3 + 1 = The Rich's Are A Family Of 4!

That's right! We now have 2 little furbabies in our house! Welcome to the family, Madison!

Last weekend, we adopted miss Madison from the Little White Dog Rescue here in town. It's no surprise that we've always wanted another dog, it was just a matter of when we would get one. I've been after Brandon ever since we got Gia that I wanted a play mate for her. We always agreed on 2 things when it came to a second dog 1) we would have a second dog before we have kids, 2) the dog needed to come from a rescue.

About a month and a half ago, I finally convinced B to let me apply for a dog. I applied to the rescue and it was quite a process. After a long application to fill out, they contacted our references, then we had a home tour in order to be approved to adopt. While the adoption process was going on, we went to a meet and greet with the rescue at a local pet store. This gives potential adopters the chance to meet some of the dogs in foster care before they adopt on.

We actually fell in love with 2 dogs at the meet and greet, both Maltese's, one was a boy and the other a girl. We debated for days about which one to get and I would look at the website daily looking at their sad little faces. Madison (formerly named Meghan) was listed on the website but we didn't meet her at the meet and greet but B was interested in her. I was set on one of the other 2 dogs and didn't want to throw a third dog that I loved too into the mix as well.

Long story short, once we got approved, I called the rescue back and said that Madison was one we were interested in, even though we were set on one of the other 2 dogs. After talking to the other foster dog moms, there was no doubt in our mind that Madison was the right dog for us. She was 4 1/2 years old, and was rescued from a puppy mill and was doing well in her foster family's home.

Two days later, Madison came to our house and we adopted her. And it's been love at first sight ever since! I can't imagine not having her around!

It's been a learning experience having a puppy mill dog. Madison lived in a cage her whole life and she is scared of many things. She absolutely hates her leash and doesn't know how to play with toys. We've been taking baby steps with her to get her better acclimated to living in the real world. We've been going on walks and she's getting much better and not being afraid of outside sounds. She's starting to play with toys and take treats from our hand. The second day here, she taught herself how to jump on the couch and she's doing well with her potty training. Madison is still scared of us when we try to pick her up, but we know that it'll take awhile for her to learn to trust us. But we absolutely love that little face of hers!

While she's not quite the snuggle bear as our other dog Giavanna (I know we'll get there: she just started to give us kisses when we ask!, it makes me happy knowing we're giving her a good life. I can't even imagine the life she had in the puppy mill and it makes me so sad knowing that some dogs live like that. 

If you're looking to get a dog, I highly encourage you to adopt from a rescue. While we didn't choose to adopt one of the other 2 dogs, I still worry about them finding a good home. Luckily, all of the dogs from the rescue we adopted from, they all live in a foster home so they're not living in a cage. Like Bob Barker always said, control the pet population! 

Marathon Monday: Weekly Recap

Monday: rest day

Tuesday: 3 mile run outside

Wednesday: 5 mile run outside

Thursday: light weights at home 

Friday: rest day

Saturday: 6 miles on the treadmill + stretching

Sunday: 30 minutes cross train on elliptical + abs and arms

Since my marathon training started late, I know I'm not quite where I should be with my mileage. But, I figure what I have is better than nothing. I'm quite proud of myself for pushing myself harder during my runs and making myself run a little farther with less breaks in between miles. I think it's starting to help because during this morning's run, I had an excellent 5k time. Maybe I'll start to log my mile times too on here to help myself see how I'm improving.

I'm also proud of myself for getting up early in the morning and doing my runs before work. It's been nice to get it out of the way and not have to do it on my lunch hour. I did run outside after work last Wednesday, which I'm not a fan of working out after work, but hey at least I got my mileage in. I'm trying not to push myself too hard because I don't want to get injured and so far so good!

Today I actually met up with a trainer at the gym. When I mentioned to her that I was training for a marathon, she mentioned to me that she wanted to get together to give me some tips. Today she showed me some single leg movements that will help with my stability and balance. She really showed me how my right leg is stronger than my left which I never knew before! She also was able to pinpoint where I was most tight in my legs. 

