Out of Town Dinner Party

The Friday night before the wedding, we hosted a dinner party at our house for our out of town guests. We had great mexican food and we used this time to get caught up and spend some quality time together before the hectic wedding day. We had a good turnout.....My Uncle Nels and his wife June, My step-father Robert and his daughter Hailey, my good friends Bryan and Shara and their adorable children Xander and Xoey, and one of my other good friends, Greg.

Unfortunately I did a horrible job of taking pictures that night, but I do have a couple good ones.

Here is Xander going in and out of the doggie door. He also was playing in the dog house that evening.
Xoey is just the sweetest little thing. She was having a good time. She was a little afraid of the dogs at first, but she warmed up to them by the end of the night.
Here I am talking to all of my guests and having so much fun.

A big thanks to everyone who made it. It was so great getting to see everyone!

Rehearsal Dinner

We held our rehearsal dinner on Thursday at The Castaway. It was a nice day...not too hot.

We got to The Castaway a little early, so we decided to have some drinks before the rehearsal started.

Just relaxing with some drinks before we practice.

Here are me and my brother practicing our walk. It was so wonderful to have him here with me to give me away.

Josh and I walking as we do our final walk through before the big day.

Craig enjoying a beer as he watches all of us.

Here we are during dinner with our bridal party, having a blast.

Here is the big group. We had a private room at The Castaway just for us, so we got to enjoy our friends and family without other distractions (and the food was amazing).

Craig and Val are all smiles at the rehearsal dinner. A big thanks to them for hosting the rehearsal dinner!!

Last day of work!

Today is my last day of work before I get married. I have taken 3 weeks off in total. The week before the wedding, to handle any last minute details (but I don't have any as of right now) and to relax and enjoy some time with my brother and sister. Then I will be off the week of the honeymoon. We return from our honeymoon on a Tuesday, so I will have the rest of the week to spend time with the dogs and to get the house in order. I can't believe the wedding is almost here!

Pool time!

It has been a really hot summer, so we decided to get a pool for Bailee and Layla. We mainly got it for Layla because she has a ton of fur and is outside a lot.

To get the dogs in the pool, I usually throw their tennis balls in the pool. At first, Bailee tries to figure out a way to get the ball without going in the pool.

Layla just walks right into the pool. She loves water.

We were holding Bailee's tennis ball above the camera, that is why she looks so serious.

Layla will just stay in the pool. Here she is watching what Bailee is doing.

Here is Bailee drenched and determined to get her ball.

Bridal Shower #2

A couple of weeks ago I had my 2nd bridal shower. This one was at my Aunt Sylvia's house and was hosted by my Aunt Becky. The day was really hot, but we had lots of umbrellas and eventually went inside the house to cool down. There was lots of good food and really fun games.

This was the welcoming sign as guests arrived. For anyone who knows my Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Kevin...they are wine fans.

This game was really challenging for me. Basically everyone brought a pair of underwear for me and I had to guess who brought which underwear and it was hard. I only guessed one correctly.

My Grandma, Aunt Sylvia, Me, Aunt Becky, and Lauren.

Lauren, Louise, Me, and Laurie

A picture of all the nicely decorated gifts.

Dog Beach

This weekend was so hot, that we decided we needed to take a trip to the dog beach. I have never gone before, but always wanted to go. The dog beach is a mile long strip down at Huntington Beach. It was great, there were TONS of dogs running around and playing in the water. This was the first time that Bailee and Layla have experienced the ocean.

Layla was afraid, that is why she was so close to me. She kept trying to go in between my legs (which is what she does when she is scared). Bailee would follow me, so if I went in the water, she would go to. There were some dogs in this picture checking us and our toys out. One dog actually ran off with one of our toys and never returned it!

While we were in the water, a big wave came and went all the way over Bailee. She was a little shocked at first, but she was fine. I am pretty sure she got a mouthful of salt water.

Now I know that I might be a little partial, but seriously, isn't this the cutest picture ever? We sat down on our towels after playing in the water, and Bailee had about half of the beaches sand on her. It was so funny. She was such a mess, but she still had her bow intact!

