one less thing to worry about...

Things seem to be going in our favor lately and im thrilled to say we are no longer having to debate about towing a u-haul or paying thousands of dollars to have our stuff shipped and moved for us...Jerrod called me today and he found a loop hole in moving and now all of our stuff is being moved by the military for FREE! He was given 5,000-6,000lbs to move in his initial move last year to AZ. He only used like 1,000lbs so he still has up to 4,000lbs of stuff that he can have shipped. He has been asking about this for months and today someone in the housing facility told him...thank god! This is just such a weight off my shoulders and one less thing to stress/worry over. Now we just need to get it all to Dover! :-)
Jerrod heads home tomorrow night! less than 48 hours and he will be home!!!
:-)

pictures of our house

Alrighty...we have our new house-like a real picture of it! it really exists! Jerrod went over to look at it tonight and took a few pictures of it for me :-) I thought id share. Oh AND we have a back yard complete with green grass and a back yard patio!!! we are very excited about that.

Only a few more days and my groom will be here with me, at last!

I can't believe it's less than 2 weeks away, just doesn't seem possible...

see you all soon!!

update on our house

So, today Jerrod went in to get information on our house...come to find out we are getting one in the brand new housing development on base! The house we have been assigned to hasn't even been finished yet! AND we have 3 bedrooms! I have no idea why we are going to need 3 bed rooms....but at least we can have all our family and friends come visit us from home and not lack space :-) Just thought id share some really great news.

WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!!

As of monday Jerrod had put us on the housing list on base...we were told we could have one in a month or so....today Jerrod got a call and we have a house already!!!! We have it on September 20th...which means we will have it to move right into when we get to Arizona! :-D I am sooo excited.

WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!!!

That is the biggest news to update everyone on.

However, last Sunday i had my bridal shower thrown by my mom and sister-it was beautiful and wonderful. There was a great turn out and i enjoyed seeing everyone who could make it. My aunt Mary made the cake-it was gorgeous and so super yummy. I got some really amazing gifts and lots of things to help start my home with Jerrod. Thank you to everyone! I couldn't have asked for a better day or a more beautiful party.

We are 3 weeks and 1 day away from the wedding-i cant believe it!!!

OH and i found someone to play piano at the ceremony. She is a wonderful sweet woman who i have waited on all summer at the restaurant and during a conversation a few weeks ago i found out she plays piano and she told me to give her a call if i got stuck. welllll i got stuck, gave her a call and met with her yesterday at the church. She played through tons and tons of music and we planned out the whole ceremony! I am so excited and SO happy :-)

Just one more thing i don't have to worry about!

Yesterday i had my first dress fitting! my mom, sister and me headed to Lewiston and did that...i cant wait for Jerrod to see me in it, i LOVE it soooo much...i don't ever want to take it off every time i put it on.

Only one more month!

Well, not too much has happened, but enough that i feel like i am slacking at keeping up with this whole blog thing.
Last week me and my sister headed to Aunt Julies and we had my hair run through...went so well and so relieved we were able to come up with something that i love and that looks great :-)

I met with the DJ as well last week...theres so much that i didn't realize i needed to do at the reception! geesh. I meet with her again Wednesday to make sure i have done my 'homework' and completed our playlist (or at least cut down from 10 hrs of music to 5!)

Well, Jenn's tickets were purchased a week or two ago, so that's a relief as well. It's good to know one of my bridesmaids is all taken care of in transportation now (she's coming in from NC)

Speaking of girls, i got to spend the weekend with my girl Sam and see her in her dress and shoes-it was nice because the only one i had seen was my sisters and that's different than the others. It was GORGEOUS and she really seemed to love it since she was dancing around in the house in it...I'm very happy with the color that it ended up being!
Tux shop switch happened as well - and thank god. They were giving me the run around at mens wearhouse in portland and not accommodating for my guys at ALL. Not to mention stressing me out so much that both times i had been in to order and pick out i left with a migraine and practically in tears because they wouldn't help me or anything...I canceled them and now I'm going through the Brunswick Flower Shop-and thank god for that.

