Five pointer, and some pics

1. We are heading to Iowa/Chicago this weekend. Brian is the best man in his best man's wedding...I am so excited for the trip! I am so looking forward to the wedding- since getting married, I have been craving a wedding! I'm excited to see what choices they made to make the day their own. And that I can just go and enjoy, without stress and anxiety leading up to it! I'm also super excited to visit Chicago...we are only there for a short time...not nearly long enough- but, Brian hasn't ever been, and I haven't been back in several years. While I didn't love living there, I do LOVE that city. Of course, we are going to a Cubs game. We are taking a red eye, which I'm not pumped about (it always seems like the right decision when we are booking the tickets- get as much time in the trip as possible)...we get in to Chicago at 7am, renting a car, and then driving three hours to Iowa. I know we are going to be exhausted, but I am insisting that we stop for breakfast in Chicago before we head out- to my FAVORITE...Orange...oh, I can't wait. The chai french toast is heaven! And then, of course, I'm just excited about getting out of town...I love traveling.

2. My class is driving me crazy. We had our third 'midterm' last Saturday...and, once again, I left feeling super discouraged. This one in particular because I felt pretty confident going in. I felt like I not only memorized the material, but also really understood it...like, I explained concepts to one of the people in my class prior to the test. And then...the test barely touched on the stuff that I had studied- the stuff that the teacher had said 'make sure you know ___'...two of the three essay questions were on topics I hadn't even looked at- they weren't in any of the study material. SO FRUSTRATING. I decided to take the evening class next quarter, rather than the Saturday class. I think I need to be IN class, rather than just being responsible for learning the material on my own. I am going to have some LONG days this summer (class is 5-9:30pm...boof). Only two more weeks of this quarter.

3. Well, our house has some spiders. Sigh. I was hoping it wouldn't be a thing, despite the gal who lived here before telling us that they had spiders, and despite the obvious smashed spiders on the wall (thanks for not cleaning the walls before we moved in...). It hasn't been overwhelming, but there have been a few upstairs...probably once a week we find a new one. They aren't big yet. That's helpful. I used to catch the spiders and put them outside, until I read that most spiders you find in your house were born in your house, and don't live outside. They live in the house...so they will return if you put them outside. So now I let Brian kill them. I feel a little guilty about it, but not really that much.

4. One upside to the spiders is that it makes Brian more excited about getting a kitten (to catch the spiders). We are planning to get one (or two...I'm trying to convince Brian that two will get in less trouble than one because they will play with each other) shortly after our return from the trip. We went to the PAWS cat place in the U District, just to get an idea of what the adoption process is like, and it was a little intense. I mean, we are both on the same page that a pet is a pet. We love them, but they aren't people. I understand the people at the adoption place want to make sure we have thought through the responsibilities of a pet, but it was a little bit like a job interview. We are not adopting a child...it is a cat. And they told us that we shouldn't get a kitten, but a more established cat, since we are away from the house during the day, etc....I grew up with cats. And they were super low maintenance. They were indoor/outdoor, hung out with us when they wanted to, we went on trips without needing to worry about the cats, we were gone long hours of the day...they were fine. Soooo, we might just go the kittens-in-a-box-at-the-grocery-store route. We'll see. I can't wait though!

5. We got our wedding pictures back! Oh my goodness, I don't even know how to start organizing them- there are SO many...and I love them all. How do you pick which ones to print and use? Here are a few that weren't posted on facebook yet...

 wedding party, Brian blowing away, silly Uncle B, dancing, Felix!, creating my bouquet as I walked up the aisle, thumbs up, loved my dress, grandma giving me great-grandma's pearls, I gave Brian the wrong hand to put my ring on- oops!, our invitation, nerf guns!

Catch Up

The NBA is dead to me. Brian is tired of hearing me say that. But it is even deader to me today. There were some not so nice words coming out of my mouth today in the car as I listened to David Stern give his press conference regarding the decision about the Kings. It isn't even that we aren't getting the team- I mean, it sucked when we lost the Sonics, good for Sacramento for fighting for them...it's David Stern....such a slimy, slimy fellow. Bah. Glad the Mariners have 12 runs against the Yanks tonight.

The house is coming together. We got a new couch, and a dining room table, and some curtains and such...things are set up as they will be. Now we really need to get to work on all the crap we have in boxes and lining the walls in every room. We are both SO bad about this kind of thing. I wonder how much it would cost to hire someone else to do it. More that we can afford, but still...it's awful. Every day we get home from work with such great intentions, and then do the same few things and get overwhelmed and quit. We should probably just load up everything that isn't out and take it to the Goodwill, since it has all been boxed and unused since February. We have set a goal though...we have plans for housewarming/bbq/movie night/birthday shindig in the works...so we have a date that it has to be done.