She was super helpful and gave me some pointers on what strength exercises I should do for my legs as well as some stretches to help me out too. It was super helpful and insightful. We decided we're going to get together once a week up until my marathon to work on my legs. It's been a few years since I worked with a trainer, and this will be a bit different for me since I'm not trying to tone up or lose weight rather gaining strength so I won't get injured.

Once interesting thing she taught me today was that I have a tight IT band. It's a muscle that starts up by your hip and goes down past your butt, thigh and ends near your ankle. She told me one of the biggest things for me is to get this muscle loosened up. She said people who have desk jobs have tight IT bands  (points to self) - that's me! She showed me how to use a medicine ball and use it the same way you would use a foam roller on your butt so roll it out. WOW! Once I started rolling, I really felt how tight it was which I never knew before. After rolling it out for awhile, my legs felt so good! I'm going to start doing it on a daily basis and hopefully my leg muscles will start to loosen up! 

Wedding Recap: Getting Ready

Our wedding day started bright and early for me, my mom and my four bridesmaids. We all got our hair and makeup done at a hotel out in Brookfield. It was a nice relaxing morning with all of us. We snuggled in bed and chatted while we each munched on breakfast and got glammed up for the special day. While we were getting ready, it never quite seemed like it was my wedding day. It really just felt like I was getting ready for a pageant!  

My favorite girls all ready to walk down the aisle! 

All dressed and ready to go see my man! 

Getting into my dream gown!

When I was packing the night before the wedding, I saw B wrote me this sweet note on the bottom of my shoes.

Bestie Breanne and I

All snuggled up together! 

Getting my glam face on

My special getting ready top..a monogrammed button down from my mom

All of my girls with their infinity rings I got them when I asked them to be bridesmaids

In the car and off to the HD Museum! 

A few Bridal shots before I went down to our First Look 

Mom putting my veil on 

With our papparazzi for the day..2 photographers and 3 videographers. 

I could get used to that!

All done..let's go! 

On the phone with my man checking in with him

All glammed up! 

Ready to hit the road to the ceremony! 

Almost all of us after getting ready 

My present from B..new diamond stud earrings 

"Guys this was my face when I was trying to read what he wrote on my shoes"

DISCLAIMER: B originally wrote his note on the bottom sole of my shoe which has a special stick on that makes it so you won't slip in your heels. I couldn't really read it but he said he wrote it on there because he didn't think I'd want my shoes ruined. Sadly, the original writing wore off from all the walking that day, but he re-wrote it on another part of the shoe a few days after. 

All my girls dresses

Wedding: The Rehearsal Dinner

We had our rehearsal dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Milwaukee the night before the wedding. Fun fact: The first time B ever came to Milwaukee to visit me, we went here for dinner the first night he was in town. I had never tried salmon before and it was here that he made me try it and I've loved it ever since!

Our rehearsal dinner was a casual time with our bridal party where we handed out presents to them. It was nice for us all to spend time together as a group before the big day!

With my soon to be husband! 

My matron of honor, my sister Kristy 

My peacock cocktail gown, setting the tone for the wedding colors

With my favorite girls

With my two besties from college 

Marathon Monday..The Training Begins

Allow me to interrupt my wedding recap for a new weekly special I'm going to be including on my blog. We all know that running, fitness and exercise are something I'm passionate about. Well, about a month ago, I stepped out of my exercise comfort zone and did something I never thought I would do..I signed up to run a marathon.

Ever since I started running, a marathon was a thought I always had in the back of my head that I might one day do. However, I would think of how exhausted I am after running a half marathon and thought there was no way I could ever run another 13.1 miles after that.

But once I got to thinking about it, I decided I really wanted to challenge myself. This is something I only want to do once and now was a better time than ever.

