Purple and Pearls

Lots of love

xxx

We move into our new home just over 3 weeks ago and whilst I’ve been able to post the odd update on the blog, living without the internet has been tough!  The engineer left about 20 minutes ago and after first announcing on Twitter that I was at last connected – I’m blogging!  Oh how I’ve missed it!

First of all HUGE news, bigger than big!  Suzie is going to be a mommy!!  I know, right!  I found out before Christmas and I’ve been waiting to shout about it.  Suzie had her first scan last week and Mini is looking super relaxed and healthy.  She’s due early August and I am beyond excited!

I also had the complete honour of guest posting for two wonderful blogs.  First up was for one of my absolute fav blogs Met my Match and the second was a follow up to my previous post for the Wedding Genie.  Go take a read, both are great blogs and I’m truly thankful for being asked to post on both.

Also in other great news Cupcakes and Peonies is back!!  After a little break they are ready and raring to go!  I’m so pleased the cupcake world just wasn’t the same without them!

I have quite a bit to tell/show you including the rest of our honeymoon recaps and a few before and after snaps of our new crib, which will all come over the next few weeks.  In the mean time have a great weekend!! x

We’re in our new flat and have come out the other side a little battered, bruised, emotionally exhausted and completely worn out!

It was a lot harder than we ever thought it would be. It has taken a lot of hard work to get it anywhere near comfy.

Unfortunately we arrived to a couple of problems including a broken sofa, heater and extractor fan, we’ve also had issues with getting the oven working and the key from the car park to the apartment doesn’t work. We’ve been in touch with our letting agency and whilst the problems are easily fixed in our fragile emotional state the problems seemed to stack up and somewhat dampened our moving house excitement.

We are now, after getting a few good nights sleep, feeling a lot happier. It probably has something to do with the fact that we’ve unpacked a lot of our stuff and have really made the space feel a lot more like us.

We haven’t had chance to set up our Internet yet so posting and tweeting will be as and when I can grab a wifi spot

I’ll also get a few pictures up when I can so you can see our new digs!

Until then, I have 12 more boxes to unpack!

That’s right – today is the day we are moving in to our new flat!

We’ve taken a bit of a higgledy-piggledy route to get here, but right now we couldn’t be more excited. We are moving into a 1 bedroom flat in the city centre of Birmingham. Has will be able to walk to walk in under 15 minutes, rather than a 45 minute stop-start, leg aching journey there and back again. Quite a few of our friends live in the city, so we’ll have a nice little network of people around us. It means no more expensive taxi journeys back after a night out and we’ll also be smack bang in the middle of both sets of parents.

Packing has been overwhelming, we found out we had the flat just before Christmas and ever since we’ve spent any spare time going through everything we own. Sending things off to charity shops, storing what we might be able to sell at a later date and packing up the rest.

We’re lucky in the fact that although the flat was advertised as fully furnished, but it’s only furnished with the basics. So we have a lot of room to make it our own. The living area is large for a city centre apartment, open plan and has a kitchen one end and the lounge the other. It has quite a large double bedroom, with an extra walk in closet. Separate bathroom and two extra storage cupboards.

Hopefully by the end of the weekend we’ll be somewhere close to settled in, we have furniture arriving on Saturday and a trip to Ikea is scheduled for Friday. I’m not sure how long our internet connection will take to set up, hopefully not too long I need Twitter! But I shall be back with pictures of our new crib!

Source: Incredibly cute aluminium keyring from Etsy

Happy New Year Lovelies!!

What will you be doing when Big Ben chimes 12?  I shall be dancing my socks off in my favourite rock club with some of my closest friends.  We did exactly the same last year and it was such a fantastic night, that we’re celebrating the same way.

Where ever you are, who ever you are with and what ever you might be doing I hope it’s fabulous!!

I wanted to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all the readers of Purple and Pearls, for all your support and encouragement over the past year (and beyond!)  Sometimes I wonder if I’m whittering on to myself then one of you lovely readers will send me an email or leave a comment on a post and I honestly appreciate every one who takes the time to leave me a message.  Thank you for holding my hand through 2010.

I wish you all an absolutely wonderful 2011.  I hope it brings you everything you wish for.

Lots of New Years Love

Laura xxx

July

We had our pre wedding shoot and made a guest book with the photos

• Lots of DIY including our “Sweets” sign
• Mom carefully cleaned up her garter and gave it to me as my something borrowed

High Voltage Festival

August

(was busy!)

• Invitations were posted!
• Has celebrated his 26th birthday

Sonisphere Festival, where I met the very lovely Sara Thomas

• I had my first make up trial
• The fabulous Wedding Genie did a bog post – all about me!
• We tried out our wedding menu

I celebrated my 26th birthday with a tea party

September

• So many wedding tasks were finished.  Bridesmaids dresses, menu chosen, suits sorted, rings arrived and I had my hair trial

My first hen party, the infamous L plates and willies party – which was a total blast!

• We celebrated the first birthday of Purple and Pearls
• 7 years over.  Just like that.

We took a trip to Padstow in Cornwall with family

October

• I caught the train to London with my closest friends and family for the most amazing weekend to celebrate my hen party.  We rode the London Eye, had Afternoon Tea, froze in the Absolut Vodka Ice Bar and finished the night drinking Raspberry Martinis and eating wonderful food at Las Iguanas
• We sadly said goodbye to our family dog Meg
• Our wonderfully talented friend Ian surprised us with some fantastic shots of our invites!
• We attended the outrageously beautiful wedding of our good friends Stuart and Ashlee

November

• My amazing godparents treated me
• Oh and WE GOT MARRIED!!