The menu is set for the reception...If you did not know or were wondering we are not having a bar-it is BYOB. We will have some wine provided for early reception but that is it. The closest store that sells any alcohol is 20 minutes away so keep that in mind and bring what you would like/need for the evening. If you are planning on drinking please have a DD or plan on staying at one of the local hotels/motels on the island.

Its really getting down there...I'm getting anxious already...mostly i just want to see Jerrod. Im counting the days till he steps foot off the plane rather than the wedding day to be honest.

registry website address

I have been having several people ask about our registry, so instead of having people search through old posts i'll update it.
It is http://www.myregistry.com/public/Erin-Johnson-Jerrod-Smith .
Remember that we love gift cards as well seeing as we are only towing a small trailer with us. Some of the stores around us will be Wal Mart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and TJ Maxx...thats all that i really know of.
Very simple to use :-)

Now the fun has really started...

Well, i successfully survived my bachelorette party and had a WONDERFUL time. Donna Nunnally hosted it at her camp on Worthly Pond. We went out to eat Friday night and just as we headed into our tents around midnight the rain let loose. We slept in until about 10 and got up to no rain and mugginess. It cleared off eventually completely and we had a GREAT day of kayaking, swimming, playing in the pond, games and lots of other fun fun things :-D
When we woke up Sunday morning me and the girls were able to take off onto the pond in kayaks and have a beautiful and peaceful morning ride. The weather was so perfect and I'm so happy we didn't have to deal with any rain.

Now, about the wedding.
Sam picked up her dress and Chelsea's and brought them to the pond for us to see.
They are so prefect and i love them! They are going to be so gorgeous on the girls, i just cant wait!

I'm still searching for those gosh darn bowls! argh they are making me so frustrated!

Remember to book up a motel room if needed because they will book up fast-i know people have been asking and my opinion is to try and get the island view motel-however if it is full your only other choice would be the bailey island hotel. its gorgeous- just a little bit more expensive.

I got a whole set of favors done last week i think it was, with the help from my mom. Boy, those things are tedious and take up alot of time-now onto the next set of favors...

I feel like things are finally starting to come together and that makes me happy and i know Jerrod likes it because that means I'm not as stressed.

I think we have decided to get a Uhaul trailer to take with us, i just don't think we could do it unless. It'll be nice though and less packed and we can take more to start with.

We have started getting RSVPs back and it makes me so excited. Its like Christmas every time i get one...i go to the post office every morning before our mail gets delivered to see if we got any new ones-I'm so anxious and love seeing who has responded. Its so much fun :-)

jerrod is coming home!

We bought Jerrods tickets to come home!!!
I am so excited-time is flying and before you know it September is going to be here.
Part of the favors are complete, invitations are being finished and final decisions on the tuxes are being made...lots to still do!

My girls dresses were supposed to be in by the end of June-so i called them-come to find out they have been in since June18th and they called but just didn't leave a message and never bothered to call back, now i have to try and plan a Bangor trip to pick them up- yuck.

I am still searching for bowls to finish my dinnerware set.

The bed set i had picked out and put on my registry that i wanted so badly is no longer being sold so i am on the hunt for a new bed set.

I finished up flowers-they are all taken care of now! wahoo :-)

i have the best family :-)

I just realized that it has been a while since i last updated this thing. I'm so sorry!
Let's see...first things first Sarah tried on the flower girl dress and it was PERFECT! i am SO excited and she is so pretty in it. :-) But don't ask because i am not telling you what it looks like! its a secret just like mine.
My Aunt Mary (also Sarah's mother) has generously offered to make us our wedding cake!!
It is probably one of the most exciting things to have happened so far. haha. but seriously-she has already been making samples of some of the things we want and sending them this way for me and my family to test-and ohhh soooo good. Once again-not saying to much because i know it is going to be AMAZING and i want everyone blown away by it-so yet another secret! sorrrry. However i know no one will be disappointed.
After searching around and becoming overwhelmed with many things Jerrod's Aunt Julie has come forward and offered her hairstyling expertise and agreed to do my hair for the big day! i know, most of you are saying why is she telling me this, i don't care! BUT i am VERY excited about it and when you all see how amazing it comes out you will know who to give the credit too! :-)
Right now all i can say is thank god for family and friends because if it wasn't for them i don't know if this wedding would be able to happen. You have all helped out in so many ways already and i just know as time goes by and things get closer that i will get even more help and be even more thankful for my family and for my future family members. I just wanted to say thank you.

