Wolfforth Bridal Shower

My Mom's friends threw me a Bridal Shower January 17 in Wolfforth. The shower was absolutely amazing and so much fun!

Louann, Jamie, me, Jodie, Jackie, and Debbie

All the YUMMY breakfast food that we had to eat

Time for presents!!! Bailey had to help bring me the gifts!

Hugging my Grammy

My new Nativity Scene

Thank you to everyone who came to my shower! Gregg and I really appreciate all our new gifts! We truely are blessed to have such great friends and family! Thanks for all the support and love that yall have given us and for being a part of this special time in our lives! We love yall!

Bachelorette Party!!!

Saturday, January 10 was my Bachelorette Party! My 3 amazing Bridesmaids organized and threw me the most perfect event and so many of my great friends all came out to celebrate with me! Our day started at Delaney Vineyards where we took a tour of the winery and had a tasting of 8 different Delaney Vineyards wines! It was an absolutely beautiful and very cool to learn that Mr. Delaney is from Lamesa and he graduated from Texas Tech University!

My wonderful girlfriends plus my Mom and cousin Kathy!

Here is a little picture tour of the wine making process.

The vines where the grapes grow

The vats the grapes are put in to begin the wine making process
Barrels where the wine is moved to for the ageing process

The bottling room used by the winery in 1995 when they first opened. Now the wine is shipped back to Lamesa and is bottled at Mr. Delaney's other winery there.

Replica of a French bottling machine used hundreds of years ago.

Big wine barrels used to store wine for further aging

We had a wine tasting after our tour and got to try 8 of the wines that Delaney Vinyards makes

My NNICU friends (Cheryl, Rhyann, Sara, me, Miranda, and Sahar)

After the tour of the winery and wine tasting we went over to The Gaylord Texan and hung out Texan Station until time for our dinner reservation at Ama Lur. Dinner was incredible!!! I had the Chilean Sea Bass and would highly recommend it or the Braised Pork Shank! The Raspberry Pomegranate Mojito was also fantastic!

While at dinner I was surprised with a very cute cake (amaretto flavored because that is my favorite!) and a lingerie shower! It was a little intimidating to open up my lingerie in the middle of the restaurant with lots of people around looking so I had one (or two) more mojitos and then everything was MUCH better!

My final gift was a lovely green flannel zip up gown that my Mom gave me that is SOOO sexy!!!

After dinner we went to the Glass Cactus to go dancing! I had so much fun there, got in quite the leg work-out, and got a little dancing practice in for the wedding! (BIG thanks to Jennifer, Laura, and Sahar for dancing with me and making this part of the evening so much fun!!!)

Getting ready to take a shot the girls bought me

Not so good!!!

Jennifer dancing with the Security Guard

The band that was playing

Laura, me, and Jenn

Work Bridal Shower!

My Work Bridal Shower was yesterday afternoon and it was fantastic! I have absolutely amazing co-workers who are not only great to work with but also great friends! This is such an amazing and special time for me and Gregg and it means the world to me to be able to share it with so many others! Here are a few pictures from the afternoon-

Part of the fantastic Texas Tech themed decor

They even made a Double T out of the soft drinks!

Cake table

Such a beautiful cake!!!

The "Dress Me Up" plate that Raye decorated

Presents!

And more presents!!!

Classic picture with me holding the cake

opening some of my wonderful gifts

Me and Jenn

After the shower was over several of us went to On The Border for dinner and drinks. Gregg even came and met us out! We had a lot of fun talking and laughing! More pictures to come once I get them off Jennifer's camera tomorrow!

Thanks again girls (and Mark, Trevor, and Chris) for throwing me such a wonderful party and for being so incredibly supportive and caring!

Happy New Years!

My wish for YOU in 2009!

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet of $1000 bills!
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and, may laughter assault your lips!
May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy!
May the problems you had forget your home address!
In simple words…

May 2009, be the best year of your life!

Happy New Year! We wish everyone all the best in 2009 and look forward to making many new memories with all of our wonderful friends and family!

Love, Gregg and Chelsey

Christmas at Chelsey's parents

We went to my parents house for lunch on Saturday. Mom had made sausage balls and monkey bread for breakfast which we snacked on while Dad was smoking a ham for lunch. We also had more presents to open! We still do the whole Santa and stocking thing at my parents house which is probably my favorite part! Here are all our stockings laid out on the floor after they were stuffed by Santa.


I love celebrating Christmas at my parents house now that Bailey is in our lives because it is so much fun to watch her open gifts and the excitement and joy that a child brings to Christmas! Gregg and I gave Bailey a new Barbi hand held game that makes her think but is a lot of fun!

