Vines, a Surprise Party, and Honeymoon Plans!

McGee and I have definitely been really busy, so I apologize for the delay in posts! Man, I'm exhausted. I don't even know where to begin with updates on our house... I don't really have any cool pictures to share because most of our efforts have been on the trees on our property. They've all been kinda neglected and have a million vines growing up them, which is terrible for the health of trees. It also hides any cracks, etc in the tree, so it's important to remove those vines. We've spent a LOT of time cutting the vines and trying to pull them down and pull the roots out of the ground too. McGee even got Poison Ivy a little over a week ago from this oh-so-fun task! We both worked about 5 or 6 hours on the vines this Sunday, so we made sure to really scrub ourselves with some good soap that's supposed to remove the Poison Ivy oils from your skin. So far neither of us is showing any Poison Ivy rashes or anything... so... fingers crossed we both escaped it this time! There is definitely Poison Ivy on our property (and all of our neighbors' properties too). Oh, and I planted some Marigolds by our front walkway on Sunday too! We had a dirt area that was clearly supposed to hold flowers, so I read that Marigolds are supposed to be pretty sturdy (so maybe I can't kill them?) and they're supposed to repel mosquitoes (yay!!), AND they're deer resistant (we have a lot of deer going through our neighborhood, and they like to eat people's flowers).

Here's the marigolds!  They aren't dead yet, so that's something... 

Here's some Alyssum. I don't know anything about this flower, except that the white one in the middle started to commit suicide as soon as I planted it. The purple ones seem to be doing ok though...

So, the vines and yardwork were our entire Sunday, but on SATURDAY... we had a surprise party for McGee!!  And no, it is not anywhere near his birthday. His birthday isn't until June 2nd, but that's the day before we get married, so I wanted to make sure his birthday was properly celebrated too! So about a month ago I contacted McGee's friend Timmy and told him my idea, which was for me to "surprise" McGee with some tickets for the two of us to go to a Phillies game, and then when we get there all of his friends would be there tailgating as the actual surprise. All of the weekends in May were bad for McGee's friends, so end of April was the closest we could get to his birthday! So, awhile ago I told McGee I was reserving April 25th for Romantic Date Day (I figured that was the exact opposite of what I was planning, so that was a safe bet), and then I didn't tell him about the Phillies game until the morning of our Date Day. And McGee drove us there (so I could secretly text Timmy during our drive...), and then when we got there I convinced McGee that I really wanted us to park in Lot K (which is a tailgating lot) because I thought it'd be fun... And he was confused (because we hadn't brought any tailgating supplies...) but he was being a really good sport so he drove into Lot K. And then he wanted to park near an exit (so we could escape easily after the game), but I was like, "No, let's go park in that far corner over there! That looks like a good area" (because Timmy had told me that that's where they were tailgating...), so again McGee was confused, but he went along with what I requested since I told him I'd thoroughly planned out this "romantic date day" for us... And then when we got to that corner all of his friends came running towards our car yelling "Surprise!!!".  He was BEYOND surprised, so it was amazing. A bunch of his friends that are now living in other states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc) came down for the party, and everyone had a great time!  And Timmy and Juliff organized the whole tailgate, and they did a GREAT job :)  It was a success.

Here's Timmy! He's grilling up some burgers...while wearing a Disney Princess birthday hat. They also purchased a Disney Princess "Birthday Princess" sash for McGee to wear, but he didn't wear it for very long so I didn't get a picture. 

Here's McGee with some of his best friends! That's Earl (with the big beard), Juliff (blue hat), Gazarra (the other red hat), and Timmy (getting a beer I think)

Here you can see a bit more of the tailgate set-up (including the pink balloons)

Timmy's explaining to me that he has to shotgun that beer, because it already has a small hole in the side of it (I think someone dropped it... dropping beers was the theme of the day!). 

Timmy is saving the beer! Thank goodness Timmy was there to save it! 

Here's McGee's friend Sarah Fro, holding his awesome birthday cake that Timmy and Juliff got for him.

McGee and Earl are laughing at something... 

This week is a bit nutty, because we're having our air conditioning system installed!  Yesterday and today they've just been working on all of the ductwork... It looks like really hard work! The kinda funny part is that our weather has been SUPER cold lately (we were all freezing at the Phillies game!), so it feels like we're nowhere near needing our AC system... But I guess the summer weather will be here before we know it!  I think they'll be finished by Thursday or so...

Oh, and some other big-ish news:  We decided not to do Maine for our honeymoon after all. The timing just wasn't good at all, and we're also trying to save money right now because of the air conditioning installation. BUT, don't be sad for us because we decided to do a really big honeymoon a little later in the year instead: We're going to go to the Grand Canyon and a bunch of National Parks in Utah in October!  We'd wanted to do that trip this Fall anyways, so we decided THAT will be our honeymoon (it'll just be like 4 months after we get married, but that's ok!!). We're already working on the planning, and we're SO excited. We're going to fly into Las Vegas (we already bought SUPER cheap flights with Southwest!), and then rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon and camp there for a few nights (we actually already reserved an AMAZING camping spot in the Grand Canyon), then we're also going to see Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and then Zion!  It's going to be about a week, and we'll stay in a hotel a few times so we don't get too gross, but we want to do mostly camping. It's going to be so fun! I'll give you more details on that soon. And if anyone's been to that area and has recommendations, just let me know!! :)