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So I'm getting married today.

Crazy.

As I'd said in an earlier post, with the beginning of a new life ahead of me, I'm beginning a new chapter with a new blog. This one will still be up and running, with links to the new blog and links to previous blogs, and the new blog will have links back here and to the others.

It's very exciting, I know.

Also exciting? I'm marrying my very best friend later today. In about... 16 hours.

This weekend's been fantastic so far. Friday night we met up with Kris Cowen for dinner and general fraternizing until midnight. Saturday I did most of my packing for our trip to Hawaii before heading to my bachelorette party. I wish I had the pictures, but I've left my camera at the other apartment. :( Maybe I'll have time on the plane to go through them.... no, wait, I'll definitely have time on the plane to go through them. Trips to Hawaii ain't quick.

My bachelorette party was great! We had a photo scavenger hunt in Coronado, dinner at Miguel's, then back to the apartment for gifts and talk, and then a sleepover with my very favorite girls. Thank you, Jenna, Sonia, and Mandy for sticking it out slumber party style. Sleeping sucked, Dear John sucked, but the bonding was great.

Dragged my behind off the couch this morning to meet Chris and his family for brunch (see earlier picture (sent from my brand new Samsung Reality (which is awesome))), then it was off to the nail salon. Want to know a secret? I hate getting my nails done. It hurts me. I don't know if my feet are just super sensitive or what, but I swear my toes are bright red when they're done, from all the pain they've caused me. Today, I literally watched the woman tear off a piece of my skin. My skin! And they take that little flat tool and jam it over your nail and straight into your toe. Seriously, I'm all tensed up the entire time. I wouldn't do it at all except that Chris has put in a request for me to girly it up a bit occasionally.

Also, it always takes so long.

And that's why we were late for our rehearsal. We actually had to rehearse on a completely different lawn than our actual ceremony lawn, because there was another wedding going on there. We had to improvise some, since our lawn includes a fountain and a view of downtown San Diego, but I think it's going to work. And I just need to say I LOVE our wedding party. They are so much stinking fun! It was just such a great atmosphere of joking around and watching fish jump out of the water. (I was pretty much mesmerized by this the whole time we ran through the first time, and turns out my bridesmaids were too-- stay tuned for an awesome picture Cody caught of them watching the fish-- anyway, if I spot a fish jumping out of the water tomorrow, I'll completely lose my focus on the wedding-- sorry, babe.) Jenafer was amazing coordinating everyone, and Justin was a great minion. ;) Jessica was the perfect flower girl after take one (where she booked it the first five yards or so), and it's all just going to be so perfect!

Then it was off to the dinner at BJ's. We had the entire outside area closed off just for us, and they've recently updated the outside; it was completely awesome. They have new loungey booths now that really give it a party atmosphere. We had all you can eat pizza and appetizers, and Chris and I table hopped because we weren't sure who we should sit with. So we chose everybody! When we passed out our wedding party gifts, Chris explained the story behind the 365 book (which we'd given to everyone) and how it was by Ryan showing me the book, and me thinking this Chris must just be an awesome guy, that we were all there tonight. I just love our love story!

Then it was back home to finish packing, ogle over the presents already piled in the garage (presents!), and try to analyze why my tooth still hurts (there's no more tooth, for crying out loud!). Then Chris left with Kris and Becky to go stay the night at their time share, where the boys will be getting ready, and I continued prepping for the day and the trip at the condo, where us girls will be primping.

So... I should be going to bed... but I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. ;) See you on the other side!


Remember, the new blog is www.lovelikeapolaroid.blogspot.com. Don't know when the first post will go up, but please keep checking; I promise it will come eventually!

25 day countdown

At 25 days left (25!), here's how our evenings normally look:

He + computer ( + beer) = last minute wedding design.

She + computer ( + extra large coke) = math, math, and more math studying.


25 days!

"Napoleon goes over plans for world domination"

Alternate title: Chris pours over plans for wedding domination, 2010.

Bridal Shower Memories

Things I want to remember from my bridal shower:

The decorations and food: it was exactly how I would have done it for any of my friends. Beautiful cupcakes on the cupcake tier, fresh fruit, a pretty blue cake holder (holding more cupcakes!), Chinese lanterns hung in the tree outside, and tissue paper pom-poms! It was a dream how perfect it was.

My beautiful bridesmaids who put so much time and effort into making the day so special. Here's Jenna with the 'who knows Jordan best?' trivia game.

Being met at the door with a veil that my sister fixed into my hair. I wore it for the entire party and felt like a real bride!

Did I mention the Chinese lanterns?

The fact that the girls planned ahead to have two people assigned to take pictures. This, above all, might have meant the most to me, because you all know I loooooovve pictures, and I take my camera everywhere, and I love documenting life through a Canon lens. Thank you Brittany and Brittany for your beautiful works of art!

The first of many, many yellow things that will go in our house. 

Getting to see Sarah and Adam's house for the first time. It's a pretty incredible place out in Jamul. Very country and cute and fanciful. Loved it.

Um, what is it with baby eyelashes these days? All the kids have amazing eyes!

I want to remember cute and innovative packaging, especially ones that were color coordinated. :)

When I put this "Queen of Everything" apron on our registry, I knew someone would get it for my shower. Thanks, Becky! I will wear this often when I cook for my handsome husband.

My very special friend Jenafer, who has been such a blessing to me over the years. She's got mad skillz when it comes to making wrapping paper bouquets to use at the rehearsal. 