In addition to getting the house in order, we also have a monster of a yard that needed a ton of work. I love the yard, it's more room than I would have imagined us ever having in the city. But man, it's a lot of work.

Brian and his dad spent several hours last Saturday mowing and weed wacking. Our wedding florist came out to the house with some of the flowers from our arch, and gave me an hour long mentoring session and helped give me some vision for the yard. We have a huge lilac tree (it is actually three trees right next to each other), and a huge purple rhododendron bush, and a few other trees around the yard (making the mowing a bit more challenging) that I have really enjoyed watching bloom this Spring. I hope we get lots of sun this summer so we can get some good use of the yard...it's nice because most of it is pretty well shaded, but there is always some area in the sun throughout the day.

With all of the wedding planning, moving, school, etc craziness happening, I felt like I (we) really hadn't been eating very well. Brian doesn't love vegetables, so I figured we would try the ol green smoothie thing. We got a new blender, and I see them all over pinterest, so I went to Trader Joe's and bought some ingredients...as well as just making more of an effort to plan healthier meals in general. We have been doing this for about three weeks, and sadly, I really haven't noticed a difference in the way I feel. I thought I would end up with all of this energy or something. The only thing I have noticed is that my stomach is always rumbly and bloaty. Lovely. Maybe I should just stick to a multi-vitamin.

School this quarter is going...okay. I'm taking the first part of two in an Anatomy & Physiology series. I have class on Saturdays, at 8am...for HOURS. THe class is a hybrid, so Saturdays are for lab and tests...not really much in the way of lecture- we are responsible for learning the material in the books. It sounded like the best option to me...going to school after work is such a long day. Here is the problem...I'm not a good studier. In school, I was one of those lucky people that retained the information that was lectured on in class...I had pretty poor study habits. Sooo, now not having lecture...I have to study. And I get so distracted. We have had two midterms so far, and I haven't done as well as I need to in order to get the grade I need to get into the program I want. I just registered for next quarter, for part two of the class, and am doing the same Saturday class (although next quarter it starts at 7am....yuck)...I'm not sure if that is the right thing to do, or if I should do night classes that are actual classes....

I went down to Federal Way last week to visit my sis and the twins- oh my goodness they have gotten so big. They are already/only four months old...ahhh, so cute! 

Final Thoughts

When you get engaged and start planning a wedding, there is a lot of advice, thoughts, memories, and warnings freely given out from a whole plethora of people. Here are some things I/we took away from our wedding (and wedding planning) experience. 

- The thing that struck me the most of everything was how cool it was to have all of those people in one place, celebrating us! It hadn't really occurred to me...I was so worried about everything coming together, I didn't think about how everything coming together didn't really matter because of the awesome group of people in those rooms. It really was pretty emotionally overwhelming! In a good way, of course. As I shared my anxiety about walking down the aisle (everybody staring...ahhh, NO THANKS...I actually thought about alternate entrances that didn't involve me walking in front of everyone) with a few people, I was told that I wouldn't even notice everyone. It would just be me and Brian there. That helped ease my anxiety, but it actually wasn't true (for me)- and that ended up being fine! I was very aware of everyone there, and I was SO EXCITED to see those people that my anxiety was gone in an instant.  

- We wanted to be intentional about our decisions. This included the ceremony. Down to the wording used in the vows (for me more than Brian...as I was reading through traditional vows, I kept noticing how redundant the wording was, and it bothered me!). But our officients- Rich and Steve- were so organized and professional, and also completely respectful and helpful in working with us to put our ceremony together. When we first met with Rich, we really didn't have any clue what we wanted. He talked us through some ideas, sent us some templates, and we went back and forth over emails moving things around, deleting, adding, etc. We met with Steve and his wife, Ellie, to talk about (well, to talk about a lot of stuff!) the verse we chose and why, and loved his idea of including our guests with vows of their own...our community is so important! And Rich's questions that he proposed to each of us individually about each other made the whole thing feel so personal, and was both meaningful to hear what the other person said, and funny. I'm so glad we were able to personalize our ceremony. 

- We heard SO many times 'don't worry about everyone else, this day is for you two', and also 'just come to the realization now that this day isn't about you, it really is for everyone else'...and I would say that both comments were true. And it was probably important for our sanity that both were true. 

- We ate our food. I kept hearing people say how hungry they were because they never got a chance to eat at their wedding. We were excited about our catering, and wanted to eat...so we went through the line first, sat down at a table, and ate. Great choice. Eat! 

- 'Stop and enjoy the moment'...I did this a few times throughout the evening. As I walked from one area to another, I took a breath and looked around. Great piece of advice (if for nothing else than to take a breath!).