On a last note it looks like we will be ordering the grooms tickets to come home for the wedding this week-hes kind of a key player so i need him here!
Well, less than a week left of school. Next Monday i have a half day and that's it. it has flown by so fast!!! I'm really gonna miss it and I'm sad to leave the school, my new friends and my 'little buddies' that i work with behind.
But a whole new adventure is waiting for me in AZ so i guess that's something to look forward to.

a little of whats going on

I continued my scavenger hunt Monday and Tuesday ranging from Portland to Augusta to collect bits and pieces of my dinnerware. I found it all and am now just missing those 3 pesky bowls!
It was nice to get to Augusta yesterday after work, i was able to grab some dishes and then meet up with Sam and go out to dinner with her. It was so nice to see her again since her graduation a couple weeks ago and it gave me a chance to show her the shoes i picked out for her and the 3 other bridesmaids the day before when i was in Portland. Just one more thing to check off my list of things to do! wahoo!
My little cousin is coming to visit this weekend from NH so she will be trying on the flower girl dress we picked out back around Easter-i can't wait to see how it looks on her :-)
Well, that's about all i have for you right now...Enjoy the warm sunshine!

I NEED BOWLS!!

So, regardless of not ever being able to add to our dishes-i went ahead and started collecting the place settings that i fell in love with. I have been able to find place settings for 8 in the Dinner plates and salad plates and 5 bowls between 3 TJ Maxx stores in Maine. I am still on the hunt for 3 more or else i am going to take the other 5 back and just get black bowls to go with the settings. But if any of you happen to be good at locating things that are hard to find I am looking for 3 bowls by Roscher in the 'spring blossom' collection. I put up a picture of the dinner plates and then the bowls are deep and round. So far, i am only locating them through TJ Maxx...I'm real bummed out. I have a feeling i wont be adding the bowls to the collection :-( ohhh wellll.... at least i got the plates i love,right? :-)

Today i also met with our photographer Patricia. I absolutely love her! She's young and has a great eye for amazing picture opportunities. I took her around the island and she found a few places around the area that she wants to do some shots on the wedding day. she has some great ideas and got me really excited!

I can't believe we are already into June! time is flying by so fast...

Update On a Motel

Hey everyone!
It's been a while since i have posted...but there hasn't been anything really big or new to share till now.
Just a little update on motel info;
I went to the Cook's Island View Motel today and stoped in to talk to them. They told me when anyone calls to make sure they say they will be attending the Johnson Smith wedding on September 19th. You will get a discount of 10$ so it will bring it down to 90$/ per night. She did remind me that they are filling up quickly.

Registry Complete

Well, we have finally finished the registry. Since we will be traveling it really isn't that much seeing as we can't bring THAT much with us and I'm not willing to sacrifice that many pairs of shoes for kitchen appliances-sorry Jerrod.

We put it together on myregistry.com. When you go onto the site click on the welcome page tab. Once on that page click on view registry at the top. it will show you everything we have asked for-just like a regular registry. The only difference is, is that they are things from tons of different stores! It makes it easy for us to find exactly what we wanted and not be confined to one specific store. This is the part i love...if you find something you want to buy, you click buy next to it. You are not confined to buy the object from that store! If you think you can buy it cheaper, or you want to get it from a local store you can! When you click the buy button it will come up with options such as 'I purchased this item from the website' 'I purchased this item from a different store' or 'I bought this item already from in a store-not online'. Anyways, it's VERY easy and real convenient and very self explanatory. :-)
The website it :
http://www.myregistry.com/public/Erin-Johnson-Jerrod-Smith