Want to know how our wedding day went down?  Read all about the run up, the getting ready, ceremony, the reception, party time and the aftermath

• We also had the absolute time of our lives on our 3 week honeymoon

I shall be doing a full report of our honeymoon.  Here we are in Oahu

December

• Fresh from our honeymoon we drove to Prestatyn for the Hard Rock Hell Festival
• We put a deposit down on a flat.  Yippee!!!
• And celebrated our first Christmas together as Mr and Mrs!

2010 was pretty amazing but I wonder what 2011 has in store for us!

2010 has been such an amazing year for me, yes it’s had it’s down moments but those have been heavily outweighed by some of the best in my life.  As the year draws to a close I’m taking the opportunity to relive some of these memories.

January

New Year’s Day Lunch

A day out with family, on the Cannock Chase

• I made a start on our chalkboard heart placecards.  A DIY task I wouldn’t finish until October!
• I met Sarah from Blue Door Bakery for the very first time
• Snow Day!

Suzie’s Pirate Hen Party

February

• Valentine’s Biscuits
• I played model
• We booked to go to Oahu

Suzie and Rob’s Wedding

March

• Suzie and Rob came back from their honeymoon
• We booked all our honeymoon flights!
• We saw Kiss in a teeny tiny venue and had our faces completely melted
• The first of many invitation making evenings

The National Wedding Show

April

Easter Fun!

• Things got tough
• My Nan turned 70 and we threw her a fab red, white and blue party!

May

• We finally found the Bridesmaid’s dresses!
• Suzie and I attended one of the amazing Blue Door Bakery cupcake decorating workshops

We spent a gorgeous day in Stratford with my Godparents

June

• I got an Iphone.  Best thing ever!
• Has made me a patch jacket
• Purple and Pearls moved home and got a make over!

Download Festival 2010

I did the Race for life and managed to raise over £150 thanks to the very generous donations of family, friends and the power of Twitter!

As we welcome in the New Year I thought it might be a good time to update my 30 before 30 list I made back in March.

This is my list and my updates

1. Get married! ~ TICK!
2. Move in with Has before our wedding (We’ll be renting to start with)  ~ Not quite before our wedding but we’re hopefully all set to move in to our new city centre apartment on the 27th January
3. Own our first home together.
4. Start to think about a family
5. Visit Alaska
6. Learn how to knit
7. Do something I love for a living.
8. Decorate my house in a style to suit me and Has.
9. Teach Has how to drive.
10. Create a “places we have been map“
11. Become confident in the kitchen and be able to cook edible meals!
12. Visit Harry Potter World
13. Run/Walk the Breast Cancer Race For Life  ~ I took part in the Race for Life in June.  Was an incredibly moving day and an event I shall definitely be taking part in again
14. Learn how to sew  ~ I’ve actually had to sew quite a bit lately, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert but I’m definitely better than I was!
15. Watch all the first (last?) 3 Star Wars films (I get flamed for not seeing the originals!)
16. See the New York Giants play at home  ~ We were able to catch a Giants home game when we visited New York on our honeymoon.  The Giants went from losing horrifically to dramatically winning the game in the last few minutes, like an ending straight out of Hollywood.  Electric atmosphere – completely amazing
17. Perfect the art of cupcake making  ~ Wouldn’t say I’ve perfected it but I have definitely got better especially after visiting the Blue Door Bakery for a decorating workshop
18. Host a dinner party
19. Buy a pair of designer shoes
20. Get a professional massage ~ During my amazing facials the therapist treated me to a very relaxing neck and shoulder massage, which makes me want a full body massage even more!
21. Get a professional facial ~ Before the wedding I treated myself to a course of facials, which were amazing.  Definitely something I’d love to commit to permanently
22. See the Macy’s Parade on Thanks Giving ~ We were lucky enough to be able to see the Macy’s Day Parade on our Honeymoon.  It did involve us getting up and out by 6am then standing in the cold for a further 2 hours, but it was all so totally worth it!
23. Host Christmas dinner.
24. Have a garden
25. Be a comfortable size 10
26. Go to Iceland
27. Climb a Volcano (Extinct!) ~ Again something we were able to do on our Honeymoon.  We climbed Diamond Head on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.  A completely exhilarating experience, one I will never forget
28. Trace my family tree
29. Learn to play the Bass
30. See Poison play live. ~ We saw Bret Michaels (lead singer in Poison) in Atlantic City probably the closest I’ll ever get to seeing Poison seeing as they never tour Europe!!

Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas and are suitably stuffed by now!

Wishing you all a fantastic day full of laughter and love.

xxx

Source

Aloha!

We have reached the mid-way point in our Honeymoon and I wanted to check in and say Hi!

It has been an absolutely amazing trip so far, we have seen 2 awesome sports games where the home sides have won.  The crowd has gone wild and we couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement.

We’ve visited sites steeped in history including The Sixth Floor Museum,  The Alamo, San Jose Mission, Alcatraz and Pearl Harbor.

We’ve rode a cable car, caught a Greyhound across Texas, climbed a volcano and dipped our toes in the Pacific.

Huge hello to everyone who is still reading Purple and Pearls, I’ve had word that our Wedding Day Photos have arrived and I’ve typed up a little of my report whilst travelling.

But just in case you were wondering how we scrubbed up on our wedding day, here’s a pic from Facebook

Big honeymoon love Mrs S xxx