2010

I cannot believe another year is over!  2010 really flew by for me.  I've been sitting here trying to look back and remember what all happened last year and it's really just a blur.  Here are some of the greatest hits that I can remember from 2010:

1)  Moving into our house and making it into our home.  We bought the house in 2009, but didn't move in and start making it ours until the very beginning of 2010.  Decorating and making this place homey with Mike was a great experience and no matter where we move, I'm always going to love this crazy yellow house so much.

2)  Getting engaged!  Mike and I have been talking about marriage since we first started dating, so I thought getting officially engaged wouldn't be a big deal for us.  When it actually happened though, I couldn't have been happier and it's a day I'll remember forever!  Also, if you haven't noticed...I'm a little obsessed with my ring...

3)  Getting a job.  Five months of unemployment was not awesome.  As evidenced by my rambling first couple of blogs on here.  A month off work is great.  Five is not.  Obviously I'm not super psyched to be a 27 year old college grad who is still a receptionist, but it sure as hell beats being a 27 year old college grad with no job!  Also, I get to wear this snazzy shirt to work once a week.  Jealous?

4)  Getting to see dad.  Since my dad moved to the East Coast, I haven't gotten to see him super often what with both of our schedules and the cost of air travel.  In 2010, I got to see him twice which was really awesome.  The best part was that he got to come stay in Ridgecrest, see our house, and meet Mike's family.  Mike even got an opportunity alone with him to ask his blessing to propose which I'm sure meant a lot to my dad.  I also got to see him with some more of his family when we laid my aunt to rest.  It was really sad, but I was happy to get to be there with my dad's crazy siblings while we broke the law, cried, and laughed together.

5)  Game night with the Way's.  There are few things I love in this world as much as my sister and her best friends the Way's.  Since we moved back to R/C, we don't get to see either of them much so their once a year game nights are always really special and fun for us.  Add to that some wine tasting and a sighting of two of our favorite Top Chef contestants and this year was better than ever!

6) Trip to Vegas.  While we couldn't hang with our crazy friends since, as everyone so lovingly likes to remind us, we are old and lame, Mike and I ended up having an amazing time together.  Trips like this one where we end up spending a lot of time alone, just wandering around and entertaining ourselves really makes us realize how perfect we are for each other and how happy we make each other.  Coming out on top because of how much we won on penny and nickel slots helped too!

7)  Vanessa was here!  I never get to see one of my best friends Vanessa because she lives so far away so having her home this summer was great.  Just getting to sit at her parent's house with her, Kristin, and a huge glass of wine, were some of my best times this year.

Typical

Okay, I'm sick of typing and Mike just gave the dogs baths so they are both wigging out and running around like maniacs so I'll just put the rest of the great things about 2010 in pictures.  Happy New Year!

Being Laura's date to a wedding

The Comic Book Twins coming to visit

Visiting Brian & Denae and falling in love with little Colby

Hiking!

So You Think You Can Dance with the Smith's

Adopting Demon Dog

Because Calories Don't Count When It's a Holiday

I'm so impressed with my fiancé today that I thought I'd share with everyone the goodies we've been baking all weekend, (I use "we" loosely...it's mostly been him...he does not like to share kitchen space and also I'm kind of lazy).  The first one is Mike's favorite and the one that has me the most impressed because it included him making his own marshmallows from scratch.  It's hot chocolate on a stick found here.  Marshmallows are actually incredibly easy to make, but Mike is still amazed at how awesome his first try turned out.  We're still waiting for our fudge to set, but once we're all done, this is what the finished product should look like:

Now we just have to figure out how to give those to people without making a huge mess.

The second recipe we've done today that I can't wait to gorge myself on is peppermint bark found here.  This is what our finished product looks like so far:

One little note on this recipe, it says in the end to "break the bark into small irregular pieces."  That is way easier said than done.  We accomplished breaking it up by chopping at it with a huge knife, it doesn't just simply "break up."  Tastes delish though!

We're also making regular fudge from Mike's old timey recipe book that he loves so much and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies that we admittedly bought pre-made dough for.  But I think we should still get credit for baking them since I bought them from a client to help her son go to camp.  Good deed outweighs laziness right?

Groomzilla

Now, you all know that I love my groom-to-be.  He's the ying to my yang, the calm to my crazy, the clean to my messy.  Usually he's the one telling me to pump my breaks and tone down the crazy.  I'm usually the one having massive amounts of mini-freakouts.  My, how the tide has turned.