- We danced. This was the day of our big party and darn it, we were going to have fun and enjoy it. We did spend time walking around and chatting with as many people as possible- but we also danced. 

- The one thing I had and still have a hard time with is our guest list...you just can't invite everyone. As much as you want to, it just doesn't work. We decided to invite the people that are in our lives right now. And in retrospect, there are several people that I haven't seen in awhile but were really important to me in different places of my life that I wish I had invited. Sigh. 

Okay...I'm sure there is more, but I'm done for now. I'll post pictures when we get them, but am moving on to normal life. Like beard hat night at the Mariners game. 

Extra Wedding Events

Along with the wedding comes the super fun precursor events- showers, bachelorette stuff, etc. 

I had three showers! Going in to each of them I felt nervous- would people show up, different groups of people-would it be awkward or would they get along, I hate being center of attention- but each one of them was so great! 

Olga, my Maid of Honor (technically Matron since she is married, but we decided that sounded old), threw a sweet Valentine’s themed shower back in February. She is an incredible Martha Stewart party food maker, and put together a gorgeous brunch for the group. I don’t like shower games, so we did a ‘craft’- and had each person make themselves a little Valentine garland to take home. 

Then my aunt threw me a shower at my mom’s house. The only direction I gave them was that I wanted a mimosa bar, and again- no games. My aunt came over from Ellensburg, and

we ended up making a whole weekend of it, which I loved. The mimosa bar turned out super cute, and we did play one game. We had Ron come up and crash the party for a few minutes, and then after he left asked questions about what he was wearing, what he said, etc. It was funny, and Ron was a perfect party crasher!

Tami and her best pals threw me a shower up north, which I was maybe looking forward to the most, because I was excited to get a chance to get to know her friends better. I had met most of them several times, but always for particular events (a wedding, Super Bowl, etc), and so had only really brief conversations. Tami had everyone go around and tell a ‘Brian Story’….which was pretty cute (and funny). The food was awesome and we all had a really fun time.

Thursday night was the rehearsal dinner. I was suuuper nervous for the rehearsal...maybe even more so than the actual wedding. Our venue had been going through a remodel for the previous few months and we were the first event back. Brian and I stopped in the week prior to the rehearsal and were a tad bit terrified...it seemed like there was still SO much to finish- besides the fact that it was filthy dirty. We showed up to the venue for the rehearsal and it was much better than it had been, but still not completed AT ALL. After seeing

the big difference, I felt a good bit of relief though. I know all sets of grandparents didn't have the same relief and as my grandma told me yesterday 'we prayed pretty much nonstop that it would work out. I even had toilet paper in the car because I didn't think the bathroom would have any.' Yeah. Rich lead us through the ceremony, and then we all headed over to Pyramid Alehouse for dinner. Which was perfect- we had our own little room...Tami and Gregg had done an amazing job of working with the restaurant to put together the menu...and it really was perfect. Casual and fun, but totally well organized and put together. I felt so much better about everything once we got to Pyramid. (I stole this picture from Brian's sister's pictures because I don't have any from the rehearsal!)

Then was the bachelorette whatnots. So two of my bridesmaids were coming from out of town- Jessica flew in from DC, and Rachel flew all the way over from Slovakia via London (Olga was here helping with things along the way). The three of them really didn’t know each other…maybe had met once or twice previously. And they were SO AMAZING. They started emailing each other, making secret plans. The Friday before the wedding, they planned a day of fun for the four of us. We all met at the loft Jessica was renting, and hopped in the car. They took me to fancy tea at the Queen Mary, which was so darling- I LOVE fancy tea…the little sandwiches, and pastries- YUM. Rachel brought a super cute Alice in Wonderland tea cup for me from England, that I absolutely love. Jessica had a bride Mickey ear hat for me to wear. Initially I was a bit against this kind of thing…but once I put that hat on, I was all about it! Wore it the whole day. After tea, we went and got our nails done…with champagne and our own little room and everything. So great. Then it was time to head back to the loft to have friends over for wine and apps. Jessica had a Polaroid camera and took pictures with me and each of the guests (along with Disney props) to put into a little album, where each guest had signed a little note. Rachel had everyone get close around me and come up with a word to pray/wish on Brian and I, and she opened in prayer, people shared their word, and then Olga closed. It was amazing.

Then everyone went home. Rachel, Jessica, and I finished a few last minute crafty things for the wedding, and went to bed- because I had to be up at 7am to go to class on my wedding day. Yep…I went to my Anatomy & Physiology lab that morning…I had emailed the professor that I wouldn’t be there because I was getting married, and he responded saying that if I could make it at all, it would be a good idea because ‘you can’t make up labs’. So I went…but I wore my Mickey bride hat to make him feel a little guilty.