At the beginning of June, I signed up for the random draw lottery for the Nike Women's Marathon and Half Marathon in San Francisco. After signing up for the lottery, I had to wait a month to find out if I made it in. I was excited to hear if I made it in, but another part of me knew if I didn't make it in, that was ok too.                            

Photo from Nike Women Run Series Facebook page

After a long time waiting, I received the email saying I got in. 

Am I nervous? Duh! I know that I'm the only one holding myself accountable for training for this race. It's going to take a lot more commitment on my part. I know there will be days I don't want to run because I'll be tired or the weather won't cooperate. But I'm going to try my hardest to stick to the schedule I've made myself

Am I excited? Heck yeah! I've never pushed myself this hard physically before. I'm proud of myself for trying something new and I know I'll learn more about myself as I prepare for the race.

Why did I pick this race? I always said if I ever did a marathon, it had to be a memorable one. My husband and I have never been to San Francisco so it'll be a nice weekend away. I also like how this race is catered specifically to women and the Tiffany necklace you get at the end isn't a bad reward either!

So, enter Marathon Mondays. I think this will be a good way for me to keep track and hold myself accountable as well as I train these next few months. I'll be sharing my workout plan and other ways I'm helping myself to prepare for the race.

And of course, here's to new tennis shoes and a cute running outfit! 

Birthday/Girls' Weekend in Chicago

Before I can recap any of the wedding festivities, I need to back it up to about 3 weeks before the wedding. About 2 weeks before we were going to head to Milwaukee to finalize wedding plans, B gave me a fantastic birthday surprise. I came home from working out one Saturday, and he told me he had a surprise for me. H told me he had planned a weekend in Chicago with my two best friends from college after we would be in Milwaukee. I honestly didn't react how he thought I would because at first I was confused because I was supposed to be running a half marathon back home by us. After asking tons of questions..what? where do I get a hotel room for us? Wait, Kelly has to fly in? Do they know?...I found out that B planned everything. He booked us a hotel and even bought my best friend in DC a plane ticket to Chicago. I couldn't believe he planned all of this just so I could spend some quality time with two of my best friends in the whole world.

B and I headed off to Milwaukee on a Thusday night to spend the next day, Friday, finishing up loose ends and meetings..finalize cake, pick out ceremony music, plan ceremony, pick out table linens, finalize reception details etc. While in Milwaukee we also celebrated my 27th birthday a few days early with my family and went out to dinner with them. On Saturday morning, we got up bright and early and headed down to Chicago. B dropped me off at my hotel and he headed off to spend the weekend in Chicago as well with some of his groomsmen. 

My two besties, Haley and Kelly, and I had such a blast that weekend. The three of us haven't all been together since we graduated from Marquette back in 2004. We all live in separate areas of the country so it was fantastic to relax before the big day and celebrate my birthday with them.

At Sprinkles, my favorite cupcake place, with Kelly and Haley! 

Before doing some shopping on Michigan Ave, my favorite place!

The three of us headed out that afternoon for lunch at Nordstrom Cafe (which is, by the way, the best lunch I have ever had. I so wish we had a Nordstrom here-I would be there everyday to eat!). After lunch and catching up on life, we did some shopping, got cupcakes at Sprinkles, and got manis and pedis. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. The three of us headed to Grand Lux Cafe for a fabulous dinner. Afterwards, we went to a nearby bar for some martinis, before ending up at another bar around 10:30 for some karaoke.

After getting dolled up for dinner

I've never done karaoke before, and to be honest, was a bit nervous about getting up in front of a crowded bar to sing, since I can not carry a tune at all. After about an hour, our names were called and we got up to sing a tune. The DJ announced it was my birthday and bachelorette, and the 3 of us got to singing a crowd favorite, Sweet Caroline. I don't mean to brag, but we had everyone in the bar singing with hands up in the air. We were quite the hit that night!

First song..Sweet Caroline

High fives for the Birthday Girl/Bachelorette..singing Jack & Diane

Ending the night with a little Bridesmaids action..Hold On

Groomy showed up around 1:30 am to see what we were up to! 

