Wedding Fever Update & an Update on Caleb!

Hi everyone!

We are officially, as of today, 40 days away from the Waite Wedding. I am getting so excited because everything is starting to come together and especially giddy because my bachelorette party is this weekend!

My friend offered to allow us to use her families beach house in Wilmington for the weekend and so a group of 7 friends are heading to the beach on Friday. I am extra excited because my best friend since college and Maid of Honor April, is flying in from NYC! I pick her up from the airport and we are on our way to a weekend of fun!



This photo pretty much sums up our friendship.





We have almost all of our RSVP's in and it's looking like we are going to end up with a  pretty good crowd of folks! I can't wait to experience just how fun this day is going to be!

I am sure after the bachelorette party, I am going to start going stir crazy because there will be no more little milestones along the way to look forward to. Instead, we will only have the BIG DAY to look forward to. Those are going to be a loooong 30 days!

Luckily, one of the best things to do to burn off nervous energy is to exercise and I will be doing a lot of that in the next month to make sure I feel great on my wedding day. It would be nice if the weather would cooperate a little bit more because Charlotte is playing the game where it can't decide if it wants to be nice or terrible outside. So, one day it will be 70 and sunny (can't complain about that) and then the next day it will be 30 and raining. (Lame) But, at least I got a chance to get a good run in this weekend!

On Sunday, my running buddy Catie and I went for an easy run on East Blvd in Charlotte. It's flat and relatively easy to run and we got in a solid 3.6 miles for my buddy Caleb!

 

For those of who didn't read my last post, I recently was matched up with a little boy named Caleb through IRUN4Michael.com. This site matches physically disabled people with runners who will dedicate their exercise to them! Catie is waiting to be matched too and we had a great run in honor of Caleb!

He is even cheering me on with this sweet new tshirt!

Luckily, I have one too!

I can't wait to update you all through the next month up until the big day. We could use all the good thoughts we can get that everything goes smoothly!

If anyone has any advice on things to remember, do, try, etc. 30 days out from your wedding, I would appreciate it in the comments!





My Hike to Battle Cystic Fibrosis! Will you help save a life?

Hello all!

Today I am happy to say that I spent the day hiking 11 miles at South Mountain State Park with some pretty amazing people including, my good friend Stan. Dwayne and I have been friends with Stan and his wife Krista for several years now and for the past few years, he has been asking us to come out and participate in his training hikes at some of the local mountains around Charlotte.

My friend Stan! Hike master!

 He is involved in these training hikes because in a few months he has an "extreme hike" that he participates in to help raise money to find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.

Stan became involved in the charity because he had a childhood friend die from Cystic Fibrosis. He dedicates a lot of time and effort to fundraising to fight this disease. Stan and his group of friends do the "Extreme Hike" every year to raise money to fight this terrible disease and for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. By 'extreme' I mean that they hike 30 miles of the Appalachian Trail in one day! 30 Miles!

What is Cystic Fibrosis?

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide). A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that:

• clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
• obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

Today I had the pleasure of joining them on a training hike and spent a beautiful Saturday with good people, fresh air and exercise.

We hiked 11 miles and, at times, it was pretty arduous! There were a lot of serious inclines and it took us about 4 hours to complete the training hike. Although, along the way there were some really beautiful sites to see.

 

Probably one of the best sites of the entire day was seeing a dog riding a horse. Seriously, that really happened. I have photo evidence.

 

Seriously, it's a dog riding a horse!

 



 At the end of this day, I am tired, stiff and will probably be sore but it was such a great experience and I am glad I met some of these people.

Stan is currently trying to raise $3,000 for the BIG HIKE and he is very grateful for any donations that people would be willing to give. If you want to donate for this big hike or learn more about the charity hike, click here to see his fundraising page!

Good Luck Stan!