Shutterfly

I'm trying to find the best picture hosting site, and right now I keep coming back to Shutterfly. Still can't link to one picture at a time without having the whole slide show thing come up, but it's useful when you've got 204 pictures!


Justin + Jenafer + Zoey

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52

Spent an evening in the garage together. Chris showed me how he perfectly cuts and mounts pictures onto foam board for the most professional look possible. Our poster board pictures look awesome, stored in the garage with the rest of our yellow and gray stuff.

While Chris went on to another project, I took out all my collected apothecary jars, some old boxes, and tissue wrap from Michaels to structure my beloved candy buffet. Isn't it going to be fabulous? :)

53: No wedding plans, but some kickin' guacomole dip

During my pre-marriage period, I'm trying to build up a repetoire of go-to dishes I can make for my beloved husband when he comes home from a hard day at work. (Thus far my repertoire is very limited, but I'm trying to kick it up a notch, since I now have two very cute kitchen aprons, as well as a slew of kitchen supplies on their way in the form of wedding presents.)

On Sunday we went grocery shopping for the week, and I had my list of ingredients for four specific meals I wanted to try out. One was a chili recipe that called for a side of guacomole dip, that I planned to make for Thursday's dinner. Well, Thursday came around, and we found ourselves making dinner around 9pm (thank goodness for time stamps on my pictures, or I'd never know when I made dinner!). A little late, obviously. So Chris ended up making the chili himself, while I concentrated on the guacomole dip.

The chili was dubna* (Ryan/Chris slang for 'Decent... but not amazing.' Yes, they know the u and b are backwards.) But the guacomole dip was heaven**.


*Not Chris' fault: the recipe wasn't anything spectacular, and he makes a mean white bean chicken chili to prove his skillz.
** Again, not my fault: I was just following directions, and Chris was the one who instructed me to squeeze the heck out of some limes to throw into it. And to throw in some garlic salt. He knows so much more about cooking than I do!

So much to do...

I need to study for my math CSET.
I need to edit Kayla's wedding pictures.
I need to go to the post office for international stamps.
I need to re-work my budget with Chris.
I need to think of ways to make geometry fun for my kids.
I need to schedule a photo shoot for the Bests.
I need to pick out wedding day jewelry.
I need to go through all my stuff and prepare to pack.
I need to start my first TPA for the credential program.
I need to update my blog more often.
I need to finish my pictures from San Francisco.
I need to take more pictures of the wedding planning process.
I need to get in shape.
I need to find a father/daughter dance song.
I need to explore Hawaii via Google maps for the optimal vacation experience.


But first I need to make Chris dinner.

Hmmm..

Just when I give up hope that we'll be able to have our own house before the wedding....

... we get counter-offered.

...very interesting

Weekends are not for fun, they are for wedding planning

As Chris has been saying recently, we've got all the big stuff taken care of. Now it's on to the little stuff that should be super fun. Except we're so burnt out on wedding planning we don't want to do it anymore!

Shopping for candy should be fun.

Picking out jewelry and a veil should be fun.

Pouring through our hard drives for reception music should be fun.

And sometimes it's fun. But most of the time it kind of feels like a chore. Homework, if you will. And nobody likes homework.

We had a good day on Sunday, actually. Did some out of the house planning, which may have been what we needed to end our funk. (And when I say 'our' funk, I usually mean me, and my funk, but since we're about to be married we share everything now. Including funks.) We headed down to the Coronado Community Center with our sketches of where things were going to go the day of, just to make sure we hadn't accidentally decided the cake table would go in front of a door or something. We stood out on the lawn and counted how many seconds it would take our party people to get from Point A (hidden behind a fountain) to Point B (the front). We counted pillars on the patio to determine how many Chinese lanterns we would need. Good times.

After that we stopped at David's Bridal to check for Jessica's flower girl dress. See, I had made a mistake in wedding planning. I had assumed a flower girl dress wouldn't need to be picked out and ordered months before even the wedding dress had been picked out and ordered. But apparently that's how the wedding world works. If I ever write a book about my misadventures in wedding planning, this will be one of the first topics: Find a flower girl dress before you even bother with your own dress.

So we were resorting to hoping the dress we liked, in the color we liked, in the size of our flower girl would magically appear in stock at our David's Bridal, since it was too late to order it with a guarantee of getting it before the wedding. It wasn't there. But a manager was. And she said she'd called the manufacturere "just to see if they happen to have any extra in stock." Guess what? They did! So we paid $15 more and it will be here the end of August, probably before the bridesmaid dresses, ordered months ago, will get here.

