It's Fine: December 2016

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Happy New Year

It has been a trending topic that 2016 was a horrible year. Well you know what? It has probably been the best year of my life! Why would I focus on the negative things that have happened this year when I have been blessed beyond measure in 2016! The title of this blog is “It’s Fine!” which I explained why in my first blog post but it applies to this year as well! There are only a few things that can happen that, in the grand scheme of things, would not be “fine.” I am very sorry if you have experienced one of those “not fine” things this year and I wish you all the luck and blessings for 2017, but to the rest of us, if you stop and look at your year, I hope you realize that it was pretty great as well. I love to focus on the positives because wouldn’t you rather smile and laugh when thinking about your life rather than frown? Looking at your glass as half empty is just a thirsty and deprived way to live

What did 2016 bring to me? I became a certified Histotechnologist, saw my first Broadway play, became a cat person (thanks Lilly!), crashed a wedding in Georgia, had a blast at a bachelorette party in Savannah, applied to graduate school, went to another wedding in Georgia, had a good WV friend visit NC, got ACCEPTED to grad school, went to the beach, had three wonderful bridal showers and one kick butt bachelorette party on Kiawha Island, went to my first Charlotte Knights game and my first Panther’s game, moved back to WV, got married, visited Key West for the first time for our honeymoon, moved in with Aaron for the first time, celebrated our first holidays as a married couple, and spent a lot of awesome time with family and friends. These are only the highlights. This year was a pretty awesome year!

I am going to be sad to see 2016 go but I am so looking forward to 2017! Grad school orientation is on January 5^th so I will hit the ground running! If 2016 wasn’t your year, “It’s Fine!” New Year’s is an awesome time for new beginnings and a fresh outlook! Until next time...

CHEERS!

Friday, December 30, 2016

Holidays with the Honeycutts

Man, the holidays sure are a busy time! I feel like I haven’t blogged in a month! Aaron and I celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple this year which was very exciting for us! The first celebration of the season I attended by myself. My roommate in Charlotte (and one of my best friends) was having a Tacky Christmas Party the weekend of the 17^th and Aaron wanted to get as much lab work done he could before taking off for almost a week. I got lucky because one of my other best friends was graduating from Physical Therapy school that weekend too so I was able to celebrate with her as well! I got to see all of my best friends that live in North Carolina one last time before I start grad school! Exciting weekend all around!

Me with one of my besties Sammy getting tacky!

Once I got back it was time to get to work to get ready for Christmas. I have a tendency to procrastinate so I needed to do a lot of wrapping and cooking. I decided to make Southern Living’s recipe for Caramelized Onion-Bacon Jam for gifts. The recipe makes 5 jars and I needed 17. THIS TOOK ALL DAY! And it was delicious but let me tell you, the smell…our apartment smelled like onions for a week!

We packed up and headed to Charleston on Thursday just in time for my grandma’s annual cookie day. Each year family travels far and wide to gather at my grandma’s house to help her with her Christmas cookie baking and in return they get to take some home with them! It is a special day because family she doesn’t get to see very much come to help so they get to catch up and she doesn’t have to do her baking alone! Aaron and I got to attend this year so that was a fun day catching up! Friday morning we had breakfast with another one of my best friends from Charleston and that evening we had a little Christmas party with my dad’s sister and my uncle. Munchies that only get made once a year show up at this get together such as my aunt’s veggie pizza (she makes the best) and my dad’s favorite: bacon wrapped scallops!

Christmas Eve was spent at my grandma’s. This is also my grandma and grandpa’s wedding anniversary and this year they celebrated 59 years of marriage! (May Aaron and I be so lucky!) Every single person from that side of the family was there this year which is not easy to accomplish! People have crazy schedules over the holidays! It was great to have everyone under one roof so we definitely took advantage and got some good pictures with the grandparents! That night we headed up to some family friends Christmas Eve party and that was a good time! We got to see some good friends we do not get to see very often. Aaron and I got matching Christmas pajamas for that night and spent Christmas morning with my family and after breakfast headed down to North Carolina! We had an awesome Christmas dinner with his family and stayed there until Tuesday! The weather was so nice down there so it was great to be outside! We went fishing down at the creek near his house (he caught a fish on his first cast…) and watched his nephews ride their new four-wheeler! We had an amazing weekend!

