One Sweet Year!

On March 20, 2010, I married the sweetest, most handsome, most faithful, and perfect-for-me guy in the world, Adam Latham Copeland. I loved our wedding. I liked how I looked, I loved how Adam looked, everyone was smiling at us and wishing us happiness, blue skies and warm weather in March, and people were taking millions of pictures of me! How fabulous is that!!

Here are some images of the day. Rothwell Photography captured all the lovely happiness I felt!
















Adam had his brother take little video shots through the day with a FlipCamera. I had been wanting to put up a few for quite some time, so I figured this was as good a time as any. If you like these, let me know and I'll put up more!

Adam and I dancing our first dance! (Unfortunately, the youtube link won't let the audio through...so, just fyi, we danced to Michael Buble...sorry that YouTube is a big loser.)


And a general look at the back of Cross Keys Vineyards main building and the back lawn with some Shenandoah mountains too...you can see what a gorgeous day it was (sunny, 70s, blue skies--all in March in Virginia). :)


Happy anniversary, Adam! And thanks to all our friends and family who helped make our wedding day and our first year of marriage special.

San Antonio Trip: Day Four

Finally...it's time for some Texas wine and Texas landmarks! I enjoyed meeting people, watching the Spurs, seeing the gardens, etc, but I was absolutely itching to see the Alamo! I'm a weird history-loving person like that. And we went there on day four! Yee-haw! :)

That morning, we drove slightly north of San Antonio to visit some wineries. Our friend Becky came with us, and we had a great time! We went to two wineries (see our Wine Blog when we update it) and then to lunch at Rudy's (Tony Parker and Eva Longoria Parker lunched there!).

The barn that housed Sisterdale Winery! It used to be a cotton gin, but now it produces excellent wine.

Becky and Adam outside Comfort Cellars Winery.

Ahhh, surrounded by wine barrels! :)

Some of the BBQ at Rudy's

Rudy's...it was delicious, despite their catchphrase as the worst BBQ in Texas.

Afterward, Adam and I drove into the center of San Antonio, checked into our beautiful hotel room, relaxed for a teensy bit, and then went to the ALAMO!! YAY! Although you can't take pictures inside, I did enjoy the inside and I learned a lot from the visual aids that they had throughout the Alamo. Granted, it's a little weird to walk across busy streets and see giant skyscrapers all around while you try to imagine what the battle of the Alamo must have ben like. Still, the Alamo delivers.

distance shot of Alamo and the retaining wall

beautiful church of Alamo

I had no idea there were so many beautiful botanicals inside the Alamo (although, to be fair, most of them were only transplanted or planted there in the early 1900s when it became a National landmark).

Live oak tree...the sign said it was grown for 40 years in a town 200 miles away,
transplanted here in 1909, and has flourished ever since.

Me, by the old well by the live oak

One of the best parts of the Alamo was a bit of a surprise. I was looking at a 19th century hospital set-up at the Alamo (spoiler: it looked scary!) and, all of a sudden, there was a posse of Texas rangers right there! Yikes! I thought I was going to get arrested (for being too northern? for mentally calling them all "Walker"? for wearing a skirt in the Alamo?), but they were just there to collect the money from all the collection boxes scattered throughout the Alamo. I kept seeing them all around the place (good for the Alamo...lotso money!), so I snapped a surreptitious picture. You gotta have your fun!

How many Texas rangers does it take to get the collection money?

I wish that I could have taken pictures of the inside of the Alamo because it was really neat. Also, the lay-out was really intriguing. I didn't know the lay-out and how large the original Alamo complex was. The church of it was really just a small part, but it was great to read and understand the whole area. I highly suggest visiting and enjoying if you're ever in Texas. But they did have lovely stonework throughout, and, well, I enjoyed the atmosphere.

One of the sweet arches in the courtyard of the Alamo

pretending to be someone important giving a speech in twangy Texan

cannon-sitting

Adam looks very regal among all the flags

Us outside the ALAMO!

good TX flag in the background

After the Alamo, we had a fantastic happy hour at the hotel, went to a great restaurant for dinner, and explored the Riverwalk. BUT, I'm a little ill and dead tired, so I'll group all of that with the other Riverwalk stuff during my next San Antonio post.