Some other things we could use are gift cards. The local stores where we will be living are:
*Target
*Wal Mart
*TJ Maxx
*Bed Bath & Beyond

center piece success

Well, me and my mom went out today hoping to come across just what i want for center pieces...we went around all of Brunswick and Bath and finally found something that i think will come out wonderful. I'm really excited and we have some great ideas as to what to do with them :-) It's so much easier to plan this wedding now that I'm doing it a way that i love!
I found some dishes that i LOVE into TJ Maxx today... so i went online to check them out and maybe put them on the registry but come to find out they are a discontinued style so it's real hard to find them...I'm so bummed because i fell in love with them!
On that note, the registry is almost complete and hopefully will have it posted by next week. It's kind of a relief for me to have that done.

new everything!

Well...after some long and hard thinking we have decided to change the wedding a bit. Today i returned all of the center pieces i had originally purchased as well as table runners, card box, invitations and a few other things. I have decided to go in a whole new direction. Colors are staying the same and the groom is staying the same, so that's what is important! Needless to say i am HAPPY. In fact i am ecstatic with my decision to change things. I am finding it easier to make decisions and plan when it is something that i really truly love :-)

My dress came in while i was in Arizona so i also went to Lewiston to have my first fitting. It was the first time i tried everything on together. I have to be careful about what i say because Jerrod has been trying to get out of me details of the dress...so far iv been good and he only knows it's white...haha :-)

Trip To Arizona

<-(this is from his dorm room-so beautiful!)

Well, I'm back from Arizona...already....the week flew by as things always seem to do when you have waited for them for so long. I had a great time though and got to get a feel for the base and what it will be like (HOT!). Jerrod had to work the first couple of days and that gave me a chance to have a exactly what i needed...a BREAK! i lounged around outside his dorms at the picnic tables all day soaking in the warm weather and sunshine and just relaxing! it was absolutely perfect!

I got to meet the faces of people i felt like i already knew just from Jerrod talking about them. We went over to his good friend Aaron's house for dinner where the guys grilled steaks and i hung out with his wife and 2 children. They are our age and its nice to know that they have been taking care of him for me and that we will have a couple to hang out with when i get out there. On another night me and Jerrod met Aaron and his kids and went galactic bowling. To follow we met up with Marlyn and Kris (two others in the AF who i met in Miss. last year) and they took us downtown Tuscon to a really great sushi bar. It was AMAZING and definitely a place i will be going back to. They gave me a quick little trip around downtown to show me the sights.

The one thing i really wanted to do was get our wedding rings picked out-seeing as we wont have the time when he gets home. I am so excited and it was definitely fun to go try on and pick out rings together and we ended up buying them right then and there! one more task done and to check off the list of things to do. Kris took us for a little ride on base and showed me the Bone Yard. It was so cool. Me and Jerrod were even able to find a few planes from Maine in there and it was definitely neat to see an old Air Force One plane.

I made us a spaghetti dinner with just a microwave one night (showing off my cooking skills)and it only exploded on me twice! Luckily for me Jerrod had clean up duty :-D

Overall it was a great trip - minus losing some money in the slots at the airport in Vegas- everything went great! I cant believe the next time i see him will be days before the wedding....but it'll be worth it because next time i see him we wont ever have to do the good byes again :-)

Happy Easter!

My little cousin came up today and we looked for flower girl dresses online. She will be my little flower girl :-) Her name is Sarah Jean and is 9 and is really excited. I was the flower girl in her moms wedding when i was little so that's kinda neat. She's also the youngest of all of us kids.

Well, tomorrow is Easter and Jerrod has wonderfully reminded me that from tomorrow on i will have to learn to cook hams, turkeys and such things...he has such a funny sense of humor...haha. For some reason he also thinks i will try my hand at apple pies again (for those of you who don't know the only 2 i have tried he ended up eating with a soup spoon-and one causing an oven fire) Thank god for Jerrod and his grilling skills! But who knows, maybe one day we will be hosting Easter at our house for the whole family, complete with canned spam-ham! :-D

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!

