A Drager Halloween

Halloween for us this year was last minute because neither Zach or I thought we would be home but I'm so glad we able to because Diesel and Bella got to wear their costumes! Diesel was a football and Bella was a cheerleader and they were so adorable!! Zach got us pumpkins to carve and candy for the trick or treaters, this was our first year in this house for Halloween so we weren't sure what to expect as far as how many kids we would have. Well it turns out, we had ONE trick or treater, I was so bummed because in FL we have so many kids come around the neighborhood and trick or treat. I guess that is a downside of us living in the country. I was also bummed because I wanted to show off Diesel and Bella's costumes to all the neighbors, Zach however was actually really glad because he was not a fan of us dressing up our babies. Little does he know I have already been scoping out their Christmas outfits at Petsmart already!

Honeymoon Time!

Zach and I headed to Mexico for our honeymoon the Monday after our wedding and we had a blast!! Before we even boarded our flight to Mexico, we hit up the Teqularia at the Charlotte airport and had a couple cocktails to get our week started off right, then we upgraded our flight to first class because you only get 1 honeymoon! Once we got to the resort we were so excited because it was absolutely beautiful!! Our first night there, the resort projected Monday Night Football on the side of the resort and Zach and I knew we had picked the right place! Tuesday we ventured into Cancun with 2 people we met at the resort and we ended up at a local market. This was probably the most interesting part of our trip, the locals will try to sell you anything!! We bought some interesting items, we even got a few bottles of tequila with the worm in the bottom of the bottle! The next day we were hit with an unexpectant suprise, a category 2 hurricane skirted the coast so we had rainy weather. Luckily the resort had a spa and we were able to relax and get massages while the weather was bad. It passed quickly and luckily we had beautiful weather by that evening. One of the best parts of our trip was that we got to meet up with one of Zach's buddies from back in MI who lives in Mexico now, Josh and his wife Amber. They took us to a local mexican place for lunch and as weird as it sounds, I had one of the best burgers I have ever had! They then took us to the tourist part of Cancun and we shopped and just had fun looking at all the local stuff. That night they took us to another fantastic restaurant where I had the best steak I ever had! Go figure I go to Mexico and have the best burger and steak! Friday was our last day and Josh took Zach and I out fishing on his boat. We didn't have much luck at first but then had some towards the end of the day. Zach and I finished off our last night with a nice dinner at the Italian restaurant at our resort and had coconut icecream and tiramasu for dessert! It was a great trip, but we were ready to get back home! We missed Diesel and Bella so much, Zach might have even had to ask me repeatedly to stop talking about them on our trip :)

We are finally the Dragers!

Zach and I are finally husband and wife!! October 9th was such a wonderful day and we were so blessed to have all of our family and close friends able to come to our wedding! The weather could not have been more perfect, we lucked out with the leaves changing and had beautiful scenery. The wedding week was a blast, most of our family was able to come early and everyone took part in helping us out. Zach's mom and grandmas and Gene's girlfriend Sarah were able to come help me and my mom set up the reception and thank goodness for them or we would never had been able to get it done! Then the next day my aunts and cousins were able to come help and put the finishing touches on everything! During all this decorating, our dads and my brother were running errands all over town and were a huge help! This was my favorite part of the week because both of our families came together to help each other out and were able to spend time together before the big day!! The rehearsal day was fun, I got to have lunch with two of my best friends Aimee and Beth and they were able to just be silly and fun and calm my nerves. The rehearsal was quick and then John and Colleen had everyone for dinner at the Bistro Roca. This was such a fun dinner where our families and bridal party could all relax and have a great time together. The dinner was fantastic and John and Colleen really did an awesome job making sure we all had the best time!

I had been hearing how your wedding day goes by so fast so I made a point to make sure I just took it all in. I had so much fun just getting ready with all of my bridesmaids, doing hair and makeup and just hanging out. Erin, Zach's sister did ALL of our hair and she did a fantastic job!! She worked so hard and we all looked beautiful because of it! I had Sarah do my makeup and have never felt more beautiful! The ceremony was beautiful on the top of the mountain and Zach did a good job of joking with me during the cermony so I wouldn't cry too hard. And I have to say Diesel was the cutest ring bearer I have ever seen!! The reception was incredible! Everyone danced and had a great time and the guests went through 86 lbs of candy at the candy bar, I was so proud of them!!

One last thought on the day, I have to thank my mom. I would like to take credit for planning the wedding because it was just absolutely incredible but I can't, that credit all goes to my mom. For the last 11 months Zach and I were engaged she has been organized and on top of every detail, even designing all the centerpieces herself!! I know I shouldn't be suprised because my mom always gives 110% to me but seeing all she did for us just blows me away! I'm so lucky she is my mom and Zach and I were so lucky to have such a beautiful wedding because of her!!

Ready For Some Football!!

