Only 5 weeks to go!

We're getting married in almost a month!!

It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't posted much on here, but lots of interesting things have been happening and I've even cooked a little! Since I'm catching up, this is kind of a long one :)

So to start there was that whole earthquake/hurricane thing which pretty much blew that whole week for me. The earthquake was centered about 20 miles west of our house which means things got shaken up pretty badly (including our cats who were not amused!) but luckily nothing in the house was damaged or broken.

At that point in the week I was already glued to the Weather Channel as they were predicting Irene to make landfall ON TOP OF our wedding venue.

I also have friends and family who were in the direct path of the storm and it did end up making a pretty big impact here in Richmond, a lot of residents were without power for almost a week. Again, we we're lucky because we live west of Richmond and I found out we're on one of the only other (I think?) power companies in Virginia, Rappahannock Electric versus Dominion Power,  so when our power went out it was only out for a very short time.

Our wedding venue was not damaged in the storm, Ocracoke itself didn't have any major damage really. The roads down there on the other hand....

Yeah, so there's that.

We're a little worried that the roads won't be fixed by the wedding which means we'll have to re-route all of our guests and the ferry ride that would have been 45 minutes will now be 2.5 hours. I would hate to make everyone do that so we're keeping our fingers crossed! Last we heard, they expect temporary roads to be open two weeks before our wedding so they would at least be drive-able.

The biggest things we've accomplished wedding wise are that we picked out our wedding bands, I got the flower accessory I'll be wearing in my hair, picked out jewelry for the bridesmaids and made a decision on the ties for the groomsmen.

The groomsmens' ties have been sort of an issue for us. We've known which tie Ty was going to wear (that's fun to say :P ), it's one he actually bought last year to wear to the Pink Tie Gala (he ended up wearing a different one to the event) and it happens to match our wedding colors. Plus, it has a little pink Komen ribbon on the bottom which is really cute :)

The problem is, they've discontinued that style of tie. I haven't been able to find any in the purple/fuchsia color of his tie but we did find the same style in navy blue, which happens to be the color of the bridesmaids dresses! So we have 3 of the navy blue ties so far and I'm on the lookout for 3 more, then we'll be all set.

This past weekend was jam packed with all sorts of fun things. Saturday morning I was up bright and early to meet Brittany and Stephanie for an outdoor yoga event called Salutation Nation:

I borrowed this picture from Brittany :)

Other than the very wet grass, we had perfect weather and it felt great to get out in the fresh air and do a little yoga! The event was hosted by Lululemon so after wards Brittany and I made a bee line for their store at Short Pump and I made my very first Lululemon purchase: the 50 Rep Sports Bra. Lululemon is know for being expensive, especially considering you wear their clothes to get crazy sweaty in, but I can officially say I get it now. That sports bra is incredibly comfortable and definitely worth it!

After the shopping spree I met up with my sister for a little pampering (we got mani/pedis) and then we met up with one of my bridesmaids, Becca, for lunch. Then it was back home to get ready for....my bridal shower!!

It was so much fun, we had beautiful weather and my aunt hosted it at her boyfriend's house which has an awesome backyard. Perfect for hanging out, sipping cocktails :)

I got a ton of great gifts and felt very loved :)

As if the day couldn't get any better, I capped it off with this:

My sister, dad and I FINALLY got to the theater to watch Harry Potter. It was totally worth it to see it on the big screen!

On the cooking front, things have been going pretty well too. Two weekends ago I made a really great Mediterranean Orzo Salad based off of Brittany's recipe for a big group of people. I'd never made a dish for 20 people so I was really nervous, but it was a huge hit! And the leftovers were even better for lunch the next day.

I actually did have time over the past few weeks to blog but couldn't really figure out what I wanted to say. I've had quite a few people point out to me that now that I "can" cook for the most part, they think I should change my blog name. I see their point but I happen to really like my blog name :) and I feel like even though I'm more comfortable in the kitchen now, it took a long time, a lot of hard work, and more than a few bottles of wine for me to get here and to me, my blog name represents that part of the journey.

I know a few bloggers have changed names, or even changed their blogs completely for various reasons, and I think I'll probably be posting more than just my attempted cooking adventures on here, but I think I want to stay Jess Can't Cook.

What do you think? Should I change blog names or stay the same?