San Antonio Trip: Day Three

Sunday, March 6th was church-n-spurs day!

We woke up, dressed, packed up, and went to Northside Church for the second service. Since we were leaving the Wharton's house, we had to be sure that we had packed everything...and we haven't found that we've lost anything yet! :)

Adam worked as the youth minister for four years (and interned for two summers previous to his job) at Northside. Needless to say, everyone wanted to say hello and meet his wife! I loved watching Adam with his friends, and I loved meeting everyone! I didn't take any pictures because Adam didn't want to pose outside Northside....sorry!

After church and more talking, Adam and I quickly changed into jeans and Spurs shirts. I have a Tony Parker shirt because I SO LOVED he and Eva Longoria Parker, when they were together. (I had a theory that converged the Spurs with Macbeth and it's a wonderous theory...ask me about it if you want to be amazed and a little bit scared.) Anyway, the t-shirt looks good on me, so I kept it. Adam just loves the Spurs, and, since I'm going to be hearing about the Spurs for the rest of my life, I decided last year to embrace the Spurs-love and cheer them on (and root against all other teams)!

We drove to the AT&T Center for the Spurs vs. Lakers game (3/6/11) and waited for about 30 minutes until the doors opened. Pictures were taken, children dressed in Lakers' gear were pitied, sights were seen.

Outside the AT&T Center...some inflatables, lots of people, beautiful sunshine!

The pair of us at AT&T Center!!

My hot Spurs-loving husband

Then we got into the arena and explored all sorts of things before we got food and went to our seats. (The players were warming up, so we got some shots of the court from the lower deck.) The hallways of the arena were spacious, strung with lights, and there was fun memorabilia all over the place. Everything looked really sharp with the Spurs' black-and-white all over the place.

Copelands in the AT&T Center!!

The Championship Cow (from Cows on Parade)

Fun, colorful lights were all throughout the hallways of the arena. Very festive!

David Robinson on a painted backboard for charity

Also, I earned 35 baskets in the 40-second Quick Hoops game (Adam earned 18, but he *said* the balls were slow in coming back to him)! And I am a horrible b-ball player!! Honestly, with my kind of phenomenal luck, I should have known we were in for a weird, almost unnatural afternoon.

Our seats were great. And the food was yummy!

Our view (with my drink providing some perspective)...it was a great view!

Go Spurs Go! We got the noisemakers because we got to the arena so early!

Here are some zoom shots of some of our favorite players, pre-game.

Tim Duncan (#21)

Manu Ginobili (#20)

Rookie James Anderson(#25) with Ginobili and Duncan

And one shot of the Lakers warming up...BOO!

Then, the game started. 2 points to the Spurs, then the Lakers just got all the other points, it seemed. :(

Coach Pop trying to get RJ and the team motivated!

The Spurs cheerleaders were all sorts of raunchy/slutty, so I'm not posting any close-up pictures of them (also, I didn't take any up-close pics of them!). But the whole atmosphere was just sensational and spectacular. Very, very spectacle-focused; I kind of felt like I was a Roman in the Coliseum at times.

Spurs cheerleaders....ummm, the outfits were rather scandalous,
but I was impressed that they could dance in their high-heeled boots.

Beyond that, though, we LOST. WE LOST BADLY. The first quarter we were down by more than 20, and it stayed just as pitiful throughout the whole game. The Lakers couldn't miss a shot, while the Spurs couldn't hit anything. What misery! I was going to count it as a victory if the Spurs got within 15 points for the final score. It ended up being 83-99, so that was a bust too.

Ummm, at least they didn't reach 100?

Final stats. Yep, the Spurs shot 36%.
At one point, the Lakers' shooting percentage was in the 70s. Geez.

Sadness, post game :)

I was pretty sad, and I felt like it was all my fault because I must have been a bad luck charm. Adam tried to convince me otherwise, but I didn't really cheer up until we had some really excellent Persian food and some red wine. After that delicious meal, we went to Adam's friend Becky's house. She was hosting us for the evening and also threw a soiree for all of Adam's non-church San Antonio friends. Lots of good talk and laughter commenced, and it was great to catch up!