Heritage Photos to Heritage Wall

Our collection of heritage photos meant the world to me at our wedding. While I had physical copies of all the photos, I made sure that I scanned them and eventually ordered prints for myself.  I had a vision for how to display them, so I began collecting frames as I saw them on sale at Michael's, Home Goods, and Target.

I love how each picture dates the couple and expressions.  Let's meet the family:

Lambster's Parents

Lambster's Paternal Grandparents

Lambster's Maternal Grandparents

Lambster's Maternal Great Grandparents

Lambster's Maternal Great Grandparents

Lamb's Parents

Lamb's Maternal Grandparents

Lamb's Paternal Grandparents

Lamb's Paternal Great Grandparents

After framing each photograph, I laid them out on the floor and arranged them loosely based on family ties.

Some experts lay a piece of butcher block under the frames and then tape the paper onto the wall.  Then they nail hangers right over the paper, thus ensuring exact placement.

I am a "this looks close enough" kind of gal.  So I just used my hand to approximate distances and it worked out pretty well.

I love how the mixed patinas of the frames make them look original.  I also like the asymmetry of the collection as a whole, yet it still feels balanced.

Did you collect photographs for your wedding?  Are you planning on incorporating them into your home decor after the wedding?

Honeymoon in My Home Town - Lamb Edition, Hampton Roads

You may have taken summer vacation to Williamsburg and been forced to appreciate colonial history, but the area has a ton to offer in the way of romance and activity for a honeymoon close to home.  Here are my personal suggestions if you're headed to the area for your honeymoon (or anniversary trip, or even babymoon trip?).

Where to stay:

Norfolk Waterside Marriott

Stay downtown and enjoy the waterviews!  Hop on the water taxi to explore downtown Portsmouth, or hop on the highway to enjoy any of the 7 cities in the area.  We stayed there on our wedding night and received excellent service. 

Sheraton Ocean Front at Virginia Beach

Stay at the Virginia Beach ocean front and enjoy waking up to the sound waves and 'gulls.  The boardwalk is just steps away, and plenty of restaurants are within walking distance.  

Founders Inn & Spa

The Founders Inn & Spa is lovely and very hospitable.  The surrounding campus of Regent University is also beautiful and stately.  When we ate at the Founders Inn after my graduation, the food was delicious.  Sunday brunches are the talk of the town.  Head to the spa for a little extra luxury.

What to do:

Nauticus Museum and USS Wisconsin Tour

Interesting bits of military history.

Chrysler Art Museum

Well curated museum and interesting collection.

Chrysler Hall

Musicals, speakers, the symphony, comedians, and military tattoos.

Virginia Aquarium

Animals and an Imax theater - satisfies your inner kid!

Old Cape Henry Lighthouse

Great views of the beach and surrounding area.

First Landing State Park

Extensive trails, camping, etc.

Naro Cinema

Great old theater, reasonably priced concessions, interesting films.

Busch Gardens

If you're a coaster lover, like me, this is a must!

Colonial Williamsburg

You just may appreciate it more this go around!

Where to Eat:

Chick's Oyster Bar

Hang out on the deck, pick shrimp, enjoy life.

The Bier Garden
No picture, just trust Lamby. Order the spatzle.

Tautogs

Start with the she crab soup, you won't be sorry.

The Williamsburg Winery

Eat at the tavern and enjoy some Virginia ham with a lovely table red.

Have you been to Hampton Roads?  Would you consider a local honeymoon?

*All photographs sourced from the accompanying links to each location.

Then and Now: Lamb Edition

I've been thinking recently about what I thought marriage would be like.  My dreams.  My reality.  My expectations from high school are deeply contrasted by my current expectations.

My relationship thoughts have largely been shaped by my faith.  When I was in Jr. High, I was counting down the days until I turned 16.  My parents had promised that I could date at that age and I figured I'd have a high school sweet heart, go to college, marry that sweet heart, and have babies - just like my parents.  Awwwwwww.

Around the time I turned 16, our church got swept up  into the "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" movement.  It may sound crazy to some, but the main idea was a throwback to formal courting where the gents initiated, parents chaperoned, etc.  Needless to say, I was never asked out in high school.