Zach and I have been looking forward to September all summer long and no its not because our wedding is only 1 month away, its because football starts! Sports this month will rule our television, not only is college football and NFL starting, but this is the month before baseball playoffs and my Rays are in a close fight for AL Division Champs! Now in our house I have learned that there is no choice, everyone will be a Michigan fan. Diesel even got a MI bandana to wear from Colleen for all the games and last week we bought a huge MI flag to fly outside our house so all our neighbors will know we are MI fans! Last week MI played Conn. and we had Daren, Jenn, the kids, Gene, Sarah, Ben, Jaime, Marc and Jenny over to watch all the games and it was a blast! We had MI themed cups, plates and even cupcakes! Afterwards we had a huge bonfire outside and made smores :)

This week MI is currently playing Notre Dame, now my best friends Aimee and Ben are HUGE ND fans and Aimee (my maid of honor) has been trash talking with Zach over text message throughout the whole game! Currently MI is still up 21 to 17 and I hope they win cause Zach sounds like he's about to have a heart attack right now!

Bridal Shower & Bachelorette Party!

Well I have had a week to recover from one of the best weekends ever! Last Thursday, Beth and Aimee came to town to start off the weekend of festivities for my Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party! It was so great to have my 2 best friends in town to spend time with, I miss them so much! The shower was a 50's housewife theme and we got into it! We all wore 50's style dresses, had 50 style decorations and Colleen, Zach's Mom, got the cutest 50's style theme cake by the lady who is doing our wedding cake. The girls even put together goodie bags for each guest to take home equipt with things every good housewife should have, such as rules for being a good housewife, a spatula, cleaning gloves, a manicure set and a comb. One of the best parts of the weekend was that Zach's Aunt Kim came and suprised me for my shower! She came over to our house Friday night with Zach's cousins Benjamin and Blake and I was so happy we got to see them! Zach and I also were really lucky and received some wonderful gifts!! My 2 favorites though were a quilt my mom made for me and Zach. She worked so hard on it and wrote the best note to explain the colors on the quilt and even has our name and our wedding date on one of the squares, it meant so much to me that my mom would put so much time into that for us!! Also, I receieved my "Drager Ring" All the ladies in the Drager family have a ring that they all wear and Colleen gave me mine and even though Zach and I aren't getting married for a month, I feel like an official Drager when I wear it!

The next part of the day was my bachelorette party, and the girls did good! We got a hotel room at the Hilton in downtown Charlotte and had fun getting ready, then we met my mom, Zach's Mom, Aunt Kim and my Aunt Faye for dinner at Rock Bottom. Throughout the evening the girls had a bag of "dares" that I had to do and one from the picture above is that I had to find a guy to practice walking down the aisle with. Luckily we had a great waiter at dinner who was willing to participate! After dinner, we went out for a girls night in Charlotte and it was so great to go out with my best friends and just have a fun night!! Last weekend made me realize how lucky I am to have such wondeful friends and family who made last weekend so special for me and I am so thankful to all of them!!

Spa Day!!

This past Tuesday Colleen took me and Erin to a spa in Asheville called the Grove Park Inn and boy was it nice!! We had massages first then had the rest of the day to relax around the pools. The outside pool was beautiful and overlooked the mountains, the indoor pools had music under the water and there was a steam room with a temperature of 140 degrees! The pictures above are all from the Grove Park Inn, the actual Inn itself is just beautiful! We had such a fun day and topped it off with a stop at Coldstone on the way home!

This next week is one I have had circled on my calendar for a long time, next Saturday is my bridal shower and bachelorette party! My best friends Aimee and Beth are getting in on Thursday and my mom and Aunt are getting here on Friday! I am looking forward to a fun girls weekend!

2 months away!

2 months from tomorrow I will be a Drager!! Things around here have been good, we took a break from wedding things after we sent the invites out and got the rest of the inside of the house painted. Also, back on July 27th, we celebrated Bella's 4th Birthday, as you can see above, me and Diesel threw her a party and unfortunately Zach was gone at work so he missed it.

We also have been using our grill every weekend and Zach is quite the grill master :) We made ribs, grilled pita with hummus, grilled potatoes and a nice salad for dinner last night. Now you may look at the photo above and say "wow, Zach and Jaclyn must have had people over for dinner" Nope! If you know anything about the Drager's its that they like good food, make amazing meals and have PLENTY of food! Zach has of course inherited that trait and I am reaping the benefits (plus having to do additional workouts! :)) Today Zach also decided to start canning. Now this is a new process to me as he likes to call me "city girl" I must admit, I was kinda grossed out by his canning process, mainly because I don't like okra and putting a hard boiled egg in a can just looks gross. Zach however was in heaven canning for over an hour in the kitchen! Well Zach's off again tonight to TN and right now Diesel is looking at me with his ball in his mouth so I better go play with him outside :)

Wedding Invitations, 2nd Anniversary, House Projects, Oh My!