Mike has been having a rough time picking out the suits for him and his boys to wear in our wedding.  Early on, he decided that he wanted to buy all 4 suits rather than renting tuxes or trying to rent suits.  He's a bit of a clothes horse, (he would call himself a dandy), so he's been scouring the internet and magazines for suits he likes and sending me link after link.  He finally decided on a store he loved thanks to one of the groomsmen Owen and we set a date to go check it out and HOPEFULLY leave with our hands full of pants and jackets.  After a three-way argument between Mike, the mo-in-law, and myself about whether or not Mike needed to call ahead and check on their stock, (Mike voted no and mo-in-law and I staunchly voted yes), Mike caved, called, and realized that they were NOT in stock at the closest location, (told-ya-so's abound), and we'd have to schlep to the downtown LA store.

Little-known, (?), fact about me...I hate driving on freeways.  I wasn't always like this, I used to be rational, but lately it scares the bejeesus shit out of me.  I get super paranoid and yell at Mike to slow down the entire drive.  It's incredibly unpleasant for me and my stress level and equally unpleasant for Mike since he'd rather sit and listen to Glee music and drive in peace.  So needless to say, the drive to LA was not a pleasant one.  We finally got there in one piece and found the store.  Zara was great.  Super cool clothes, hipster staff wearing fancy suits with duckman shoes, loved it.  The first suit Mike wanted was going out of stock and didn't have enough sizes so it was a no-go.  Our awesome hipster lady helper with her, I'm too cool to ever work a job where tattoos are not acceptable, peacock feather arm tattoo, ran her ass all over the store and called multiple locations to find us all the sizes we needed.  Mike loved the suit, big goofy grin loved it.  After over an hour in that hot ass store standing on my feet holding jackets and pants looking like the least hip and fattest chick in LA, we were leaving...suits in hand!

We had a great rest of the day, French restaurant, sandwich with an egg on top, British waitress with fake diamond on her tooth, event-less drive back.  Then we got home.  And the groomzilla freak-outs started.

Mike spur of the moment decided that the suits were too tight and started WIGGING out. Soothing voice did not work, hugs did not work, tough love did not work.  Normally, all Mike has to do to talk me down from a good wig-fest is to tell me to pump the breaks and then he walks away.  This did not work on groomzilla.  We finally called the mo-in-law and she temporary talked his crazy fest down.  Until about an hour later when the freak-out mutated into a pout-fest.  This continued until well into this afternoon when  he finally tried on the suit in question for mo-in-law who also happens to be master seamstress-in-law and they all decided that the suit was actually too tight and Mike has to return all of them and start over from scratch.

Dear God.

This happened around 1:00 this afternoon.  Since then, he's made me look up 3 separate suits online and we just ordered one for him to try on and send back if it doesn't fit.  He's also continuously all day stressed out about "ruining everything."  Who's the crazy one now?

The positive thing to have come out of this weekend long suit-gate is that Mike now admittedly understands me better since he has finally experienced the fun that is a mini freak-out and I get to act like the sane one for awhile.

Demon Dog

I've had some love/hate relationships before, but this one is currently taking the cake.  I love our dogs.  They're our furry children.  I would jump in front of a car for them, I would kill for them, I've stayed up nights for them.  Some days though, I want to kick them.  Christmas has been rough on me this year for many reasons, but Gizmo, my dear youngest furry child, decided to make it a little bit harder today.  I came home from work at lunch to a living room floor covered in ripped up wrapping paper and destroyed presents.  Awesome.  Instead of kicking Gizmo, (I currently have him locked outside so I don't), or complaining about him anymore, here are some pictures of my lovely demon dog.  Love him or hate him, he's pretty damn cute.

Thanksgiving

I have a problem with holidays.  I get really amped for them.  The build-up is so exciting.  I get to see my sister!  I get to eat mashed potatoes!  I get to see the Way's!  Black Friday! Etc etc etc.  Then the holiday gets here and all of a sudden it's gone and then I'm back home and exhausted and cranky.  The holidays always get me like that.  This one was no different.  It was great.  And stressful.  And messy.

6 Things I'm Thankful for Thanksgiving 2010:

1)  Mike and his calm, zen-like driving.  Yes, he gets a little road ragey like the best of us, but he can seriously sit in that driver's seat and not be bothered driving for HOURS.  He doesn't get fidgety,  he doesn't get bored, he just has to pee A LOT.

2)  Glee cd's.  Yup, I said it.  We listened to the three, (yes, Mike and I combined own three of them...what of it?!), Glee soundtracks about 500 times during the drive to and from my sister's this Thanksgiving.  Bippity bopping to those beats helped the miles fly by.

3)  The Way's.  Love them for more reasons than I can count, but this Thanksgiving, I love them for letting us stay at their fancy, adult house.  I love our house, but staying in theirs made me look forward to turning ours into a home.  Their eclectic, grown-up, lived-in home made me instantly relax after a long day and feel like I was in the presence of a real family even when they weren't there.  Also, their bed is huge and comfortable and their shower is three times the size of ours.  F-A-N-C-Y.