We stayed there will the wee hours of the morning (Hello 2 am!), sung a few more tunes that got the crowd going before calling it a night. We all got to bed at about 4 am before waking up at 8 am. That morning, we lounged in the room, before heading off to get some gourmet donuts. Thank goodness my besties love food as much as I do

Sunday morning breakfast at Glazed!

After that we played tourists and headed to Millenium Park and Navy Pier before meeting up for lunch with B and one of his groomsmen. After lunch we all headed out for one last glass of wine before we headed to the airport to head home.

Navy Pier with my besties 

I'm so lucky to have B in my life and that he planned a special weekend for me. With all the last minute wedding planning stress and things to do, this weekend away was much needed. It felt so good to be back with my best friends. It felt like we were in college again! I'm counting the days till the three of us get together for our next girls weekend!

Officially a Mrs!

Well, as of two weeks ago today, I became a Mrs! I can't believe how fast this entire year of wedding planning has gone. We had beautiful weather for our wedding day and the day was even more fun and more perfect than I could have ever imagined.

Everyone is right when they say the day flies by. One moment I was getting my hair done, and the next I was sitting next to B eating dinner saying how I couldn't believe the day was almost over.

I want to share every single last detail of our special day so I'm breaking it down into separate blog posts. Right now, I just have the Facebook/Instagram photos to share that our friends took. We're still anxiously awaiting photos from our photographers. I know those will take some time, so once we get those I'll do a recap of those as well :)

                 

A little walk down memory lane. Photos from the past 7 years with B. 

The new Mr. and Mrs. Brandon & Ashley Rich! 

Wedding Wednesday: With This Ring I Thee Wed

We're down to 33 days till the big day....eeek! To be honest, some days I have minor panic attacks thinking of all the little things we need to get done: send in final payments, make escort cards, buy this, schedule that. But then sometimes I take a chill pill and think to myself it'll all get done somehow in the next 4 weeks.

One thing I decided to do late last night was start writing my wedding vows. B and I have chosen to not only do traditional vows, but also write our own personal vows. Our traditional vows we wrote together and are a more modern take on the usual "for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health..." We really like what we've come up with for that part.

But, we still wanted to do personal vows. To make things a bit easier, we came up with an outline together that we'll both follow. Last night while I was sitting in bed, I decided I better start writing mine. I wrote some thoughts down a few weeks ago and I continued to do the same last night. Ironically as I was writing it I was watching Friends (like I do every night at 10pm) and it was the episode where Chandler and Monica are writing their wedding vows.

Monica: Do you realize that four weeks from today we’re getting married? Four weeks baby!! Four weeks!!!

Chandler: Do you realize you get louder each week?

Monica: There’s still so much to do. Have you written your vows yet?

Chandler: I figured I’d buy those. Pat, I’d like to buy a vow. (Laughs)

Monica: Sweetie, you know I have no sense of humor when it comes to the wedding.

Chandler: Right. So uh, have you written yours yet?

Monica: No! But I know exactly what I’m going to say.

Chandler: Do you happen to know what I’m going to say?

Monica: (handing him a pad of paper and a pen) Let’s just do it right now. Okay? It won’t be hard. Just say what’s in your heart. (She goes back, sits down, and starts feverishly writing.)

Chandler: (watching in her) (in his head) Look at her go! She must love me more than I love her! What’s wrong with me? Ooh, don’t open that door.

I sat in bed for an hour typing lots of thoughts and feelings. I like to think I'm a pretty good writing since I work in advertising and marketing. Since it's my job to be creative, I didn't think this would be that hard for me to do. Boy, was I wrong.

Trying to put my thoughts and feelings about B, our 7 year relationship/9 years of knowing each other into a shortened paragraph is the hardest thing I have ever done. Do I share personal stories? Do I try to make people laugh? Will I cry like a baby when I read these at the ceremony? 

I now know it will take some time to write these vows until I think they're perfect. Since I'm a perfectionist, I won't stop until I think it's the best thing I've ever written.

