A New Year & New Beginnings

Lately my hubba bubba and I have been discussing our future plans a lot. While these discussions can be terrifying, they are also exciting! Who knows what the future really holds, right? For example, the past several months we have been planning on going to Korea to teach English. As the application process started, we were immediately hit with an extra huge hurdle. The program we are trying to go through is a religious one and one of the requirements is you have to be baptized in their faith. My husband is not. Now we are waiting for approval from our region's General Conference... and we have been waiting for weeks and no response. We have been forced to come up with a plan B if the whole Korea thing doesn't work out (I'm definitely not going without my husband). Coming up with a plan b is both terrifying and exciting :)

So far, part of our plan includes starting an etsy shop!! We have been gathering our items, taking pictures, working out details, and hopefully our shop will be up this next week.

On another note, I must admit I am regretting many things about our wedding. Mainly the location and date. We were deciding between August 1 and January 23. But we are already married and I am happy we are! Maybe we can have a special party on the 23rd instead :) January Wedding by the Avett Brothers is a really cute song for anyone getting married in January. Even though we didn't get married in January it's still one of our songs, hehe.

2010 was a great year in many ways and I'm excited to see what happens in 2011! I hope it includes a visit to this really awesome place:

Out'n'About Treehouse Treesort LLC & Treehouse Institute of Takilma

At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk...

... in the warm California sun!

Last week, my husband and I treated two of our dearest friends to a trip to the boardwalk. They helped us out a lot with the wedding and we wanted to do something a little extra for them.

Here are some pictures of our fun summer day.

This attraction was free! Yay for the Costco package :)

Going on the not-so-scary ride.

trying to see how many jumping jacks and push ups they can do before the wave comes

looks like the wave got him :)

Fright Walk was really fun with these guys!!

On the top of the Ferris Wheel. This by far was the scariest ride ever!

We had lots of fun! We went on a Tuesday and they had some awesome deals, like $3 attractions and $1 hot dogs. We are excited to go again next summer :)

I'm Back!!

Yay! The honeymoon was so relaxing!! :)

I have plenty to catch up on. There are a lot of posts I want to do. Everything from the bridal shower to wedding stuff!! Better get started soon.

It has been so crazy the past month. Usually, I have things planned out, written down, and am very organized. I have no idea why I was the worst when it came to the wedding :( I feel really horrible about it. I didn't get to do everything I wanted because of it and much much worse is that I know it stressed out those around me a lot :( I will definitely know how to help my friends when it's their turn to get married and I hope they will learn from my many mistakes... There were many people who helped us out a lot and without them we wouldn't have had a wedding! I am so very extremely grateful for them!! Including Lina and her mom!!

At the end of it all, I am most happy about the fact that everyone came together and had a good time! My family has been going through something really intense the past 7 months and having a wedding was hard on us. To see my family all happy and having fun on the wedding day was one of the best things ever! Also, finally being married to the man I love! :)

Bridal Shower Nightmare

So long story short... The bridal shower is this Sunday and the planning is starting today! 2 of my bridesmaids were planning my bridal shower (weeks ago), another bridesmaid wanted to take over last week, they reluctantly let her and gave her all their info... and nothing has happened! Now the rest of us are scrambling to pull it together... Another challenge to tackle.. *sigh.

Color Palette Inspiration picture:

from here 

AHH!!

25 days left!!! Wow! :)

I'm really really excited, but of course, super duper busy! I have sooo  many projects going on right now. We finished making our napkins a couple weeks ago. I'll post about them later. Right now we are currently working on coffee filter flowers for ceremony decorations. Next, we will take on ribbon wands, flower garlands, program fans, and a few more, lol.

The invitations turned out great. We made them ourselves! Yay! I'll post more about them in detail later. Here's a quick pic:

It's 8.5 x 11 inches... we folded it into thirds and it became the envelope too! I think we spent around $100 to have them printed.

We sampled our caterer's red velvet cream cheese frosting cupcakes yesterday and they were extremely yummy!!

