georgia bridal shower

my first bridal shower. it ended up being a whole lot more fun than i expected. not that i didn't expect there to be fun times had by all, but i was SO nervous to have people watch me open gifts. i practiced the night before trying to have an even, uniform excitement so as to make everyone feel and know that i equally appreciated their gifts.

turns out that it was so much fun opening presents. what was i nervous about? you're sitting there surrounded by loved ones you haven't seen in SO long (we're talking young women days) and you're getting showered with gifts.

AND my cute mom did a "vintage" theme and had me dress up as a flapper. i should have been born in the 20s. truly. i loved wearing the costume around and it was the first item i packed up on my way home. that baby will get much use in future halloween costumes.

enjoy the photos!

the loot. notice the gold gloves. i felt like i should be washing dishes in them and they promptly had to be removed.

dear, dear brieanne. we were great friends in high school and now she has TWO kids.
cute sister-in-law amanda
tracy, mom, amanda

awesome food. thanks darleen for hosting!
how tasty are these petits fours that have wedding rings on top? those certainly did not help the fitting into the wedding dress goal. i'd say those were worth it.
doing my dance of excitement after putting on the dress.
everyone wrote words of advice and recipes and put them together in a scrapbook. this was by far my favorite gift and something i'll treasure. some women even gave me copies of their wedding pictures. i LOVED that.
opening the first gift...

p.s. here is my shoutout to carol. i'm so sad you weren't able to make it!

p.s.s. thank you so much to all who were able to come!

life as of late via photos

i wasn't kidding about making the chain link. odie hates it and reminds him that, and i quote, "it's forever until we get married." i love it.

along with things i love, let's put this kid at the top of the list.
oh? want more things i love? how about this guy i saw on the way home. notice the lincoln directly in front of us. i was tempted to park my car and ask for a ride. driving behind him was cute until i realized his car had a max speed of about 12 miles/hour.
pleasantly happy with life.
this little diddy will be adorning the sign in table at the reception. also a find from my grandmother's house. thanks, mom, for letting me use it.
stay tuned for photos from the georgia bridal shower.

thoughts on getting married

here are my thoughts on getting married, in no particular order:

1-getting married is a weighty matter. literally. is there any girl out there who doesn't start thinking about all the hundreds of photos that will be snapped of her that day? and how they'll hang in her living room for years to come? and how good she wants to look in the bathing suit she'll be sporting on el honeymoon? man oh man i was not prepared for how stressed i would get about this whole getting in shape for the marriage thing. alas, two months left.
2-what in the world is product liability insurance on food? and why do i need it?
3-i made a chain link today to count down the month and i'll make another one for the last month. i get to take one off each night if i do the five following things: 1-read my scriptures 2-work out (see above entry) 3-write in my journal 4-read some kind of spiritual matter (preferably the scripture sort) with odie 5-eat three balanced meals and two snacks/day. i'm pretty excited about the chain. i fell in love with the chain link idea in kindegarten and have not given up on making them for memorable occasions since. odie, expect many more over the course of our life together.
4-i can't wait to be endowed and go through the temple. as i've been preparing to go through, i'm struck by how powerful the sealing power is. is there anything more comforting than knowing that you can be with your family forever? FOREVER. what a lovely and fabulous concept. just the thought of it makes me want to be more focused on my family relationships. how grateful i am for the priesthood and the gospel being restored.
5-watch hotel rwanda. doesn't really relate to my getting married. but, wow, that is one powerful movie.
6-marriages are expensive. i've made it a personal commitment to always offer to help out with any future weddings. be it cooking, making signs, stuffing invitations, etc. you name it. it takes a lot of volunteers to make a wedding come off.
7-going along with numero 6, i've discovered (yet again) that i'm horrible at asking people for help. i have taken it upon me to single-handedly plan this wedding. i work in event planning so therefore i should be able to handle this, right? wrong. i'm just grateful my darling mom came up last weekend to help me out. i was stressed. badly. but she calmed me down.
8-i love my colors of light pink and gray.
9-i can't wait to be mrs. ovard. this guy of mine sure is great. so loving, so giving, so funny, so concerned for me, so humble. the list goes on. what's best about him is that he is mine and i get to take care of him. and guess what? he loves to take care of me. it's quite nice on both ends.
10-i'm so excited to go to cancun. a warm location in november sounds beyond appealing.

that's it for now. my blog layout is dreadfully boring. i'm waiting until i'm mrs. ovard to start a new and snazzy blog for the two of us to detail our upcoming adventures.

i'm off to GA this weekend for my shower. can't wait to get home.

my sister's blogs

so what good would family be if you didn't shamelessly promote one another's blogs? the voncannon clan is no different and so i proudly introduce three of my sister's new blogs. one is for organic-enthusiasts, one includes reviews for hip and trendy baby products (thus the name) and the last is a review of organic baby products. i don't have kids and i love the site and easily get caught looking through all the fun products. she regularly has giveaway contests so be sure to check back often.

enjoy!