After that we went candy shopping for the candy bar. Okay, that was fun.

So we got a lot done this weekend. And it was nice being out and about with Chris, especially when we were able to achieve all three goals we set out for.

But I'm going to be stoked the next time we have a weekend that starts out with, "What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" "Let's do nothing." "Okay."

It will be a good day. :)

Funny of the day

While I was flipping through the spiral notebook I use to jot down math notes in my CSET preparation, I came across a quote I had jotted down in the car one day.

Chris Trementozzi on Jordan singing Green Day's American Idiot: 

"It just doesn't work! It's like Strawberry Shortcake trying to... to... push a kitten off a cliff!"

Invitation Party! {Updated}

So yesterday we planned to have a date night-in while we addressed envelopes for our invitations. Here's what was on the schedule:

1) I was going to make dinner out of the random things in Chris' fridge (thrown together meal = beef, tater tots, and steamed edamame, in case you were wondering... actually wasn't bad).

2) We were going to run down the street to Yogurtland and stop at Vons for mixers (only got the hard stuff right now, if you know what I mean, wink, wink)

3) We were going to pop in our latest Netflixed DVD, Duplicity, and park it in front of the TV with yummy mixed drinks, envelopes, and gray Sharpies for the rest of the night.

4) We were going to finish ALL of our envelopes before the night was over, dagnabit!


So what did we actually end up doing? Everything on the list... except of course for the invitations... which were the most important part... and the whole point of our night in...

We didn't even start 'em.

So tonight! We've enlisted the help of Best Man #2 to get 'er done! So it's a different sort of date night- kind of out this time, but really in, since we'll be at Ry's. There's a possibility of mixed drinks (cause it's Ryan house), and maybe dinner. Probably no fro yo this time. Hopefully Ryan can keep us motivated to see this task through!



UPDATE!

The invitation party went splendidly! We're all done, with the exception of just a few addresses we still need. Ryan was a huge help; he stamped every envelope and RSVP and stuffed while Chris and I wrote out addresses. What a best man!!!

Yoink!

(Don't worry about it, babe. Just remember imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think plagiarism applies too.)

What I love...

1) So I've been blog lurking on ThePigBear for years now. Erin Cobb's got all kinds of great stuff on there, and she has the cutest freaking kids on the planet. If you are a fan of cute kids + Glee, you need to watch the video on her latest post:



Oh, goodness. This makes me want to have kids as soon as I'm married.

(But don't tell the OSF. He gets scurred about that kind of stuff. ;) Cause we have a plan, and it does not involve getting prego right off the bat.)




2) Speaking of freaking cute kids, I found Chris' yearbooks!  And wouldn't you know who's the most adorable pilgrim of 1989?

3) What else do I love? Our invitations! Chris got them from the printer today, and they are amazing! Tonight will be spent addressing, stuffing, and stamping!

4) And here's one that I hate: LOST! I hate that show. Clearly the writers put no thought into any of it. They started off strong, wrote themselves into a corner, and made it all fluffy and "because that's how it is" at the end. It's like book 4 of Twilight all over again!

C + J Wedding Sneak Peak

With all the inspiration boards I've found online that have helped us plan our wedding, I though I'd make one up especially with things we're actually using for our wedding.

So without further adieu, our wedding sneak peek. It's not much yet, but it's all coming together slowly!

Woo-hoo! I flew!

Sure did. I kicked that plane in the you know where and showed it who was boss!

Here's just a taste of some of our awesome adventures in San Francisco. More to come when Chris gets done with his edits and gets impatient enough to start in on mine while I'm doing other things.

(You know it'll happen, OSF.)

Confessions: Volume 8

I have never been on a plane.

True story.

Another true story: today is my first flight.


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is what my subconscious is saying.

Pray for me, people! I'm (in the words of my illustrious TGO) scurred....

76

Ryan's B-Day

Since Ryan's Lost birthday last year was such a hit, Chris and I were hemming and hawing over what to do this year. We discovered that it's not a smart move to pull out all the stops early on, because anything you do henceforth will just be lame.

So Sarah came through with the win this year. She discovered that some singer Ryan loves happened to be playing a small concert at Angel's stadium before a game. And it turns out that, lucky enough for us, Ryan had been having an inkling to go to a baseball game.

Love it when things like that work out.

Our first picture is of our lunch- Sarah convinced us to go vegetarian for the day, and, no, that is not real chicken. But it was good faux chicken. And apparently good for us to boot. The chili however was lacking. No healthy chili for me!

Two TGO's, lunching it veggie style.

