Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Wedding Wednesday- Part One

Including today, there are 17 Wednesdays until I marry Cy Robert Sneed! Yes, I am counting. Every day. What can I say, I am excited!! So with that being said, I thought it would be fun to do a series on how the wedding planning process is going thus far.

Today's subject is the basics of planning. Our engagement is 5 months total. In today's world, that is INCREDIBLY fast! Most planning timelines you find in magazines are at least 12 months. Needless to say, planning a wedding in less than half that time can seem like quite the daunting task at first! Thankfully, I have found a few tools that have really made the process simple.

For me, the first step in getting things done was getting organized. My sweet employers gave me this wedding planner by Erin Condren and it is incredible! It is very comprehensive and is packed full of check lists to keep everything on track and in one place. And its adorable so there's that too.



One day by miracle of all miracles, I came across the fabulous Karley Kiker on twitter. Karley is a Dallas girl who planned her own destination wedding in 4.5 months, and she recently published Hitched in a Hurry: The Ultimate How-To for a Speedy "I Do.  This book is amazing, it takes the timelines you find in magazines and condenses everything into a 6 month or shorter timeline! Hitched in a Hurry is not only full of all kinds of tips to make a speedy engagement a breeze, but also keeps the perspective that while the wedding is fun, it's the MARRIAGE that is truly the focus. If you are getting hitched in a hurry, you need this book. I'll even give you my copy. Seriously. You can find her website here!


Last but certainly not least is the book I keep turning to- A Christ-Centered Wedding by mother-daughter duo Catherine Parks and Lisa Strode. This book is "a guide to believers who want their wedding to portray the relationship of Christ with the church and to reflect the gospel to all in attendance emphasizing the sacrificial love of the Savior more than the modern world’s idealistic view of romantic love." It gives practical advice to keep your focus on what truly matters for every aspect of planning a wedding. Cy and I really want the gospel to be evident in our wedding, and this book has been invaluable to me in planning for that. My copy is dog-eared and worn, and I will be recommending it to all of my friends for sure!




Ta-da! These three things have been incredibly helpful to me in the planning process, so if you are engaged or will be one day, keep these in mind! Wedding planning has been pretty stress-free for the most part for me thus far, and I am loving this fun season of life!  Stay tuned for the next installment in this series to see what else is going on in my little wedding-planning world ;)

Until next time, 
Hannah


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Monday, July 21, 2014

Alaska Recap

Hi Friends!

I just returned to good ol' Dallas after a short but sweet trip to visit my family in Kenai, Alaska. It's crazy to think that next time I go to AK Cy and I will be married! I am so thankful for some time to relax and enjoy time with my family during this busy engagement season.

On my Seattle-Anchorage flight I sat next to sweet Geri, she was flying to Anchorage for her daughters wedding and we became fast friends!

 The little plane from Anchorage to Kenai :)


4th of July Parade - I swear Haley does love America.

 The absolute greatest coffee known to mankind. 


OOTD: Fishing style.


I also had my first bridal shower while I was home! My best friend & bridesmaid Courtney did a fabulous job putting it together, and I am so thankful for the sweet friends who came and celebrated! My sweet friend Kierra gave me the adorable Brewers bracelet above, made by MiLB wife Chelsea Carroll Design










 Alaska Missions has a project called "Salmon Frenzy" each year, many people from the South fly up to give free food and lead worship services for the thousands of people that come to the Kenai beach to dip-net each summer. My friend and Cy's teammate/roommate Jay's dad came up this summer, it was great to hang with him! He joined our fam for a baseball game too, it was so fun.



I also celebrated my 22nd birthday last week with this amaaazzzingggg dinner :)

My parents beautiful back yard. My dad (the engineer) designed those chairs himself and is in the process of finishing a green house.

My parents live just up the road from the beautiful Kenai River. We took a little bike ride down to see how the fishing was doing.




I am so thankful to have grown up in such a beautiful place! Hopefully Cy and I will be up sometime this winter.

Until next time,
Hannah

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Cy- A Day In the Life of a Minor Leaguer


 Today Cy is taking over the blog to share what an average day looks like for him. Hope you enjoy! 

