the course of a lifetime

I tried on wedding dresses last weekend with Melanie and another friend of mine, Melinda. We spent well about 3 hours in 2 different shopt and came away with nothing. People seem to love the frilly, six foot train dresses, but they are just not for me. I never imagined myself in a princess dress...I played in the mud my whole childhood and a fairy-tale wedding was never part of my imagination. I just looked silly in most of them. There were a couple with certain things I liked about them, but my mom took all the excitement out of that. She did not want to watch me try on a thousand dresses I hated, but rather wanted to come when I found a few I liked. She came near the end and told me that she did not like any of them because they were strapless. Apparently Miss Manners (yes, the newspaper columnist) doesn't like sleeveless without long white gloves. I don't know if any of you have seen a bridal magazine lately, but I see lots of sleeveless dresses and no long white gloves anywhere! Mom won't be helping out with that anymore. Bernie and I are going to Missoula for my birthday and I already have two appointments to try them on there. Amy should have much better taste than my Miss Manners-obsessed mother.

In other wedding-related news: save the date for July 15th. In fact, you better save the whole weekend because it is going to be a huge party. We are probobly going to have the ceremony at Ryan Dam and the reception is already planned at the Heritage Inn. I think we are going to have a sit-down served dinner with three entree choices and a couple of kegs. No open bar though...people can pay to get themselves drunk. No escuses for drunk driving either due to the fact we will be in a hotel. There will be a block of rooms reserved for anyone who wants to make life simple and crash there. I'm also thinking a quartet at the ceremony, and of course some sort of DJ at the reception. There really is a ton of decisions to make, and at this point, I have way too much time to think about options and change my mind six thousand times.

We're all moved into our new house, and I am actually impressed with my ability to keep it clean. I'm acutally on a cleaning schedule (I think this might have something to do with living with Kristen). Anyone who saw my room at my dad's house can attest to the pigsty in which I used to live.

Bernie is going to North Dakota tomorrow for 5 days to go pheasant hunting. He's taking Hailey to teach her how to be a good hunting dog. She should be pretty good at it if the ease with which she has trained to this point continues. She still has a lot of puppy in her, but she sits, stays, lays down, rolls over, holds treats on her nose until told to take them, and the jumping is much less. She will even sit and not eat her food until one of us tells her too. All in all, she's a really good dog, but we've been strict and very consistent with her. She still has not set foot inside the house and has never tasted anything but dog food.

posted by Amanda and Bernie @ 12:57 AM