when we got sick of it AKA immediately.

Fast forward to us in the warehouse picking up the couch & slipcover and boom, the blue bin is empty.  NO BLUE SLIPCOVERS.  I told Ratty that I would run to the information desk, telling him I'd find a blue one but secretly hoping I couldn't.  I chatted with the rep and he told me that the blue slipcovers were completely out of stock - SOLD OUT!  I asked him which colors they did have and wouldn't ya know, THEY HAD ONE RED.  If this isn't a sign from God that I was meant to own a red couch then I don't know what is.  I merrily skipped back to Ratty, failing to hide my excitement, when I gave him a run down of what was going on.  He thought I was lying.  He thought I was just saying they didn't have any blues just so I could get my red couch.  It was obviously not a ploy to get my way rather the most spectacular turn of random events that just happened to work in my favor.

THANK YOU UNIVERSE!

FYI, now he loves the couch.

Now that the UHaul had been returned, IKEA items unloaded & set up and a space cleared for our candles, wine and cheese, we spent the rest of the night enjoying our new place!  Without TV though, Comcasts' first available appointment was July 5th.....yay.