one week!

I can't believe we are one week away from the wedding... that is crazy! I must say, Ryan and I are so excited to see you all and so excited for this day! We have one other thing to celebrate before though... Ryan's graduation from Med School! This is so exciting because he has worked so hard to get to this point so we are so excited to celebrate him graduating this Sunday. I'm heading to Erie, PA with his family early Saturday morning to get the grand tour of Erie and hang out then graduation on Sunday.

After we celebrate that, we are off to get married! We will both get up to charlevoix at some point on Wednesday of next week. If you get up there early, please let us know! We would love to see as many of you as we can. We wanted to extend the invite to everyone... Thursday after the rehearsal dinner a bunch of us will be heading out to a casino in Petosky. It's a brand new one up there so it's still in good condition. We would love for anyone to come and hang out that would like to! We just thought it would be fun and different. I have never been to one before so i'm excited just to see what it's like!

We know our time is limited with all of you over the wedding so we are trying to think of fun things to do while we are all there and anyone can join that would like to. We would LOVE to get to spend more time hanging out with you other than just the day of the wedding!

Love to you all and we can't wait to see you next weekend!

A picture of the house!

I have been so awful lately with my time management and motivation. As if the date of my last posting doesn't communicate that!

Sometimes I feel like so much is going on and I can't even get a grasp on my life... I can't remember the last time I talked to people let alone remember what I last told them. Then, when it comes around to filling people in and actually catching up, I almost have nothing to say. So many little things are happening right now to achieve the BIG things... If I told everyone the little things, I feel like I would never hear myself stop talking. And if you know what I mean at all, you know that sometimes it's exhausting to recap everything over and over.


Right now, I feel like my life is on high speed with moments of complete silence. For instance tonight... I got home from work around 6:00 after I walked up the massive hill, which isn't so massive anymore... Ate some breakfast food for dinner and then watched the movie "The Queen". Which was very fascinating! This whole evening though has been one big night of solitude. I really appreciate those nights sometimes but now I have had too many and I'm just craving people!

I fell asleep on my couch watching a dog show on the Animal Planet... Very fascinating as well that people are so meticulous about the way the dog's hair is cut. That is an art in itself. I wondered if those dogs ever just want to flip out that someone keeps putting there fingers all up in their teeth and yanking them by their tails to pick them up.

Ryan has been up in Indianapolis for the past month finishing his rotations up there. I know he was so excited to get out of Philly and be back in the midwest and get to spend some time with his family! For those of you who haven't heard, we bought a house! We bought a condo in the beavercreek section of Dayton, Ohio and are so excited! I'm actually moving into it this weekend! Tomorrow Ryan flies in and we pack up the truck and head on out!

Philadelphia has been fun... I've always wanted to live in a big city and now I know what it's like. It has its good things and of course it's bad... But all in all, I really wouldn't trade it for the world! I know if I wouldn't have moved here I would always wonder what it would be like to really take that step out and move to where I knew no one and to the 6th largest city at that! Ryan and I have had an amazing time living in the same place for once and we are so excited about starting over yet again in Dayton. BUT, this time, we know it will be our home for 3 years! This will be the longest amount of time Ryan and I have lived in one city since college. We just want to have a home and stability.

I am posting a picture of the outside of our condo. We are SO excited about this and can't wait to have all our friends and family come and stay with us! You are all welcome at any time! The next time I write (who knows how long that will be :) ), I'll be writing from the good ole state of OH-IO! I can't wait to be back in buckeye country again! (Ryan's rolling his eyes right now because he is a Penn State fan)...




we love our yellow fire hydrant!

Updates!

I know a lot of you have received the invitations... At least I hope you guys have! I sent them out a while ago. So much is going on right now for both Ryan and I, it's been a little crazy!

We finally figured out where Ryan has got his residency at! We will be living in Dayton, Ohio in a month or two! We found out this morning and we are both very excited to be moving back to the midwest and all the opportunities that come with Dayton. The program Ryan is in there will be a 3 year program so we know where we will be for the next couple of years. I know Ryan is very excited about having a home, instead of moving around every month to a new hospital and living with everything packed in his car!

I don't know how much longer we will both be in Philly... We have started the house/condo search and hope to have something solidified in a month! Crazy, I know... I think we can do it though!