Brides..did you write your vows? Any thoughts to help a girl out here? 

Wedding Wednesday: RSVP..to stamp or not to stamp?

Earlier this week, we finally mailed out our invitations. It was a 4 month process of designing and revising, finding a printer, picking out colors, more designing, getting them letterpressed, ordering the correct color envelopes, crafting bookmarks for the outside of them, addressing and stuffing...WHEW! I get tired just thinking about all the hours we spent working on them. Although we did spend countless hours researching and designing, they turned out perfect and at some point, I'll share them with all of you!

One thing about our invitations that we had to think about and debate was putting a stamp on the RSVP postcard. We've been to countless weddings over the past few years, and about 95% of them had you RSVP online. While we'd get an RSVP card with the invitation, there would be no stamp on it and I found it easier to just go online right away and RSVP. For the few that we did mail in an RSVP for, it did have a stamp on it.

From our experience, it was just easier to have our guests RSVP online. Upon further investigation on our wedding website, once a guest RSVP'ed, I would receive their food request and number attending via email. This information would also get stored on the website dashboard where I could always look at who had or had not RSVP'ed yet. It was also broken down by bride or groom side, and I could download all the information into an excel sheet. Hello type A personality control freak heaven! (that's me!)

I figured this would be the easiest route to go. However, when we met with our printer, she raised a red flag saying that older folks may just put the RSVP postcard in the mail and assume there's a stamp on there. Hmmm, we hadn't really thought of that yet.

We debated for awhile about what to do. To me, the stamp was an extra cost that I didn't want to deal with. I also feared the postcard would get lost in the mail somehow. However, then no one would have to worry about putting a stamp on it..but then again, I loved that guest tracker on the wedding website dashboard! AUGH, what's a girl to do?

In the end, we decided that we'll just put a stamp on the RSVP. In the end, it wasn't a huge cost to get some more stamps for it. I also knew that despite having the information on the wedding website dashboard, that my organized obsessed self would still re-copy the information onto the master spreadsheet I had already made (coming in a later post and wait till you see this baby!)

So, long story short, think about whether or not you'd like to put stamps on your invites. I'd suggest choosing one or the other. If you do choose to go the online route, don't include an RSVP mailing card/postcard in the invitation, you wouldn't want to confuse your guests!

Wedding Wednesday: Bridal Shower

A few weeks ago, B and I headed back to good ole Wisconsin for my bridal shower. I've been so so so looking forward to it, not only to see my family and friends but I'm like a little kid when it comes to presents..I can't contain my excitement!

A long time friend of mine and my mom's threw my shower for me at a local restaurant/winery called Cooper's Hawk. Coincidentally, pageants brought us all together as we first met when I taught her daughter dance lessons. Her daughter then started competed in the pageant system my mom and I help out with and we've all been friends ever since. The shower was absolutely beautiful..she really knows my taste and everything was better than I could have ever imagined.

I walked away from the afternoon feeling so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, some of whom traveled from other states for my special day. I really felt so loved that day! I felt so lucky to also received so many wonderful presents! We got the majority of things for our kitchen, and most of the bedding for our bedroom. I've already put to use all of my new baking items, pots/pans etc. I'm waiting on a few more pieces though before I let myself put all of our new bedding on!

A beautiful photo from our family friend that hosted the shower. It's already up in our hallway by the front door. 

My sister had this photo made with the text from the book B wrote for me. Such a sweet gift. I love my sissy so much. 

Mom knows me too well..leopard! Already have this platted displayed in the kitchen! 

Lots of presents! 

My mom, me and my sister :)

It's about 6.5 weeks till the wedding now and I can't believe how fast time is going by! We have lots of things to start getting done so my type A personality has been kicked into full gear and I have spreadsheets and to do lists galore to keep us on task and organized for the big day. It's hard to believe that last year at this time, B was ring shopping and planning to propose while I had no idea. Amazing how time flies when you're having fun!