(until i can figure out how to put in a link, i'm just writing out the email addresses below)

http://www.organic4baby.com
http://www.organicinstyle.com
http://www.hipandtrendybaby.com

engaged

dear neglected blog,

i apologize that you are always the last to know the news. and this time is no exception. but in case you haven't heard, i'm engaged. three weeks late, i know, but alas, here i am. check out the details at: www.tracy-dewayne.com

sincerely,
tracy

ecuador

ah, ecuador. what a fun trip. let me give some background as to what landed us in that beautiful country. grayden, a good friend of ours, has parents who are mission presidents in ecuador (guayaquil to be exact). they were getting ready to finish their three-years there and grayden offered to bring some friends down with him before they left. thanks, grayden.

it was such a great idea. grayden had been a few times, with reed accompanying him on the last trip. then you had odie and i who had never been, and sweet jess who this was her first time to latin america. luckily for us, both grayden and reed are fluent in spanish, and having both traveled in ecuador before, we were set to go.

i really couldn't have asked for better dynamics in the group. everyone just seemed to mesh so well. which you have to do when you're on buses for hours and gross and scared to be horseback riding (well, that was just me), and basically just together 24/7.

a quick overview of the trip is that we spent part of the time in vilcabamba, a sleepy town up in the mountains, cuenca, the colonial, bustling town, and quayaquil. please note that it's best to actually scroll down to the first post on horseback riding and then read backwards, they make more sense that way.

enjoy the recap!

ecuador: random collection of pics

by far my favorite part of traveling is seeing the different cultures and being with the people. i love watching them interact and hearing them talk. especially given that i don't understand exactly what they're saying, so it intrigues me even more. below are some photos of the people we saw, as well as some cool landscape shots.

this cute girl was at the incan ruins and i believe reed paid her to take her photo.







there was a nasty rain storm as we drove down the mountain


and of course, what highway would be complete without part of the road breaking away? yikes!

ecuador: guayaquil

quayaquil is where we started, and ended, our trip. as well as where we flew in and out of (by the way, away the panama city airport at all costs). guaya, as i like to call it, is the largest city in ecuador and is a port city. i over all liked the city, but probably not as much as cuenca. the highlight definitely included staying with grayden's parents in the mission home. it was beyond welcomed to have a clean, safe place to be. that and they have a "MegaMaxi" near their house, which is like a SuperTarget of sorts. Nothing makes you feel like home like going to a store that resembles Target...

this is grayden's cute mom. she made a birthday cake for all of us that had recently had birthdays. extremely nice and tasty.


reed's best "i'm sad that it's our last day" face. the best part is that you can totally tell he was holding back a grin.


the living/dining room in the mission home


we took a pirate ship around guaya the last night we were there. this is us waiting.


grayden and jess. reading a book on pirating, perhaps?


this game, along with skip-bo, took up all of our time. it was a solitaire game of sorts. odie won once. and i cheated once and won. so i guess i didn't really ever legitimately win.


cute.

ecuador: iguanas

everyone needs to visit a good iguana park now and again, and luckily, guayaquil has a great one. the iguanas there have somehow all congregated to this one square and they're everyone. i had to be careful where i walked as to not step on them. it's crazy. and you look up and they're all in the trees.

eveyone in the group sat down and fed them. besides me. i designated myself photographer and was more than happy to be on the sidelines...

here's how it works. you sit down, pull out food (preferably bananas) and up they come.


this was as close as i cared to get to one :)


ah, the animal lover


this guy gave odie a pretty nasty scratch


see how they blend in?

ecuador: ingapirca

we also visited ingapirca, which is ecuador's only major inca site with a building intact, the so-called temple of the sun. apparently it was erected in an eliptical form, coinciding with the movement of the sun. the site was mostly used for ceremonies and worship.




another one of the top five favs from the trip


ah, the one piece of clothing that odie took away from ecuador. compared to some pieces he was trying on earlier, this one is quite stylish. and it's amazingly warm. perfect for the ecuador sun.


random blind man playing the random instrument.


el presidente ridd (grayden's dad) along with a llama




the site from a distance. it was really neat to walk around


the main section

ecuador: cuenca part II

some more shots from cuenca:

reed giving his acceptance speech. this was the balcony attached to the room we stayed in.


this shot is so funny to me. these are the boys outside a cathedral with their candles they purchased for the intent of burning them to help grayden. you see, grayden has a fitness test coming up and they burned them in his honor :)


me and the view from our hotel

ecuador: cuenca

our second stop on the trip was the town of cuenca. cuenca is one of the top three largest cities in ecuador and is very colonial. i loved their cobblestone streets and the history, plus since it's a large city there's a great vibe.

here's the main church.


the gang at a lookout point




this still makes me laugh. odie was debating buying this under the idea that he could wear it in the winter. i can only imagine him sporting this down pennsylvania avenue.


view of cuenca below


jess had her sandal break, but no worries, odie found some dental floss and sewed them back together.


these boys are really too close...


watching the ecuador vs. colombia game


interesting poster






this is one of my top five photos from the trip. this man was too cute and i just HAD to buy something from him. so i purchased a red hammock :)


the boys in the market. i LOVE latin markets and haggling for prices.




i had probably around two gallons worth of ice cream during the trip. that and probably a pounds worth of "papas fritas" aka french fries.