Here is everyone relaxing. Layla with her tongue out of the side of her mouth.

Bailee was doing some people watching after her swim. Bailee really enjoyed herself.

I think that Layla's favorite part of the day was just sitting on the beach and watching people. She didn't really seem to enjoy herself or the water, but she did make a lot of friends since she went up to practically every person on the beach and demanded attention. She loves humans!

Bachelorette/Bachelor Party

For the 2nd part of our bachelorette/bachelor party, the guys and the girls all met at our house and took a limo to Fullerton for some serious drinking.

Kolbe, Josh, Craig, Zach, and Jeremy. Please notice the smile on Josh's face. As many of you know....getting Josh to smile for pictures can be difficult.

Jen, Kavita, Me, Bailee (of course), Barrett, Jennie, and Val. I must say that I think we all looked pretty good!

All of us getting ready to get in the limo. We knew we all planned on drinking a lot, so we got a limo so that way no one had to worry about driving.

Josh and I in the limo, very excited for the fun to begin.

A picture of us at the bar in the private room that we had reserved just for us...thanks Zach!

For some reason Josh and I don't ever take pictures of just the two of us. Here is a picture that I really like.

I don't remember exactly what we were all doing shots of in this picture, but I am sure it was gross...none the less, we all look very happy.

This picture pretty much tells you how good we were all feeling at the end of the night. It was a blast!

Bachelor Party-Daytime

For our bachelor/bachelorette parties, we decided to do separate events during the day, and then have a co-ed party at night. During the day the girls went to Glen Ivy Hot Springs day spa, and the guys went fishing.

So let me start off by saying that the girls did not take any pictures of the day time event....who wants to have pictures taken while they are at the spa? None the less, the spa was amazing. There were mineral baths, red clay mud baths and much more. The day was a little cold, but was still a lot of fun.

The men had to wake up at 3:30am to go fishing....YIKES! Here are some pictures. Please note that it is very early, yet there are beers in hand.

Bridal Shower #1

Last weekend was my first bridal shower. This shower was for the Liebel side. It was thrown by Val and Jen. The day started off a little cold, but it was a wonderful day.

This is one of the cutest pictures I have ever seen. This is Jasmine, Greg and Jessica Delgado's daughter. Jasmine likes dogs but took a little while to get the courage to play with Bailee. Bailee was also a little aprehensive, because she has not been around very many children in her life. I wasn't aware of this at the time, but I guess Jasmine kept shutting Bailee inside the house with her, so they could play...too cute!

We had a couple of great games we played. One was a wor search, and the other was called "spice it up". This is where there were spices that people had to identify without being able to see the spice....very difficult. We all had a lot of fun playing these games.

Here is Christine, Katie, John Patrick, Barbara, and Enalyn. It was nice to see the newest addition to the Liebel family. And it was really great that Katie was in town that weekend!

This is while I was opening gifts. Bailee is never too far away. Just for the record, I did NOT break any bows....YIPPEE!

More gift opening.

Me and Christine. She was nice enough to make my bow bouquet, and it turned out great.


Val, me, and Jen. My new family and the hostesses of this perfect event.


Bailee took advantage of having guests around and decided to show off her amazing tricks.

The aftermath. Bailee had a very busy day running around and visiting everyone. Afterwards, she passed out.

The day turned out so great, and really made me realize how soon the wedding will be here. 43 days and counting!

Have you ever loved something so much?

Our dogs love tennis balls. I mean LOVE them. We recently discovered that my friend Tammy plays tennis and has lots of extra tennis balls that no longer have any bounce. She was nice and gave us a ton of tennis balls. So I threw them all on the floor at once and let Layla and Bailee go crazy.

Here is Bailee laying by all of her new tennis balls.

Layla was running around trying to fit all of the balls in her mouth at once.

Bailee was happy as can be on the couch with a pillow and a tennis ball. How awesome would it be to have this life?