Last year we started a new tradition with my parents and their gifts. We all get "Something We Want, Something We Need, Something to Wear, and Something to Read". We all have to open the same type of gift together so that everyone can see what we got. We always get Bowl Game t-shirts (or something else Texas Tech related) for our "Something to Wear" gift. I got a new Jodi Picoult book to read (not even going to attempt starting it till after the wedding!) and Gregg got a cool Fire Department Cook Book! I got a copper drink holder off my Southern Living Registry for my "Something we Need" gift and Gregg got a jalapeno roaster that is in the shape of Texas with a "Double T" cut out of the middle (plus we both got $$$ to put towards the wedding!). Our last gift was both of our favorites. Gregg's "Something we Want" gift was a Metal Fire Pit to go out on our patio and mine was a beautiful stained glass piece that my Mom found for me in Colorado this year (Brandi got one also).

I also got a fantastic new charm for my Pandora bracelet from Seth, Brandi, and Bailey plus a wine glass with wedding rings on it and some cool new bath stuff that I am looking forward to trying out! Gregg got the coolest liquor dispenser from Seth, Brandi, and Bailey that is in the shape of a Fire Hydrant plus a set of glasses to go with it. I love all of our new stuff and can't wait to get our house in order so that we can use it all! Thanks so much to everyone for all the thoughtful gifts! Love yall!!!

Christmas at The Groves' house

Saturday was a long and fun day for Gregg and I! We woke up Saturday morning and had breakfast with Gregg's parents, his older sister Wendi, and her boyfriend Sid. I quickly wrapped all the presents that Gregg and I had brought with us so that we could we could take them with us to my families Christmas parties later.

After breakfast Gregg's younger sister Misti and her husband Cody came over to his parents house along with a dear family friend Freeda to open presents and celebrate some more. We drew names at Thanksgiving to decide who we would buy presents for. I drew Misti's name and Gregg drew his Dad's name. For Misti we bough her a Pandora bracelet with the Angel charm and for Gregg's Dad we gave him a new knife and a cute pair of socks that I found in Colorado this summer that said "My Tractor is bigger than your Tractor"! We also gave his Dad a new Salt and Pepper shaker and a book that Gregg read several months ago about the history of the New York Fire Department (we got the same book for my Dad also).


Cody had drawn my name and so I got a cute night lamp that has a letter G on it and a gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond so that I can buy something off of our registry! Freeda had drawn Gregg's name and she got him a great new tool bag with some new tools in it that Gregg was super excited about!

Christmas and the beginning of our time in Lubbock

Gregg and I had a wonderful Christmas and are so thankful that we were able to spend our holiday with so many wonderful friends and family members again this year!

Gregg spent both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the station working so that we could take the next 5 days off to go to Lubbock. I went up to the station on Christmas Day to enjoy a Family Lunch. Almost all of the guys had their wives and kids their to celebrate with them! We had a good lunch with all the traditional foods plus lots of great desserts that all the wives had brought (I made Sopapilla Cheesecake this year). After lunch I went home to finish packing our bags so that we could head to Lubbock Friday morning.

Friday morning I got up early to pick Gregg up from the station and then we headed to the airport to fly to Lubbock. We had a great flight and when we got to Lubbock my parents were there to see us- making me very happy! (I have to admit that this Christmas was a little hard for me not being at home with my family) I got to hug my Mom and Dad and spend just a few minutes with them before Gregg and I headed to Hale Center with Gregg's sister and brother-in-law.

From Hale Center we all went to Canyon to celebrate with Gregg's Aunt and Uncle and their side of the family. We enjoyed good home made Mexican food and GREAT Margaritas (Thanks Toby!)

The boys making Margaritas

Gregg being quite over dramatic about his brain freeze!

After supper we went into the living room for our "Chinese Christmas Gift Exchange"! Gregg and I ended up with a $25 gift card to Rosa's, a $10 gift card to Bath and Body Works, and a really cool new lunch box that I traded Gregg's Mom a Sonic Gift Card for! The exchange was a lot of fun and I think that everyone liked what they ended up with and had a lot of fun "stealing" gifts from each other! We then sat around and talked and Gregg's family told a lot of stories about Wendi, Gregg and Misti growing up. It was great for me to hear these stories since all but 1 of Gregg's grandparents passed away before Gregg and I started dating. I got quite a laugh out of a couple of the stories that embarrassed Gregg!

Gregg and I taking pictures of ourselves!

Misti (Gregg's younger sister) and her husband Cody with Wendi (Gregg's older sister) and her boyfriend Sid