4)  FOOD.  Really, what is the best thing about Thanksgiving?  Let's all be honest, food.  Mike and Laura slaved away in that kitchen.  Well, not slaved.  More like bickered amusingly while working.  Loved it.  Listening to them fight like a real brother and sister while cooking delicious food was a perfect Thanksgiving memory for me this year.  The mashed p's rocked.  Life was good.

5)  Wine.  What would a trip to Sonoma County be without wine tasting and what better way to recover from Black Friday then with some tasting of that wine?!  Alexander Valley open house was a blast.  Not the best wine we've ever had, but some great stuff, some laughs, and some stories that will never get old.

6)  Laughter.  This trip was stressful and had its share of bumps in the road, but laughing through some of the worst really helped.  Laughing with Mike and my mom until we all almost cried or peed our pants at the THIRD time Gizmo vomited onto my mom's lap made the last leg of the long and stinky drive up to Santa Rosa bearable.  Laughing as we high-tailed it out of one of the scariest businesses, let alone wineries, I have ever been to in my entire life even though we felt dirty and our shoes were covered in mud, it made not only our day, but the whole trip.

Happy Thanksgiving, can't wait for Christmas!

My lap-mates pre-barf incident #1

Mike attempting to eat Del Taco without getting his hand bitten off

Fancy soup a la Laura

Wine tasting at one of the non-terrifying wineries

The sisters pre-phone loss

A rainbow before the rain

On the drive home before barf incident #4

DIY Fever - Welcome Bags

Last weekend, Mike and I took on our first DIY project for the wedding.  I am personally obsessed with DIY weddings.  I scour blogs like Project Wedding and Wedding Chicks for DIY ideas and the simple and unique weddings with DIY touches are always my faves.  I consider myself a pretty crafty person, my mom and I used to do DIY projects all the time making wreaths out of paper, making our own cards, we've even made our own jewelry.  I have great ideas all the time.  The only problem is, I have an incredibly short attention span.  I get all hyped up to do a project and then the second it gets irritating or difficult, I get bored and quit.  This is where Mike is a perfect match for me.  The second I get irritated, (or fussy as he calls it), he steps in, solves, the problem, and gets me back on board.  We're a pretty great team.

The project we took on last weekend was making our welcome bags for the wedding.  We're only inviting a small amount of people to the wedding and all of them are having to come from out of town and spend the night, so we thought doing welcome bags that will be waiting in each guest's hotel room would be a nice way to say thank you for making the trip.  I got this idea from a small post in one of my 800 wedding magazines with a welcome bag done by Sara at Woods & Company.  It was a super cute suitcase welcome gift filled with goodies about San Francisco.

I actually e-mailed back and forth with Sarah about having her do mine, but at the end of the day...I'm a cheapskate and wanted at least one DIY project for my wedding so I opted to do it myself.  So sorry guests, you're getting my handiwork, not Sarah's!  I feel a little bad for you...

I decided to do canvas tote bags as the container for our welcome bags so that our guests could use them again as grocery totes, (how very green of me right?!).  I ordered some simple canvas totes from Cheap Totes for only 99 cents each.  Crazy good deal!

Rather than buy already custom totes like a lot of places sell for about 14 bucks a piece, I ordered a design by the woman who did our save the dates at NMI Photo Creations.  She did up a cute design that matches our save the dates and only charged me 10 bucks.  This is a steal because I can use this design for anything forever and trust me, I love this thing, I'm going to be re-using it.  After that, it was just a matter of getting our DIY on.  Here is how we did it:

Print out your pattern onto iron on transfer paper. I couldn't find ANY in my stupid town so my bridesmaid Kristin bought me some out of town.  25 bridesmaid stars for her.

Keep in mind that even where the design isn't, there is going to be a shiny outline from the iron on paper so either cut all the way around your design, (which there was no way in hell I was going to do 19 times), or just cut off any excess you don't want showing.  Mike whipped out his razor blade and a round ruler, (because of course, he had to make sure it was perfect), and cut off rounded edges around each design.

Something Mike quickly realized while cutting the already printed out designs is that you have to be careful with them. Once they're on the iron on paper, it's really easy to screw up the design and scratch off parts of it.  Case in point:

Then lay out a pillow case on the kitchen counter.  Apparently, you need to do this on a hard surface, not on an ironing board.  Iron the pillow case and each bag to make sure they weren't wrinkly. Place the design face down onto the bag and iron it, putting a lot of pressure on the iron.