The summer I was 16, our youth group visited an orphanage in Mexico.

I thought that college would be my ticket to my MRS.  I had (actually still have) strong desires to be a mother.  I think I'm just hardwired this way.  So I made a plan.  I'd meet a nice boy at Bible study my freshman year.  Sophomore year, we'd hang out more, become best friends.  Junior year, we'd become more than friends.  Senior year, we'd be engaged and I'd plan a wedding for the weekend after graduation.  Ha!

At Lambaid S's (and Lambster's!) graduation with my MRS plan gone to crapola.

Now, I see that love doesn't follow my plans.  I realize that my high school and college dreams didn't reflect what I truly wanted.  The thing I wanted most was to meet a man who would challenge me, be my companion, love me, and love building a family with me.  The path and timing wasn't the most important thing, but I focused a lot on that in my love immaturity.

Our love story started in college but unfolded over the next 5 years.  We moved a combined total of 11 times during that time, sometimes in opposite directions.  It wasn't my ideal path, but it was my dream.

Lamma-bamma and me circa 2006

How have your thoughts about relationships matured since high school?

Corn Dogs, Lambs and Colas - Oh My!

Cola and I both got the corn dog platter.  This platter supposedly had 4 mini corn dogs on it.  When the platters came out with 4 full size corn dogs EACH, we just about died.  After reviving ourselves we talked shop about weddings with readers, hubbies, and relatives.  Then us North Carolina gals tried to talk the Colas into moving to the east coast!  The mountains, the beaches, the history, the long summers, the baseball, the jobs, the affordable housing!  Seriously, the state government should put us on their payroll because I think we were pretty convincing.  After lunch we grabbed a quick picture overlooking the stadium. We couldn't have coordinated our lovely autumanl sweaters even if we had tried!

 Lovely reader, mcnetn3, Cola and Lamb

Photograph by Mr. Cola

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the meet up!  Let's try to do it again near the holidays!

*Sorry for the sun flare, if I knew more about editing, I probably could have fixed it better.  Oh well, Cola looks extra angelic here :).  And to the lovely reader whom I couldn't match with a handle after the fact, I've learned my lesson and I'll be writing those down during lunch from now on!

Secret Life of Bees - Lamb Edition

I really enjoy when bloggers I follow give some insight as to what their life is like outside of their blog.  I like the snippets of what you eat, favorite movies, etc.  I also feel like I owe you a juicy secret.  Not some secret like, "I'm addicted to Mountain Dew" (I'm not anyways, but I consider it to be a bad secret).  I'm talking about the juicy kind of secret that makes you think, "Wow, she covered that neuroses pretty well!" 

My secret is that I have an obsession with toe nails.  It's an unhealthy obsession with unhealthy toe nail hygiene.  I trim my toe nails to the quick once a week and clean them out religiously.  I NEVER cut the cuticles on my toe nails.  I will cut them anywhere in our house that is convenient to me, much to the chagrin of Lambster who constantly yaps at me to keep track of the clippings.  I wish that the nail obsession stopped at my own two feet.  However, it extends to everyone whose toes I see.  Summer is the height of my obsession, as I look at everyone's toes sprouting from their sandals.  Irregular cut nails? I want to file them.  Corns? I want to buff 'em.  Long? Oh, please for the love of all that is good in this world, please let me cut them!

Source

While I have contained this urge with strangers, those closest to me cannot escape my homicidal toe nail bent.  As children, my Dad would cut our toe nails after our Saturday night baths.  When I was old enough, I cut my own and my brother's.  Until I left for college, and even when I returned home from breaks, I would still cut my brother's toe nails.  Now I cut my woolly counterpart's.  Sometimes I cut them while he sleeps so that he won't fidget. 

Source

When I see my toe nail cutting handy work, I feel a deep sense of accomplishment and pride.  It's irrational.  I know.  The ends of beautifully groomed toe nails totally justifies my crazy-clipping-while-you-sleep means though.  Besides that, I deal with Lamma-ramma-ding-dong's ear cleaning q-tip obsession, so I think we're even.

Tell me a secret/real life obsession of yours!

Triangle Area Bee Meet-up with the Colas and Lambs!