Other than that, wedding plans are coming along really well. I can't believe that we are almost 2 months away! I wanted to give all of you a heads up on booking rooms up in Charlevoix. I just found out that our wedding weekend is the first ever Renaissance Festival up there. They have no idea what the turn out will be like but it would be best for everyone to book thier hotels as soon as possible. Like I said earlier, if you need any help at all, please let me know!

We have been getting back response cards and I'm so excited for those of you who are able to make it! Ryan and I are telling everyone who is making the treck up to the wedding, NO GIFTS! We know how expensive it is for you to come and join us and we are so thankful for that! Please do not feel like you need to bring a gift... We just want you there with us to celebrate!

So with all that being said, these next two months will be crazy and busy for us and we will really be looking forward to time with all our friends at the wedding and then ditching all of you to go lay on the white beaches of St. Lucia for a week before we come back to reality! Sorry we can't all go!

Anyways, I'm going to try to update this thing more often with any wedding info or just stuff that is going on with us. We are so excited to know what city we will be calling our first home and hope that all of you can make it out to visit us at least once in our new place!

Save our date!

I'm assuming if you are checking this for the first time you have just received our save the date cards! We couldn't be more excited that our wedding is only 4 and a half months away! We are hoping that you all will be able to make it. It is a friday wedding and is in Charlevoix, MI which is about 4 hours north of Detroit. Ryan and I know this is a hike for almost everyone, including us, but we would be honored if you could make it.

We will be sending out invitations in the next month or two and in there will be your RSVP card and all that. If you know right away you can't make it, you can let us know... If you know you definitely can, you might want to look at some of the options we found for sleeping accomodations. Charlevoix is a resort town so we are all assuming that the month of June will be full in no time and considering there is probably a wedding at our location on the saturday of our wedding weekend rooms will go fast. So think ahead if you can!

Mine and Ryan's family will be staying at a place called:
The Stafford's Bay View Inn. This is a bed and breakfast in Petosky, MI and is only 20 minutes from the wedding location. We would love for as many people stay here that want to! It's a beautiful B&B right on the water and in a great little town. All the rooms are gorgeous, not cheesy or chinsy at all! Here is their website... They only let us block 5 rooms at time but you can say you are with the Pepper/Bence party and they will extend our need for rooms as they fill up.

Stafford's Bay View Inn
www.staffords.com
Po Box 657, 2011 Woodland Ave.
Petoskey, Michigan 49770
1800-258-1886 or 231-347-2771
bayview@staffords.com

Other options are:
The Americ Inn, Charlevoix, MI
Charlevoix Inn & Suites
Points North

If you want to see how far hotels are from the wedding, here is the wedding's address:
Castle Farms
5052 M-66 North
Charlevoix, Michigan 49720

We haven't set up any room blocks anywhere other than the B&B bc we didn't know when people would come and where they would want to stay. If you need any help at all with names for places to say, PLEASE call me or email me!

aubreypepper@yahoo.com

Love to you all and we can't wait and hope to see you all in June!

Where will we be?!?!?

Most of you know that Ryan is about to graduate from med school on June 1st... (yes, the wedding is June 6, so this will be a crazy time for us!) I came to Philly thinking that this is where we would be for his residency. Which is still true, we may be here in Philly for the first four years. BUT, as we have been living here we are more and more wanting to move back to the midwest. Which is really exciting! Right now this whole residency process is really overwhelming for the both of us, but especially Ryan. He has been going on interview after interview in all different places!

We could end up in:
Dayton
Toledo
Indianapolis
Philadelphia
Augusta, GA
Conneticut
Syracuse
Rochester
Just to name a few!

He has been traveling all over interviewing and so far, they have been going really well! We won't know where we will end up until the middle of March. Which is when it will get really crazy because we will be finishing up wedding plans while possibly looking to move again! (you're prayers and support are SO welcomed! hahaha)

Of course we have our number 1 and number 2 choices of living but it is so impossible to tell where we will get matched up at. It's a pretty complicated, computerized process!

Other than that, things are well... It's the beginning of winter here and it's pretty brutal. Not so much snow as it is wind and freezing out! I'm going to post a picture of our first christmas tree later as well... Ryan lives about a half mile away from me and we don't have too much cash flow right now so I had to get creative, which I'm pretty proud of, not gonna lie. So I look forward to sharing that with you all!

Anyways, Ryan is watching some football, so I think I will go and join... Colt's play tonight!!!! And it's actually televised out here this week!

