Bridal shower!

Caitlin (and her mother) hosted my bridal shower this weekend, and I had so much fun! I had never been to a shower before, so I'm glad my first experience with one was so positive (I'll post some pictures once I have them). On Friday Cait and I spent a lot of the day baking- we made some tasty cranberry-almond scones, as well as ground rice tarts, which were made from her grandmother's recipe. Keegan was pretty happy with the scones, since he was the one that helped me eat a lot of the leftovers :-) I have the ingredients to make another batch but for the sake of my wedding dress I should hold out on that until after the wedding.

This weekend I also worked a lot on designing the wedding programs and the CD labels and inserts for our wedding favors (which are going to be CDs containing some of our favorite songs... hence the design of the labels). I scanned a bunch more pictures, but still have more to finish going through; at least I got the ones of Keegan and I. I printed them and gave them to Hadley, Keegan's sister, who is making us a scrapbook-type guest book. We wanted a guest book that was a bit more creative than the usual thing that is just a dull white lined book; this way we have something we might actually want to put out and look at from time to time.

On my plate for this week is to finish editing my review paper; it is about as completed as I feel it could be before my conference in a few weeks. I want to be able to speak with some of the forerunners in the field before I decide what, if any, material needs to be added to the paper. I also need to pick up my veil and meet with the hairstylist so we can do a practice run on my hair since I don't have a specific style nailed down yet. I need to run by the post office to get a whole bunch of stamps to use when writing our thank yous, meet with the florist a final time to give him all the vases he needs and to give him the last check for the flowers. I have my final dress fitting on Thursday, on Friday I'm taking my sister to have her bridesmaid dress altered, and Keegan and I are going to start burning all the CDs for the favors then getting them all appropriately ribboned. I need to meet with the women who volunteer through the church to help plan/execute all the weddings to figure out where family members should be seated during the ceremony, since my parents are divorced and then half of Keegan's family is in the party and one set of his grandparents are no longer living, so where does his immediate family sit? Which relatives should we put closer to the front? His godparents and then his aunt and uncle whose son is one of Keegan's groomsmen also, but he just has so many family members I don't want people to feel offended or anything if they can't be in the "immediate" family section or whatever. I don't really think anyone will care/notice, but I've been learning that weddings are when people choose to get weird about different issues that I'd never thought about before.

Next week I probably won't come to lab anymore; I might come in part of one of the days because one of the guys in my lab has his prelim on June 19th and he wants to do a practice run. But the rest of the time will be spent getting the alcohol ordered and to the reception hall, and cleaning up our house so all of my future in-laws can see it in all it's glory, and helping Keegan's family get their house ready for the influx of 50 or so of his closest relatives, many of whom have never been to North Carolina.

This weekend is also the reunion for my middle and high school Girl Scout troop. The troop was around from 1987 to 2008, so they're having a huge reunion for all the girls that were part of the troop during that time- about 150 girls! The troop took 7th through 12th graders, so I was in the troop from 1998 to 2004. I'm excited to see everyone even though I'm sure I'll be stressing about all the last-minute details.

In other news, I bought my first bikini yesterday. This is huge news to anyone who has known me for awhile. I've had the same Speedo racing bathing suit since my years in that Girl Scout troop, so it's at least 10 years old. I really don't swim much because I burn so easily, and in Scouts I mainly had it for when we were canoeing. This is the bikini I bought, in case anyone is interested, only I bought a green one and a brown one, instead of the black one shown in the picture. I don't really think I have the figure for a bikini, but Keegan wants one for me to wear in Bermuda, so I got one; I'm such a pushover :-P

Bill Clinton is coming to speak at Duke on Thursday at a celebration honoring John Hope Franklin; I think Bill Clinton is a douche, but I'll probably go because hey, he was president. Plus John Hope Franklin was a good man, and it will be nice to hear what his peers/friends have to say about him.

Alright well, back to the editing :-) Then time for more errands!