We had our engagement party the last weekend of January. It was fabulous. Over and above any expectations that I had. On Thursday, my mother drove up from Blacksburg. She came and picked me up from work and we went to the Hilton Lounge and had drinks. An amazing "Your Dad's Cosmo", maker's mark turned into a martini. Yum. There were off and on snow showers going on and my brother's flight from Chicago kept getting delayed. Eventually he landed and we were able to go pick him up at Dulles.
That night, Justin, Douglas, mom and I went and ate at the yummy Italian Cafe. Mom and Douglas were staying at the Hilton, so they went back there for the night and planned on going to museums the next day.
Friday was normal, the same 4 as the night before met up and went to dinner at McCormick and Schmidt's where I had delicious Ahi Tuna barely seared. After dinner, Justin and I went back to our house to wait for Will, Becky and little Michael to arrive. They hadn't left until much later than planned and got there around 11:00, which ended up equaling a night of hell for all of us. Finally when we went to sleep, Mike slept for like an hour and then proceeded to cry and scream all night long. None of us slept more than like 60 minutes total.
In the morning I went to the gym to go swimming and thought I may fall asleep and drown.Mom and I decided to go to Udvar Hazy museum on Saturday. By the time we eventually made it out there (way too many errands that we tried to squeeze in), we decided that 2 hours was too little time and I was too exhausted, so we instead went on to Leesburg, did a little shopping at the outlet mall and then checked into our hotel rooms. My first thought was to sleep and I got a nice 1.5 hour nap in.
I went on to the party with mom, where emotions got a little thick on the road out thinking about Dad not being there, but we survived. The Gorman's house was AMAZING. They had gotten ice sculptures, one said Alan & Justin and then a VT underneath it. Then they had 5 blocks of ice (hundreds of pounds) that were there for the party to carve...incredible. There was all sorts of great food, but I stuck to the raw oysters, which I didn't think I could eat enough of. A majority of Justin's family was there and I had 2 of my brother's and my mom, but to make up for the missing people there were a TON of blacksburg friends there, which made the party so memorable. Friends of Justin and I's from college that lived in the DC area came out....we were so flattered.
We opened gifts, had AMAZING cake and received toast. It was fabulous and so perfect.The next morning we all met up and had brunch at the Gorman's Country Club and then took Douglas back to the airport.
It was such a perfect weekend. The only thoughts that I remained with at the end was how fast it all went.....and I know the wedding will go that faster or faster too. There are times that I wish I could put life on slow motion.

I had a bachelorette party Saturday night that was such a blast. I'll write a few more details and maybe include a few PG rated photos later on. Lets just put it this way...I watched the Super Bowl last night at our house without drinking a single beer....I just wouldn't have been able to handle it.