We finally got our wedding invitations out in the mail this past Friday (picture above), so be on the lookout! Now that those are out, I will work on our programs and candy bags for the candy bar (my mom ordered 81 POUNDS of candy for the candy bar!! She is the best!). Also, one of the things I love about Zach is that he always wants to work on something around the house. I love that he always wants to work so hard for us and better our house, but I think right now with all the wedding stuff we are working on might not be the best time to repaint the inside of our house. Well we decided to do it anyways and decided to do the wall with the fireplace a dark color (picture above) and we are doing the other walls a lighter color. Now that we've started I'm really glad we did do it and we had a fun day today figuring out paint colors and then actually painting. Although Diesel and Bella are completely confused as to why our furniture is all pushed to the middle of the room and they can't get to their spots on the couch. Also today, August 1st is our 2 year anniversary! Zach got me the best present, a soft serve icecream machine!! We used it tonight and it was so delicious!! Zach said he'd never seen me so happy, I told him he could have saved himself alot of money and just bought me this machine instead of a ring! :)

Just kidding, I'm glad he got me that ring, I can't believe that 2 years ago I got so lucky to have Zach ask me out on a date and now we are 2 months away from being married!!

Summer Fun

Zach and I just got back a couple days ago from our MI trip, it was a blast! We got to visit with all of Zach's family and friends and I even got to meet Zach's 2 uncles that I hadn't gotten to meet yet so that was really nice. A highlight of our trip was my first Apple Fritter from Erie Orchard. Is it sad that I am still thinking about that apple fritter? It was just SO good! Diesel did really good on the trip, he was FANTASTIC in the car rides, on the way home it took 15 hours and he was just perfect! The picture of him above is him exhausted from playing so much on our trip :)
Zach's cousins Amber and Leigh are in town right now and yesterday we went up to the mountains with Colleen and visted Grandfather Mountain. The picture above is of us in the park on the way to the top of the mountain. Once we got to the top it was so windy and there is a bridge you have to walk across, well we got to the other side and it started to rain on us! Luckily the rain didn't last long and it ended up to be a beautiful day. We then took them to the candy store at the Mass General store, although Colleen and I were the only two that got bags of candy, imagine that! :)
The last picture above is all the veggies I picked from our garden tonight!! We are having Erin up for Leigh and Amber's last night on Friday night and I think we are going to make homemade pizza with all our veggies, yum!
In wedding news, I'm going Saturday for a practice run on my hair, I haven't decided how I want it yet but I'm excited to go see what they can do with it! Also, our invitations have arrived! Be on the lookout for them around the beginning of August!

Wedding Planning is in FULL force!

My mom came up to visit us over the long 4th of July weekend and we went full force into wedding planning! Even Zach got into it, you can see him and my mom in one of pictures above at the event rental place talking over our centerpieces. I have to give him credit, he has had some really good decorating ideas and even came up with one of our centerpieces! My mom, what a trooper! I'm seriously not kidding when I say she should be a wedding planner, we got so much accomplished when she was here, we both feel alot better and prepared for the big day that is less than 3 months away!!! We did fit in a little non-wedding events and the one picture above is of Diesel watching fireworks. We met my brother and his girlfriend Sarah down near Lake Norman and watched a good show. Diesel did good, the finale kinda freaked him out since it was so loud though. The other picture above was of him getting a bath the day his grandma came to visit, he likes to look his best when we have company! This Thursday Zach, Diesel and I are going to go up to Michigan!! I am so excited to get to visit with Zach's Grandparents and the rest of his family up there!! We will stay until Monday and that is gonna be our last trip until our honeymoon so we are ready!! Check back after next weekend and I'm sure I'll have some good pictures to post from our trip!

Summer is here!

Summer is here and we have 109 days until our wedding! My mom is coming to visit next week and boy is she in wedding planning mode! She has always been a very organized person and on top of all the little details and it is coming in so handy for this wedding! I think she should open a wedding planning business on the side! The photos above are from Zach and I at our friends Taylor and Megean's wedding this past weekend, it was an outdoor wedding and it was hot! It was a beautiful wedding though and it got me very excited for ours! The other picture is of our first squash and jalapenos from our garden! Zach grilled the squash and it was so good! I love seeing how excited he gets about his garden. He will go outside for usually 20-30 min. just looking at the garden. Pretty soon we will have habaneros, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, peppers, and more squash and jalapenos! Well that's all for now, Diesel is sitting here at my side with his ball in his mouth waiting to go play, he is the boss!

Taste of Charlotte

This past week Zach has been away on his fishing trip and things around here have been pretty quiet. He got back yesterday and we decided to go downtown Charlotte to the Taste of Charlotte, where there are tons of food vendors and craft booths all along one of the main streets. It was packed and about 95 degrees so we were hot but still had a great time! Now its back to "normal" for us. Zach has to leave this afternoon to get back to TN. I'm not looking forward to it but thankfully he gets a long weekend next weekend and we are off to Chapel Hill for our friends' wedding! Some good news, in an earlier post I had talked about having to kennel Diesel when we go away next weekend but my awesome brother offered to let Diesel stay with him since he will be in town now, thank you Gene!!!