Hey Y'all!  My southern lingo is improving, and now it's time for me to show off my southern hospitality as we welcome the Colas to the area!  Mr. and Mrs. Cola are visiting this Saturday and we'll be meeting them at Tobacco Road in downtown Durham to show off our fun city, ball park and local brewskies!  Join us for lunch and bring the SO!

Tobacco Road Sports Cafe
280 South Magnum Street
Durham, NC
919-937-9909
Saturday, November 6, 12:30 pm

Going the Cheapo Album Route

This is the story of how we ended up with 3 wedding albums.  It all started by wanting to save money. 

While many albums are absolutely gorgeous (and drool worthy, believe me, I've drooled), we weren't sold on the idea of spending $1000+ for our wedding album.  I searched a lot of sites, I looked at Adorama based on recommendations, and I just wasn't feeling anything.  I didn't want to start from scratch and design pages in InDesign.  I didn't care about the book laying flat.  Long story short, I just about gave up on getting an album.

Ewe Mother wouldn't hear of it though.  She wanted an album and she wanted it yesterday.  So she suggested Shutterfly.   I had made a little album of our engagement pictures for free thanks to a coupon.  My mom had really liked that one and requested another of our wedding with a leather cover.  So I started to experiment.  Turns out that I really liked the storyboard method of choosing photographs.  I really liked the limited layout choices (too many choices makes me freeze).  I liked it so much, that I made one for my parents, Mr. Palindrome's parents, all of our grandparents and one for ourselves. 

(I love my woolly counterpart in the background - this is our new life, me blogging and taking pictures around him doing homework!)

When our album arrived, I was really excited.  We sat on the couch, tearing off the orange cardboard box.  We ooohed.  We awwed.  We reminisced.  Then we saw that one page printed twice (their bad) and that I had cropped one photo too close so it was blurry (my bad). 

After updating the page where I made a mistake, I called customer service.  They were great and said they'd reprint it right away!  Yay!

After opening the second album, I immediately saw a problem.  The binding was loose.  Also, they reprinted from the previous file, so my mistake was still there.

I called customer service.  Again, they were great and said that they would a credit in my account so that I could change my mistake and have it reprinted at my convenience.

About a month later, I got everything together and was ready to hit order.  There was no voucher in my account.  It had expired.  Sigh.  Another call to customer service cleared it up, they put the credit back into my account and I ordered the third album.  Thankfully the third album was just dandy. 

I'm very pleased with the print quality and the colors.  I love the full page pictures.

I'm just a little bummed about having to reprint so many times, but customer service was helpful each time.

And my experience didn't stop me from ordering a small album for our honeymoon as well!

Was an album important to you?  Would you consider a DIY album?

Cut for a Cause

Some observant readers noticed my haircut back when I said farewell, so today I came back to give you the skinny on my new do.  For this go around, I actually blow dried it.  With a round brush and everything.  Then I put on some makeup.  

With such a drastic change from my wedding photographs, I wanted to update all of my social media profiles with a fresh photo. I coerced Lambster into snapping a few head shots so that I could hem and haw about how none of them really look like me, why my left eye is so squinty, and if I should start wearing darker lipstick. 

People keep asking me if I was sick of my long hair.  The truth is that I'm just not a hair person.  I'm not the girl who spent an hour blow drying and curling it through high school.  I'm the girl who throws it all in a pony tail.  Short hair has it's perks.  Like using less shampoo.  Hair just doesn't matter that much to me.  So about a month ago, I walked into a salon, sat in the chair of a stylist I'd never met, and told her to just cut 12" inches off.  Lamma-ramma-ding-dong came home from work and after 10 minutes of talking about his day at work, finally noticed and said, "What did you do to your hair?"  A real romantic no?

This wasn't my first covert hair cut.  When I studied abroad, I cut my hair right before coming home without telling anyone.  Then later, I cut it again after moving to the beach.  I've donated all three ponytails to Locks of Love.  To me, it's not really about a post wedding chop, shocking people, or preferring a certain length of hair.  It's about participating in a circle of giving that costs me nothing and means everything to a child.

Are you a hair person?  Have you donated hair for a cause?