A Day in the Life of a Minor Leaguer
As sunlight streams through the windows of my room early each morning, I continue to toss and turn on my mildly uncomfortable and very tiny bed. It has a single sheet that always seems to get bunched up, and a Tweety Bird blanket that I actually really like.  The bed is only about an inch longer than I am and too narrow for anybody over the age of 7, but it works.  I doze into a light sleep and wake up periodically for the next couple of hours before I finally get out of bed. I live with a host family and three other players from my team- one is an outfielder from the University of Kansas (we share a room), and the other two are from the Dominican Republic. 
I send my fiancĂ© a good morning text, throw on some shorts, brush my teeth, and start the day.  Breakfast can vary day to day, anything from a small bowl of cereal and a doughnut to a full blown breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon made by the host family.  After eating, I head back to my room and check my email, turn on the next episode of House, M.D, and start looking at trucks, baseball stats, and hunting stuff online. I am currently searching for a truck to buy, but I am very particular so I rarely find anything worth much attention.  If anybody would like to donate to the “New Truck for Cy Sneed Fund” please contact me immediately.
Around noon I go grab a sandwich and start getting ready to head to the field.  I toss on a collared shirt and jeans (we are required to wear collared shirts for anything work related) and go hop into my roommates 2014 Chevy Silverado 1500 LT double cab, it’s brand new and it smells GREAT every day when I get in.  We drive the 15 minutes to the field and then head into the clubhouse.  We usually get there around 1:15 and I twiddle my thumbs until 2:45 when I have to go out and stretch with the rest of the pitchers, aka 2nd worst part of the day.  After we stretch we go through our throwing program, which is basically just playing catch.  I play catch with a guy named Brandon every day, he went to school at Mississippi State and is “just a good ole boy from Mississippi” (said in very southern drawl).  After playing catch it’s time to condition- aka the worst part of the day.  Conditioning isn’t awful, but running in general is just never ever fun or enjoyable.  After conditioning I head back into the clubhouse and sit there for 30 minutes or more and wait for BP (Batting Practice) to start.  During BP, pitchers get to pick up the balls that are hit out to us, called “shagging”. Shagging BP isn’t a low or a high point of the day, it just is what it is- usually full of shooting the breeze with the other pitchers and tossing in a few balls that are hit at the group I happen to be standing with on that day. 
When BP is over it’s back to the clubhouse where there is a post BP spread which can be anything from grilled chicken breasts to PB&J’s.  Everyone hangs out in the clubhouse for over an hour and reads, snacks, plays cards, drinks coffee and/or messes around in the training room until it’s time to head out to the game.  This is arguably the most boring part of the day seeing as I am not much of a reader, I don’t know how to play many card games and the coffee doesn’t help me sit still.  The position players leave to go stretch before the pitchers have to go out for the game, so that means that there is more time for doing nothing... which every minor league pitcher will tell you they have mastered.  Before the game we usually have to go out and catch first pitches for kids who are good readers at their school or do some other great thing that gets celebrated by coming to the local professional baseball game. The community is pretty involved, which is cool. 
As a pitcher I only throw in games about every 5 days, so most of the time I sit in the dugout and sometimes I go sit in the bullpen.  I always said I would never enjoy hanging out in the pen but I have started to come around.  The conversation down there consists of anything from how much we make an hour (we have figured out it’s somewhere around $2 an hour) to practical jokes people want to play at the local fast food drive through.  Usually the conversation has nothing to do with baseball but on rare occasions we do spend hours discussing pitching, mechanics, and mentalities.  We act like children in the bullpen; playing stupid games, throwing dirt clods at each other, and basically reverting back to the age of 7 where almost everything is funny.
After the game we head into the clubhouse, the coaches talk to us about the game and then we shower and eat.  The food is usually pretty good, but quantity isn’t its greatest strength.  When I finish eating I head out of the clubhouse and give Hannah a call.  I haven’t talked to her since I got to the field earlier in the day because the Brewers have a no phones policy while you are at the field, so those 15 minutes of talking are  much needed, even though she is usually sleepy since it is pretty late by then.  When all the roommates are ready to go, we hop back in the truck and head home.  When we get there I usually get on my laptop for a little while and unwind.  Then its time for bed, I crawl back on my tiny mattress (which is part of a bunk bed, I forgot to mention that before). Then I open up my One Year Bible and read what it has marked out for that day.  After I finish that, I say goodnight to Hannah and try to go to sleep.  Before I drift off to sleep, I think about how today makes it one day closer to the ultimate goal of making it to the show and playing in the big leagues, and it also makes it one day closer to November 7th aka wedding day(!!!!).  

That is pretty much an average day in the life- it’s full of waiting around and can sometimes feel like you’re getting almost nothing for your time. It's full of totally different people, all sorts of snack food, green grass, new gloves, low seamed baseballs, and little kids who think were heroes because we get to suit up and play ball every day.  It’s not very glamorous, but it’s my life and I’m thankful for the opportunity to live my dream every day.


For  more info on Cy's team," like" the Helena Brewers Baseball Club on Facebook :)
Until next time,
Hannah