Busy having fun.

I have been slacking, big time.

Not just on the blog, on everything. My house is a mess, my fall decorations are still in boxes, and I am out of clean clothes. I owe about 20 people cards or gifts celebrating babies, weddings, showers, new jobs, new houses, etc. (Sorry, everyone.)

I blame much of this on my current state, which is general exhaustion. But some of the blame must be assigned to my (once again) hectic schedule.

Nate and I make waaaaay too many plans. And I have severe problems with over-committing. I'm working on both of these things. The good news is, all of our plans have been a lot of fun.

I have yet to post about my sister Jill's wedding, which took place in Illinois the weekend before last. It was beautiful, and my sister looked amazing. Of course I was busy with matron of honor duties, so I took very few pictures. I'm patiently waiting for other people to send me theirs. Until then, I will just say it was a ton of fun. More details to come once I have photos to share with you.

In the meantime, I will share some photos from this past weekend. Nate and I went back to McCormick House in Hayward, Wisconsin for the weekend — this time with our friends Eric and Lisa Hall.

Nate and Eric practically grew up together — their families spent every summer vacationing at the lake together. Eric has two sisters, Laura and Julie, and our two families are still incredibly close. We celebrate every Thanksgiving together, make the annual trek to Dave Matthews at Alpine Valley, and spend a week in Mexico together every January. We even have a nickname for our group — The Brall (Breyer + Hall = Brall. Aren't we clever?). Eric and Lisa are dear friends of ours, and since they live five hours away in Appleton, Wisconsin, we decided to meet in the middle (not really, it was a 4.5 hour drive for them, and only a 2.5 hour drive for us) for a weekend of fun.

Per usual, we didn't really do much while we were there. Friday night we went to a local brew pub for dinner, and hit the hay pretty early. Saturday we each had an hour-long massage, and spent most of the day lounging around. We did get in a rousing game of croquet, as well as a brief walk into town (stopping only to stock up on Laffy Taffy and gummy strawberries at the candy store). We went out for pizza (at Coop's, home of strange stuffed beasts and viking paintings), came back and played what was quite possibly the funniest game of scattergories ever, and ended the evening in the hot tub.

Sunday morning we had a delicious breakfast headed back home. Nate and I had to get home early because I took a holiday decorating class with my mother-in-law, Mary, and my sister-in-law, Mary (yes, there are two ladies named Mary Breyer in our family). The class was awesome. It focused on table settings for the holidays, from Thanksgiving through Christmas, and offered a TON of inspiration. I actually started to get kind of cranky toward the end of the class, only because I can't believe any one person could be so creative. I felt simultaneously inspired and overwhelmed. But it was still incredible and really good. I took some photos, which I will post below.

Following the class, we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday (a few weeks late, of course, because we're hard to schedule). A pile of spaghetti and two delicious desserts later (don't judge me, everyone ate some of both), we made our way home.

It was a fantastic weekend, but I am a little bleary-eyed today.

Next up: a weekend-long holiday shopping trip to Galena, IL with my mom, Nate's mom, my sister-in-law, and her mom. We leave on Thursday, so I'm sure I'll have plenty to share next week!