And off to Angel's stadium! To pose in front of Mickey!

Pretty quiet game. Nothing happened till around the eighth inning.

We were far more into taking pictures and egging on the beach ball that kept making its way onto the field. Oh! And we cheered so loud when the wave went around the stadium three times!

Happy Fourth! I love America!

We will spend this year's Fourth of July running errands all over creation, in an attempt to gather all the "little things" we need for the wedding.

And then hopefully we'll find ourselves somewhere with a view of fireworks... not sure how it's all going to work out so far.

Wish us luck! We've got some crazy things to find today!


UPDATE


We ended up just coming back to Chris' condo after our errands (got almost everything on our list!) and hoped to see the fireworks from his balcony. Guess what? We could totally see the bay fireworks from the college area! So even though we weren't there, right underneath them like last  year, we still saw them. And then, to celebrate, we tested out the champaign we bought at Trader Joe's today. Peach flavored champagne is yum, fyi. The only champagne I've ever drank and actually been able to down pretty easily. We have a winner for toasts at the wedding!

Engagement Pictures

Finally, finally, finally, our pictures are back and I've been allowed to show off some of them. Only some, because the really great ones have to be saved for showing off on the wedding day.

Wedding Updates

With everything gone on (work, school, and wedding planning) it's hard to find time to note all the little things going on right now, which makes me sad, because this time is such a whirlwind, and I want to be able to look back and remember it all. Luckily, even if I'm not writing it all down, I've at least got my camera handy almost all the time. And while Chris generally rolls his eyes any time I dash for the camera when either of us is doing anything wedding related, he'll appreciate it too someday. So here's what's been going on with us the last few weeks.

Chris bought all the fixin's for mixed drinks, in an attempt to find the perfect signature drink for the big day. I won't reveal it here, but it's yummy! We tried four or five different drinks (over different nights, btw) before settling on our signature drink.

We got all snazzy dressed up for our engagement pictures session with Rico and Rachel Castillero. We had a GREAT time with them, at our rustic barn location in Encinitas, but these are pictures we snapped of each other before we headed out.

Chris borrowed some lenses from work for us to use on our Jen/Justin/Zoey photoshoot. This is the first day we had the fish eye lens to pla

More playing with the new lenses: I think this time was with the 24mm, the lens I used for almost all my shots of Jen/Justin/Zoey.

Chris has been spray painting it up lately. His garage looks like a yellow and gray painted wedding shop. This is our pretty bird cage for cards!

We've been househunting too, obviously. On our way out to a place in Dehesa, Chris pulled off the side of the road to check out these for sale signs... for a neighborhood of gigantic houses, no less. (And of course I was ready with my camera!)

This was a good night. For our one year anniversary, we decided to wait until our 100 day countdown to go out and celebrate. We chose to go back to Forever Fondue, where we'd gone for our sixth month anniversary. We really loved it the first time around, that quiet atmosphere, the drawn out dinner, the fun of the whole experience. So we went back again to relax, discuss some more wedding ideas, and celebrate one and one hundred. And drink beer (him) and Tokyo Teas (me).

We've hit up the dollar store a few times for wedding deco: frames, thank you cards, table decorations, and, this time, bubbles. Chris had to make sure the bubbles worked before he was willing to plunk down $20 for them, though.

Disclaimer: This is not our child. (That would sure make for an interesting story though, wouldn't it?) This is me, Chris, and Chris' little cousin Bella at the family reunion. That girl is crazy. She goes around telling people that, I think because she's heard so many people say it about her.

Hot. Not much else to say.

Cute picture of us at the beach, during Jenna's "We're-finally-burning-that-awful-not-a-couch-bonfire." Au revoir, not-a-couch.

Here's a fun story: I went to the post office to get stamps for our Save the Dates (no abbreviations!). The lady asked me if I wanted any special stamps. I said, sure, if you have any cute flowers or something, if it's not too much trouble. Twenty minutes later, after searching through everyone else's work spaces and the back room for the perfect ring stamps, despite my insistence that it really wasn't that big of a deal, and after the manager said, "No trouble! I'll just open the vault for some more rings!" I finally walked away with these.

They are cute.

Sarah's new kitten! We baby-sat Nala for a couple hours while she drove down to pick her up. Just talked to Sarah tonight; apparently they're getting along well, though Sarah fears that Nala's easygoing attitude is keeping Sarah's negative reinforcement (aka a spray bottle squirt in the face for jumping on the table) from taking full effect.

And that's what's up! Hopefully this next week, since I'm off both work and school for a bit, I'll be able to keep up with what's going on around here. :)