My three current roommates, beautiful girls who are always around to watch late night Friends episodes, talk about getting married, or be sad with about leaving each other in our last week together.

Don't want to forget Sarah, who gave an amazing little devotional to the girls about being the wife you want to be. Really spoke to my heart about the kind of wife and person I want to be in the years to come.

Did I mention the tissue pom-pons that they stayed up late the night before making?

My baby sister, whose grown up all of the sudden, and attending bridal showers and being in weddings. She did a great job coming out of her shell (I'm sure with a little push from Jenna and a giant push from Sonia) and stepping up to help out the maids of honor.... even to the point of being the underwear model girl!

My new family, and how amazing they've been to me during this time. Chris' parents and Sarah have embraced me into their family in a way that seriously makes me want to cry when I think about it. I always wanted a great big family!

Don't want to forget meeting baby Hannah for the first time. Still can't believe I hadn't seen one of my closest friend's first child until she was able to hold her head up on her own and everything. Another baby with beautiful eyes.

Oh! And gerber daisies in vases and yellow pails!

My two beautiful maids of honor. LOVE these girls. Never want to forget the fun we've had together, the amazing memories over the years, and how great they've been during the whole engagement thing. Thanks, beautiful friends!

It was such a special day. I love all my friends and family who came out to celebrate with me. Thank you for all the wonderful life things you gave to start Chris and me out on our journey together, but mostly the support you've all shown is what really means the world to us. :) Between my bridal shower and later on Chris' man bath (that's a story for a later time), we feel so loved by you all.

Packing it up.

Due to the late arrival of summer this year, and the atrociously hot temperature in our townhouse these days, the only time I can pack without wanting to to die is times like this. Three a.m. Three a.m. has found me on the last few nights boxing up scrapbooks, clothes, and old memories. Seriously, I have lots of old memories. Like, bins of old memories. They range from photo albums to old camp staff notebooks to boxes of pictures to stuffed happy birthday bears. I am amazed at how much of my "stuff" is in the form of memories.

(I'm also amazed at how much underwear I have- certainly more than one person needs, and this is not helped by last week's bridal shower.)


(Can I talk about underwear on here? Will you guys stop reading if I do?)


(Please don't stop reading. I'll go back to talking about normal things here.)

So I've been sifting through my memories. And boxing up my present. And the future? It's kind of up in the air right now. Besides the obvious changes, that is. I'm marrying an amazing man. I get to spend the rest of my life with him. But where we'll spend our first year? What our house will look like? When we get to settle into our own space? That's all TBD. For now, we just know we'll make do at the condo, most of our things packed away in the garage for the real move. Whenever and wherever that will be.

We are at exactly 30 days now, and it's still so hard to believe that in just 30 days, everything will change. As I sit here on my bed, looking around at my half naked room, it's hard to imagine that in 30 days I won't be roommates with Jenna, Brittany, and Jen. I won't be waiting for Jenna to finish up in the bathroom at night so I can go in and brush my teeth. I won't stay up late watching Friends episodes with Jen. And I've seen so much of Brittany these past few years, what with living and working together, but 30 days from now I'll be gone and she'll have started her new job.

It's all so weird.

Also, weird? I get to live with a boy.... weird.

My first ever bridal shower

Sunday was my birthday! And as is tradition at the Woodman classroom, we had a celebration!

But not just any ol' birthday celebration, mind you. I was surprised with a birthday/bridal shower luncheon on Monday!

My co-workers seriously rock. No wonder Woodman is the most coveted classroom.

So I headed into the kitchen around 12:15, prepared for my birthday lunch, as as I rounded the corner I saw... (da, da, da!)... a Victoria's Secret bag. And I was all, "wha?" and Brittany was all, "welcome to your birthday bridal shower!" And I was all, "the guys are leaving, right? Right?"

Nope. The guys stayed.

We had a big ol' potluck with lumpia, fried chicken, couscous, a fruit bowl, and two cakes... one of which was my favorite Hans & Harry cake.

Brittany even facilitated bridal shower games to play! She passed out clothespins to play the "you may not say the words bride, groom, wedding, dress, or Chris" game. I lost real fast on that one, using Chris' name of course. But Dave ended up winning his very first bridal shower game from it.

We also did the "how much do all these things cost?" with a bag of cleaning supplies... I was exactly $1 off that game, P.S., with a guess of $16.76. Darn that Rachel girl for taking that prize from me.

(But it's okay: I got to keep all the stuff in the bag. Chris and I will have a clean house!)

Co-workers Lora Lae and Baby Rachel (Woodman inside joke):

Our resident math wiz, Domingo, hanging loose at the shower, and sporting his clothespin:

Michelle, who is my specific teacher, and who is amazing!

Me opening up various presents and cards. I got a birthday card signed by the students and a special card delivered by two of my favorites, plus the Woodman staff card. I was a little, ahem, wary of opening my Victoria's Secret bag in front of the guys, but Michelle assured me it was fine. In it was a gift card... thank goodness. ;)

I also got something from our registry: our two glass mixing cups. Our kitchen is well on its way. And, my fellow scrapbooking co-worker Lora Lae also gave me an adorable scrapbook for wedding pictures, in our specific wedding colors! Loved it!

But by far, the best picture of the day goes to Baby Rach:

Thank you, Woodman friends! I love working with you all and couldn't ask for a better place to spend the majority of my day!

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. :)

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.