ENGAGEMENT PICTURES!

Okay, so Ryan and I finally got our engagment pictures done! I shouldn't say finally, because we actually got them done pretty quickly since we have only been engaged for 2 months! Shelly Valentine (our wedding photographer) flew out here to Philly and shot our pictures for us. Most of you know, shelly is also one of my best friends so it was so much fun!

If you want to see them, go to her blog:
http://shellyvalentine.blogspot.com/

I won't have posted them on this site until I buy the CD of all the proofs... Hopefully that will be sooner than later. There are so many more than what she posted but you can get a little taste from her blog!

Hope you like them!

He asked... I said YES!

Some of you have heard our story and some of you have no idea... So here is how we got engaged!

On October 13, Ryan and I left BRIGHT AND EARLY for vacation with his family to the Bahamas! When I say "bright and early" I mean we had a 5:30 flight to catch, which means we were out the door by 3:00 am! haha... But we all were looking forward to getting a little R&R at the beach and his parents had rented a house on the Grand Bahama island at Lucaya Beach. So we definitely had something to look forward to later on that day!

It was our second day there, Sunday, October 14 and we had found this wonderful, little church that we all went to that morning. If I could only explain what this was like, it was an amazing experience actually! This little church of 30 people and only 10 of them were there and that was with the 6 of us included! They were currently meeting at their new building which was not close to being finished but thankfully the overhang outside of the church had a roof on it because the rest of the building hadn't gotten that far! So we sat and had an amazing service... Something I will never forget!

The rest of the day we went exploring a bit... Drove all over the island really... It was such a beautiful night out that night so we all decided to go for a walk on the beach. The house they rented was at a quiet and pretty secluded part of the beach. There was a resort down the way but not many people were there at this time of the year. So about 75% of the time we were the only people on the beach! This night included... After a good walk on the beach looking at the stars his parents decided to go up to the house and grab some towels and a flashlight so we could all sit and look at stars and just be by the ocean.

They came back and were setting up shop down the way so ryan, tammy and aimee and I walked toward them and his mom had "lost" the flashlight. They were goign to retrace their steps to find it and I found it odd that they had only brought down two pretty small towels for 6 people to sit on! haha... They went looking for the flashlight and next thing I know, Ryan and I are just left on the beach. (I'm still clueless at this point)... So Ryan and I are looking for the flashlight by the towels and I see this shell! Keep in mind, it's 11:00 at night and so the only light we are getting is from the moon. "Oh Ryan, I found a really cool shell!" I notice that this particular shell has fishing wire attaced to it and the wire is goiing somewhere else... He comes over to look at it and I say, "Ah... we'll find it tomorrow!" And I threw the shell... I don't even know where I threw it but I just remember thinking.. it's so dark out, he won't be able to see it and we can find it tomorrow if we want. Ryan immediately turns around to look for the shell and steps on a washed up, hard lobster! Which stuck his foot pretty good! I was laughing at this point... He finally finds the shell he was so non-chalantly looking for and starts pulling up the wire that's attached and there is this big black thing on the bottom of it attached! I thought it was a dead fish so I jump back and start telling him to "stop! put it down! put it down ryan!!!" He says no and finally I walk up realizing it's a piece of driftwood attached. He is looking at it really intently and kind of twisting it around and I finally notice something sparkling!

I then realize what is going on and Ryan gets down on one knee and says a bunch of wonderful things that I don't really remember because I was starting to cry and had my hands over my mouth. He had carved "will you marry me" into the piece of driftwood!

So of course, I said yes! And now here we are! Newly engaged and getting married in 8 months! The date is June 6, 2008.... That's a Friday night! We are both really excited about this upcoming year although it will be a busy one filled with a lot of unknowns. We will be getting married up in Charlevoix, MI (4 hours north of detroit) at a place called Castle Farms.

We don't have much done... We know it will be a smaller wedding but it will be a smashing good time! :) The purpose of this blog is to update it with pictures and wedding information that our friends and family will need for the big day! It will give information about Ryan's residency journey too! He graduates from med school on June 1st! We will know where we will be for residency come March, so we may be moving again in June!

I promise the posts to come won't be this long! haha... this was a doozy! This is a documentation of everything for us! As we figure out all kinds of information for the wedding, we will post it here for you all to see!