Anyone have any great plans for New Year’s? We are going to go to see Rouge One tomorrow morning and going out to dinner tomorrow night and I grabbed a little bubbly athe grocery store! New Year’s Day was when we got engaged two years ago so it’s an extra special time for us! So you over ate over the holidays? “It’s Fine!” The holidays only come once a year so treat yo’ self!...And get back on track after the beginning of the year! Until next time…

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Our Perfect October Wedding

We just got our wedding pictures back two days ago and I cannot wait to share a few of my favorites with you guys! I cannot say enough how perfect everything was! I, like many other girls, had been dreaming of my wedding for a while. I had a secret Pinterest board with about five different color scheme and seasons of weddings saved, all I had to do was pick a day and time of the year. When we got engaged I told Aaron I either wanted June or October and he picked October so fall it was! My family is from West Virginia and his is from North Carolina so we picked a location in the middle and it happened to be in the New River Valley of Virginia.

My mom and her sister could be wedding stylists in another life! From the day I got engaged they started planning. My aunt Natalie was going through chemotherapy at the time and I think this wedding helped her recover and take her mind off things. I was living in North Carolina through the whole planning process and every time I came home to visit they both had a list of ideas they had for me to approve and the truth is, I couldn’t picture half of them but I knew they had a vision and it was going to be beautiful so I just smiled and nodded. It was really nice having people I trusted so involved. My aunt also took it upon herself to be my florist! She spent the almost two years I was engaged ordering flowers to see if we liked the color and practiced arranging them! My mom spent countless hours making sure every detail was perfect! They seriously thought of it all!

But even THEY couldn’t do it all alone! We had wonderful vendors who made this day come together! One of the biggest helps was Events by Sherri! She was such a huge help through the planning since we are not from the area! She came in the day before and got everyone in line and made it happen! Their services were invaluable the day of because it went smoothly and without a hitch! I will list all the vendors out at the bottom after the pictures, but let me tell you, I highly recommend all of them! If you are getting married in the New River Valley area of Virginia anytime soon check them out!

The girls got ready in monogrammed flannel shirts and wore matching skirts from Azazie and mismatched shirts during the cermony. Studio 700 came that morning and did everyone's hair! They were fast and did a great job!

The dress is from Allure Bridals! I got so lucky because it fit perfectly and I did not need alterations! The shoes of course are Tory Burch. It was very important to me to get a pair of shoes I would wear again! I do not care much for heels and I wanted to be comfortable! My gift to my mom was her own pair! She would never buy them for herself so I thought it would be a perfect gift! The picture with "bride security" is my cousin! They surprised me and I thought it was hilarious!

The guys wore tuxedos from Men's Wearhouse.

The flower girl and ring bearer both wore items found on Etsy!

Bride's Rings: The Leo Diamond collection from Kay Jeweler's

Groom's Ring: Jared The Galleria of Jewelry

Rockwood Manor was the perfect venue on a perfect fall day.

We had a unity planting where we joined dirt from the important places in our lives together.

The ceremony decorations were perfectly simple. Lanterns and 1 Corinthians 13 lined the aisles

Vintage Vibe Rentals provided the settee and the dresser for the unity ceremony and styled our photo station! Roxanne is great and our guests had a blast taking photos!

Each center piece was unique but still went together!

Had to give a little nod to chemistry! Our seating chart was the "Periodic Table of Tables." Each guest's initials were made into an element and yes, this took hours to make! My aunt found an antique chemistry set at an auction and used it to style our guestbook table.

This cake was beautiful and delicious thanks to Mockingbird Cafe & Bakery!

So much thought and detail went into every part of the day and I cannot thank everyone who had a part in it enough! Our AMAZING photographers did an awesome job capturing every bit of it!