(Here's a side hint, don't wear a gigantic shirt and/or let your fiancé photograph you from underneath when you know you're going to post pictures on the internet) One thing we came across when ironing is that the instructions say to iron for 3 minutes, but that is not nearly enough time.  We did each bag about 7 minutes.  This is probably because we were ironing onto canvas and not cotton.  Just tug at the corner and see if it is stuck on and if not, keep ironing.  Once you're sure you've ironed long enough, let it sit and cool for a couple of minutes and then, starting with a corner, pull the backing off.

And you're donezo!  Here is the finished product: 

I love them and can't wait for our guests to get them!

Engagement Pictures

This post is a late one, but when you come home every night after being verbally harassed at work, typing up a witty blog is not high on your list of priorities.  Drinking wine is.  And whining to your beleaguered fiance.  But today is a better day, so blog I shall!

A few weeks ago we randomly decided to take our engagement photos.  We've been engaged now for like 8 months, (holy shit I had to count that time twice.  Time has FLOWN by!), so we're a little late on the engagement photos bandwagon.  We never intended to take engagement photos because Mike refuses to put an announcement in our local paper, (which I'm okay with because they consistently spell people's names wrong and leave huge gaps in their type...especially in the obits...which I find tacky and obnoxious...go Ridgecrest journalism!), and we weren't planning to send out engagement announcements.  Our fantabulous photographer Ray Hocker, (Sierra Photography Studios check him out!!), offers them free with our wedding package so we figured what the hell.  We had planned to take them months ago, but Mike's father got sick so we kept having to reschedule and never really found a good time.  A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Ray's wife saying that he could do them that weekend if we were free.  Perfect, let's get these suckers over with!

The day arrived.  Panic ensued.  I had NO plan.  As a hopefully future wedding planner and a bride planning her own wedding, I check wedding blogs and magazines daily.  I have an overload of ideas and images in my head.  There are some adorably cute engagement sessions out there with props and themes galore.  I had nothing.  While planning my wedding beyond an inch of its life, I had let this little detail slip by.  Shit.  Mike and I literally spent that day bickering.  I was pissy, he was pissy, it was not conducive for romantic lovey dovey engagement photos.  Mike also chose this day to decide to veto using our dogs in the photos which was my only prop.  I couldn't get my hair to work, Mike bickered with me about his outfit choice, and I realized as we were about to leave that our outfits completely clashed.  To top it all off, Mike and I both HATE having our pictures taken and neither of us are particularly photogenic...especially me...the queen of blinks and double chins.  It was too late to cancel now, so I chugged a glass of wine and off we went.

So we start taking pictures and I'm not feeling totally comfortable.  I've never been good at standing still and I always feel awkward in poses.  Ray also informed me that I blinked in the first four takes.  It's official, I will never be America's Next Top Model.  After a few shots, Ray let us come around and look at them on his camera.  I was shocked.  Thank God for Ray, his fancy schmancy flash, and lenses.  We looked faboosh.  I was immediately put at ease.  Mike and I just embraced the poses and laughed through the rest of the shoot.  Ray was so complementary and sweet and might I add FAST.  We got through with our shoot in about an hour and less than two weeks later had 83 perfect shots to choose from.  Here are a few of my favs:

Aren't they pretty?!  Everyone loves them and I'm so pleased with how they came out!  Ray rocks.  I do, however, because I am after all ME, have some regrets.  So here is my advice for ladies getting ready to take their engagement photos:

1)  Don't wear something you've never been photographed in before.  I love the dress I wore in this and it's my wedding colors so I thought it'd be perfect.  The top photographed so baggy and for someone like me with big boobs, wearing a baggy top made me look even bigger.  Some of the shots, to me, are unusable because of how the dress made me look.  Case in point:  

Thanks to Ray's photography and Mike's hotness, this would be a totally cute picture.  Except, the bagginess of my top and my bad posture makes me look like I have the saggiest boobs in the world.  Not cute.  Shot from the front, this dress makes me look wide as a house too.  So do some photos in what you want to wear to make sure you look as cute as you feel!!

2)  Have a plan and make sure your photographer knows about it.  I had researched engagement sessions I liked and sent some ideas to Ray's wife months before the impromptu session, but without the ideas fresh in my or Ray's mind, they fell to the wayside.  If I could do it again, I would have printed out examples of pictures and poses I liked so we could recreate them in our own photos.

3)  Bring props!  I wish we had brought at least SOMETHING.  I especially love the photos where the bride and groom to be hold signs or flags that say Thank You on them so you can use them for your after wedding thank you cards.  Just bring something.  Balloons, flowers, dogs, umbrellas, something to change it up.  Even if you don't use the photos later, options are good!

4)  Be more vocal with your photographer.  Ray was great and did exactly what we asked, but I wish I had asked him for more.  I was so flustered from the bad day we had had and from my nerves that I didn't ask for things I wanted.  I will definitely not make this mistake at the wedding!