Laura's Country Chic Bachelorette Party

This past weekend was my surprise bachelorette party and it was incredible. I started off the weekend early with a spa appointment thanks to Katelyn. :) She got me a one hour Swedish massage to kick-start the festivities. After my hour of nirvana, I went home to pack before Katelyn picked me up around 6. We headed out and I still had no idea where we were going. As we headed south, a few different locations came to mind, but we passed each and every one that I thought could be a possibility. We finally parked it at Worthenbury Country House in Baroda, MI where my mom and sister were prepping for the party. Although the official party wasn't scheduled to start until Saturday morning, we settled in and had dinner and drinks. My friend Sarah even drove in that evening from Chicago. I already knew the weekend was going to be 100% perfect.

The rest of the gang showed up the following morning and we conversed over mimosas until our ride picked us all up around 11:30am for an exclusive wine tour through Southwest Michigan. We visited Hickory Creek Winery, Round Barn Winery, Gravity, and Lemon Creek Winery. 

 

My sister worked so hard to make this the perfect weekend for me and I'm so grateful for all she did. My mom was also a huge help and I don't know what I'd do without them. They have been the best during this very stressful and chaotic wedding planning process.  

 Dress- Blooming Prairie Dress f/ LuLu*s // Shoes- Steve Madden // Necklace- Boutique Emmanuel

Headband- World Market

So grateful for the people in my life and moments like these. Thank you to everyone who made this past weekend such a dream. I'm so very blessed.

Cheers to an amazing weekend with my favorite ladies!

xoxo,
Laura

Niagara-On-The-Lake Wine Tasting

This past weekend was one of those "best weekends of my life" experiences. After work last Friday, I headed off to Canada to meet up with Steve and spend some time with his friends and family. We stayed in Niagara Falls Sunday-Tuesday and went wine tasting in Niagara-On-The-Lake all day Sunday. 

 

I figured this was going to be very similar to Traverse City in northern Michigan. What I didn't know was how many wineries were going to be in such close proximity. It seemed like everyone that was wine tasting was on their bicycle, cycling from vineyard to vineyard.

If you're ever in the Provence of Ontario and you love wine, you have to treat yourself to a wine tour in Niagara on the Lake. 

xoxo,

Laura

Katelyn's Bachelorette Party!

This past weekend we had the pleasure of celebrating Katelyn's bachelorette party up in the Leelanau Peninsula. Leelanau/Traverse City area is known as the "wine country" of Michigan. It's a beautiful place in the Summer/Fall seasons, and the perfect place to celebrate Katelyn's big night and her love for fine wines.

We hit up four wineries while we were there. 

In this order, we visited: 

Chateau de Leelanau

Willow Vineyards

Ciccone Vineyard & Winery

L. Mawby Winery

On the first stop at Chateau de Leelanau we all tried a variety of wines and took some time to take photos too. All of the girls were asked to wear a dress in the shade of a wine which made for adorable photos while Katelyn wore a summer dress in white.

Here's a picture of all the lovely ladies that went to Katelyn's Bachelorette party!

This was the breathtaking view from Willow Vineyards. It was such a beautiful day for wine tasting!

Laura thought she needed a bigger bottle for all the wine.

Even though we were in bed by 11:30pm, everyone had such a great time! Katelyn's "Final Fling before the Ring" was so perfect. Huge thanks to her Maid of Honors Brittaney and Molly for organizing everything and keeping it a secret!

All the beautiful ladies one more time together--

Only 8 More Days until the Wedding! You can count on a million photos of Laura and Katelyn together on the big day!

xoxo, L & K

Katelyn returns to the Mitten

I'm back! After 8 days, two different countries, meeting so many new people, and a TON of food...I'm officially back in my house and in the mitten. Alex and I flew from Lansing (my brother works for an airline so he helped us out with cheaper tickets...thanks again Brandon!) to Los Angeles. From there we rented the van we were going to use for the next five days and headed to San Diego to meet Alex's mom. So the purpose of this trip was to visit the families that Alex and his mom (and a ton of other hard workers)  built houses for. After over 20 years, they STILL come back every winter during Christmas and bring gifts and spend time with them. Here's our first group shot in San Diego:

Here are a few more photos from visits we did with the families. 

I adore this last photo of Mary with the family here, so much joy!

This little man could use lots of prayers from everyone. He'll be having surgery on the frontal region of his brain and then be in an induced coma for 3-6 months. He is SO precious and so full of life.

Our last stop was to Carmen's house before we crossed the border into California. Here's Alex modeling one of his favorite food groups: Mexican sope's. 

Alex smooching on Carmen (who also made the sope's).

After a few goodbyes Alex and I hit the road from San Diego to San Francisco. Here's a view from our drive up:

After a shameful stop where we ate way too much In-N-Out, we picked up Mary from the airport and made our way to Napa Valley. Alex got really into wine this past year so this trip was really special to him, and I got to try a lot of good, and other not so good wines...but I wasn't too picky :)

Perfect View ;)

A few more photos of the vineyards. Unfortunately, it wasn't the harvest season so we did not get to see grapes and lush greenery on the vines. Regardless, it was breathtaking.

This last photo is of Chateau Montelena which was the first winery in Napa Valley to really put California wines on the map. There also happens to be a movie about it: Bottleshock. Check it out!

We even managed to make it to San Francisco for a half day and saw the golden gate bridge and even took a small walk on it. The scenery in California and Mexico is so different than Michigan that it felt like a little treat every time we saw mountains. I'm also still trying to figure out what makes this bridge so special...I personally think our Mackinaw Bridge is way more impressive :D

Overall it was an amazing trip with amazing people. I was so happy to go to Mexico with Alex and see something that was so important to him and made him who he is today. I guess our next big step is to finish planning this wedding! 

Until next time! Xoxo, K