Our Mini-Moon

Since we have such a big honeymoon planned in a few months we decided that we would not take a long vacation after the wedding.  Instead we decided to explore an area of Virginia that we have been admiring from a distance for the last 9 years.  Everytime we drive to and from Tennessee we pass through Natural Bridge Virginia on route 81.  This area is one of the most beautiful areas along route 81 and also the halfway point between our house in Pennsylvania and my grandmothers house in Tennessee.  It is such a nice area that we have often joked about moving to this area so that we would be halfway between both locations. 

These first few photos are the view that we see along the road on route 81 everytime we travel to and from Tennessee.  The pictures do not do it justice it is a beautiful area.

One of the first places we visited during our stay in Natural Bridge were the caverns near the natural bridge.  The pictures below are just a few of the pictures we took while underground.

 

 

Kurt pretending to fish in the undergound pond in the cavern. :)

Some of these rocks were so cool looking.....

Others looked..........well what do you think this looks like??

And these??  Kurt had some fun with this one LOL

Overall we really enjoyed the caverns.  Even with the bats.

Our next stop in our journey was an antique toy museum but we didn't take many picture.

Afterwards we went to visit their butterfly habitat.  Lots of pictures from this one.  Kurt really liked the butterflies.

 

 

 Finally we made our way down to the Natural Bridge to explore this beautiful area that God Created.  It was a long hike down and then once you walk under the bridge there is a long trail that you can follow one way leads to a beautiful waterfall and the other way leads to a display from the indian tribes that were local to that area.

 

The Natural Bridge area is a beautiful area that everyone should visit.

 

 

 Finally we stopped at this great little mexican resturant on our way out of town I loved their decorations.  Especially the tables!!

 



On Our way to the Wedding :)

I am so excited that I cannot contain myself.  Our van is packed and by this time tomorrow we will be on our way to Tennessee for the wedding.  After months of DIY projects and making decisions about flowers, dresses, food, and more it is finally here.  Amazingly I think Kurt is as excited as I am :)  by this time next week we will be on our way home as a married couple.  A special thank you goes out to all of those who have helped us put together a wedding in less than 5 months.  Jackie (our unofficial and unpaid wedding planner) & Sasha (the best matron of honor a girl could ask for) who have both been important throughout the entire planning process.  Dawn & Stefanie for their help with the wedding invites.  Brittany for helping with the bridesmaids dresses.  Amy for her constant motivation and moral support.  Julie for her daily help with projects and ideas.  In less than a week I will be married.!!!!!!!

Salsa :) Wedding Favors

Where in the world did we get the idea to make Salsa as wedding favors??  Well we decided to plant a garden this year. So we went out and bought all kinds of plants: Strawberry, Lettuce, Potato, Tomato, Green Pepper, Jalapeno pepper, Cucumbers, Carrots, & Peas.  Clearly we went overboard.  We had a large garden (mostly full of tomatoes) then we had buckets along the side for potatoes, carrots, and a box of seeds in potting soil.  Before we knew it we had loads of green tomatoes. 

One night Kurt & I were sitting at home talking about a variety of topics and at one point we started talking about our wedding favors and came up with nothing good.  We then moved on and later began talking about our garden and I asked the question.

"what in the world are we going to do with all of those tomatoes" without thinking about it Kurt said "lets make salsa!"  And a wedding favor was born!

Salsa is actually really easy to make.  First we washed all the tomatoes and removed and spots. 

After the spots are removed you place the tomato's in to a pot of boiling water (roaring boil).  Leave them for three minutes and then remove.  The skins slide right off. 

Once you remove the skin you try to remove as many of the tomato seeds as you can.....this part takes a long time!

Before we removed the seeds!

We did not do as good with this as we probably should.  Once you have finished you should not be able to see large clumps of seeds.

Once all the seeds have been removed we placed the large chunks of tomato in my Pampered Chef Chopper and it worked like magic.

After all the tomatoes had been chopped we put them back in the pot to boil with the pepper, onions, and seasoning mix.

During this time you must also wash all the canning jars so that they are ready to go and then keep them warm so that you are putting warm salsa into a warm glass jar. 

The Salsa process is a long one!! The longest portion being the water bath sealing. For some reason I did not take any pictures of that part of the process.  It consist of filling a large pot with water and bringing it to a roaring boil.  Then you place the sealed jars of salsa in the pot and let them boil for about 20 minutes until the seal sticks.  Later we decorated them and put thank you notes on each one.  We made enough for each couple to take one home.  And a few extra for Kurt to eat because he really liked our salsa :)  I hope you like it too.