Church and Hall

So here are the two main buildings you'll be seeing when you come to the wedding, they both happen to be two of the oldest buildings on the island as well. The top picture is Library Hall where we will be having the reception. The bottom is the Bailey Island Church where the ceremony is taking place. They also just happen to be right next door to each other! Very convenient. Just thought id share :-)

Hotels

I don't know if anyone is planning on staying over Saturday night after the wedding but there are a couple hotels/motels to look at right here on the island.

The first one is the Bailey Island Motel. There are a good amount of rooms and an amazing view-its right over the bridge coming onto the island! the website is http://www.baileyislandmotel.com/home.html . They get filled up fast so i would call soon to check on availability!

The second one is the Cooks Island View Motel. Not as many rooms and is right up the hill from the other one. This one fills up just as fast. The website is http://www.cooksislandmotel.com/pictures.php.

If you have any questions at all please let me know! Both places are real nice and are really convenient to the location of the ceremony and reception. However, there is a comfort inn (or it could be a super 8?) in town about 20-25 minutes away. But if you are coming and planning on staying you might as well stay and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the island :-) There are plenty of other places in town. Just search for ones in the Brunswick area.

The Proposal

So i realized that most of you only know that me and jerrod got engaged on christmas...here are some pictures taken during it...i was so caught up in the moment and had no idea what was going on nor did i know pictures were being taken, but im so happy now that they were :-)

In a short story- we spent christmas morning and day at my house on the islands (we went to his place later in Dover) I had one present left- a BIG red bag...it was from Jerrod! after taking out lots and LOTS of tissue paper a box was at the bottom! i opened it and it was the ring! thats when he got down on one knee and did the whole sha-bang infront of my family. :-)what a guy,right? so thats it in a nut shell!

Our New Car!

So this is our new 'baby'!

Me and Jerrod bought her last month and she's been doing great...iv been taking reallllly good care of her :-) Our first big purchase together! We needed something that will make it all the way to Arizona, it's a 2001-so nothing new, but new to us. LOTS of room and great on gas. Anyways...nothing too much new has happened.

It has been brought to my attention that i mentioned i finally had chosen colors but hadn't mentioned what they were....well they will be cornflower blue and buttercup yellow :-)

Welcome to our blog!

My classroom right now is doing a blog to keep families updated on things going on in classrooms...that got me thinking of how it would be fun to keep a blog of the wedding progress. People are constantly asking me how plans are going, so i thought this way we could keep everyone in the loop (since we are so spread out) :-)

Alot of people have been asking about where we are registering at, right now we are trying to figure that out. We have ideas, but we have to be careful because we will be driving back to Arizona and wont have a lot of room- but i promise once we figure everything out we will let everyone know.

FINALLY after 2 months of searching for the perfect dress for the girls and traveling all over the state of Maine i found the dress! The perfect bridesmaid gown! I'm really excited about it too and i know it will look great on all the girls.

In case you are wondering my maid of honor is my little sister Chelsea- a junior at Mt Ararat High School. The bridesmaids are; My best friend from college Samantha Wiley, she is graduating next month from UMF and we played basketball and were captains together my senior year. Jennifer Mielke is another one of my best friends, we met and lived together last year when we did our internships at Sea World in FL. Last but not least is Jessica Smith! She is Jerrods big sister who is currently living and working in New York.

Jerrods Best Man is his big brother Josh. His groomsmen are my big brother David, who works at MT Ararat High School, and his two hometown friends Lincoln (Linc) Robinson-currently at UMF and Max Kennedy who is living and working in CO.

One of the good things about having the dresses picked out is i finally have my colors! WAHOO! SO EXCITED.

I'm planning a trip during spring break to Arizona to go see Jerrod and to check out the place that will be my home for the next 2 years. It will be a good time for us to do some wedding planning together-at last!