I'm so excited and just as stressed out! Hehe! So much is going on, it's pretty crazy! I can't believe the wedding is so close now! We have a lot left to do.

Updates

Just like pretty much everyone else, I have been crazy busy this month! So here's a quick post before I go to bed :)

So weight update: I've lost 8lbs total as of this morning... not to great but better than nothing, especially for my super underachieving attempt. I must make major improvements here, although I am glad I'm not obsessed with it!

Dress update: I got it!! yay :) I felt so much pressure to get one right away so I did. And I've been having second thoughts about it, but oh well... its just a dress & I like mine. It was pretty random how I found it. My fiance and I were at the mall (looking to register at a department store) when we walked past a kid's formal wear store. I saw some cute flower girl dresses so we went inside to take a look. Well, in the back corner they had a few bridal gowns! One caught my eye, tried it on, and liked it. 1 week later we went back to check it out again and ended up getting it! We had a delightful surprise when we saw it was 60% off. The thing that makes me pretty sad is I kinda compromised on my beliefs here... but I do plan on selling/donating the dress after the wedding. Here are a couple pictures:

(the corset back was undone here)

(here the back is half done)

(close up of the front, waist area)

I love how it has some sparkle and lace... also it has a small train which is perfect for the lawn.

There has been some drama going on with a MOH (both of my sisters were asked to be MOH). Long story short, I haven't told her yet if she is still gonna be part of the wedding... it's pretty ridiculous.

My dad has been working in the backyard almost everyday and I've been trying to help him as much as I can. We changed and moved around some stuff. We made a "greenhouse" and planted some stuff. I will have to post some pictures in a couple days.

Invitations! I have been working on those this past weekend. We are making our own and taking them to a printer. Fiance has almost completed the guest list with all the addresses too! We weren't quite sure what we wanted to do about invitations until we saw this one:

found here

found here

Isn't that such a great idea!?!!? That's hint to what we are doing... actually, pretty much the same thing, lol.

Well, eyelids are gettin heavy. Time to hit the hay :)

Dress Shopping Day 2

Last week I went to David's Bridal with 3 of my bridesmaids and my fiance :) I had a lot more fun than the first time I went dress shopping. There were also more dresses that felt more like me. Here are some pics...

I guess it's pretty obvious which was my favorite :)

We are going shopping again tomorrow. I originally was so sure about buying a pre-owned dress, but after shopping and talking with some of my friends, they are starting to sway me into thinking it's okay to buy a new dress. I am by no means a saint, I try to follow my beliefs and values best I can... but I know I fail sometimes. This is a perfect example. I have an idea of what it takes to make a wedding dress, where it comes from, who made it, how it got here, etc. plus this is a 1-time wear dress (couple hours for that matter). I find really hard to justify buying a new one. I've been shopping just to see how dresses fit, but it's starting to turn into more than that... I hope I don't cave in... The idea of making my own dress is getting smaller by the week... btw, only 87 days to go til the wedding!!!

Great news, exciting news: my future in-laws are wanting to give us $5,000 for the honeymoon :D I wasn't expecting anything because we didn't want to rely on others money... but we aren't going to reject their offer, lol.

Weight update: I've lost about 5 pounds so far, haha... it's really hard to tell, but the scale doesn't lie I hope! It's pretty good considering I have only worked out about 4x since setting my goal. Although, I have been trying to watch what I eat (not going crazy strict, but making small changes).

Location Decision: We are going to stick to the original plan and have the wedding & dessert reception where we booked, then we are gonna have a celebration party in my parent's backyard. The party is gonna be a potluck dinner and we are gonna have dancing!! yay :) best of both I think. Here are some pics of the wedding venue:
Ceremony Location: This is one of the prettiest places on campus. If the ceremony starts around 2, we might have shade problems, doesn't help the wedding is in summer, hehe.

Dessert Reception Location: This is the room with an attached kitchen and courtyard.

The guy in the pictures is a groomsmen and the girl is a bridesmaid :)