Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Las Vegas Baby!



Steve's friends want to take him to Las Vegas for his bachelor party. I'm SO DOWN with that! I think he'll have a blast and spend time with his boys in a city where they've never gone to together, to celebrate Steve's last moments as a non-married man. He thinks it's over the top and unnecessary, but c'mon! Do it!

I'm totally fine with him spending a few days in Vegas, partying it up like he hasn't before. He wanted to talk to me about it yesterday, he wanted to make sure I wasn't saying "go" just to be cool or whatever. I really, honestly don't have a problem with it! I did put my foot down on a few things: no prostitutes (duh) and no skydiving (which was on their agenda). I trust Steve. I think I trust him more than other people trust their significant others. I'm not sure why, but I never have any weird feelings about him going out, him going out with old friends who are girls. I just know him. I know he'd flee if anything were to happen. I know, even if he were in a room with 100 hot, naked women, he'd be trying to find a way out. It's just how he is. And I guess that's why I'm marrying him!

I told him it was even ok to go to a strip club. I just told him no boob touching. I know he would never do anything and why not have some fun while you can?

I hope things work out and they are able to go. I think they are planning something for January, since allllll of his friends' birthdays are also in January. It's gonna be cold there but who cares, the liquor will keep them all warm!

This Saturday Steve and I are booking our honeymoon. I CAN'T WAIT. We're down to 10 months now and I still have so much left to do. I better get ON IT!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

holy hell it's been too long!

Sometime I wonder if anyone at all reads my blog, you know, other than family members. I haven't written in MONTHS because my life has been somewhat hectic. My "boss" if you will is on maternity leave until September, which means I'm flying solo mostly. I do have the support of my spit-fire intern, and of course the big boss lady who focuses on this account. But the day to day? All me. All alone. Needless to say I won't be taking any time off this summer either. I keep thinking ahead - it's ok, I'll be in Tahiti in less than a year - so I'll hang around this summer and keep my chin up.

I also plan to take a 1 week vacation in September when my boss is back full force. I'm gonna need it.

So what's happened since May????

I've been working about 50 hours a week
I hurt my back and couldn't walk, move, sit or anything for a week
I got the swine flu
I totaled my truck
I bought a new truck
I haven't been on the treadmill in over a month due to the hurt back/getting the flu/car accident

Back on the treadmill tonight. Promise.

I have pictures to post of the dogs and my new truck. I'll get to that some day.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Engagement photo session!

I was so nervous! I'm not sure why, as I'm not a shy person. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I got! If I was this nervous about e-pics, I will be a hot MESS when I do my b-pics! But, after we got used to being in front of a camera, it was so fun. So fun I wish I could be followed around by an amazing photographer all the time. It was kind of like having paparazzi. It took a bit to learn how to "not pose" and just be us.

We started out at this little no-named park down the street from our house. What I liked about it was that it had a long, straight, dirt trail with lots of over-hanging trees. It wasn't as groomed as I remembered from last year, but it was still OK. We only took a few shots there. This whole time I wasn't sure about the other locations. I just didn't know!


Right before John (photographer) got to our house, I was thinking "hey! The village would be awesome!" so we went there. Lots of cool lines, lots of cool, different looking places in the Village. The bridge, the canal, the cool brick wall by the ice cream place. It was so awesome.


We brought the bike a prop and got some really cool glamour shots of it against the brick wall and with us on it. I'm not sure how good we looked on the bike or if my face looked like a meatball like it tends to. We'll see in a couple weeks how they turned out. John said we only needed about 20 good shots.


When we wrapped up, Steve made it home before John and I did and out comes Steve and both dogs with their fancy collars on. I knew right away what Steve was about to ask "do you think you could get some good shots with the dogs?" Our photographer is cool and said of course - so we headed to the backyard out of the sunlight and got some amazing shots of the dogs. Got a couple with the dogs and us, but I always wanted to get some nice head shots of the dogs to get framed. Here's one sneak peek:

I love how we look like we're having fun in the background. And Hudson looks soooo handsome!

We should be able to go in 2-3 weeks to pick out our favorites and then we can get started on our save the dates and our card box. And it's just nice to have SOME professional pictures of Steve and I in our house. I will post more as soon as I can.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

our wedding night

We've been wondering what/where we plan to be after our wedding. Like right after our wedding. We know we won't want the party to end right at midnight...but we weren't sure what options we had. We didn't want all our friends to just disappear to their respective places so we've been on the hunt to find a good spot.
We booked rooms for our guests at both the Woodcliff Hotel and Spa and also Brookwood Inn. Both places are amazing so we decided to check out their bridal suites. Brookwood Inn was nice, one floor, pretty generic looking bridal suite. For $450. (Yikes!) So then we hopped on over to the Woodcliff to see if their prices were comparable. Well, for the high price of $450, we could get the two story, 1,100 square foot Art Deco suite. We went there this past Tuesday to look around but unfortunately the Art Deco suite was booked. Argh. We didn't want to make a decision until we got a chance to look at that room - we did look at other suites and they were pretty awesome, but we really had our hearts set on the Art Deco room.

My contact over there was able to send me some pictures and set up another time to go look at it. I'm hoping to swing over on Sunday to book the place.

Here are some photos. Ah-mazing.






Tuesday, May 19, 2009

wet clothes



I *try* to do our laundry every week. I do our combined clothes and Steve is responsible for doing his work clothes. I don't like his greasy stuff mixing with our nice clothes. So this past weekend I was going to do a load. I had to wash our comforter first, to get that out of the way. After it washed I threw it in the dryer and left it. I went back down later that day and realized it wasn't dried all the way. Ok, well, no biggie, I threw it back in and turned the timer for another hour. I figured, it was a comforter, it could've gotten tangled in there - so whatever.
Steve decides to do a load of his clothes, so I just said to hang the comforter on the treadmill and have it air dry so we could do another load. Well...this is when we realized that our dryer had shit the bed. His entire load of work clothes that he had just washed was cold and still wet after being the in the dryer for an hour. Great. It was spinning and turning on, so we would leave it, thinking it was working. We were wrong. And now we have wet clothes in our basement.

We did some preliminary research and stopped at Home Depot Sunday evening and found a pair (why not get both since our old ones are both about 20 years old and came with the house). We did more research once we got home and then stopped at Lowe's last night. Free next day delivery, haul away and hook up. We also got 12 months free financing which is cool too, we'll obviously pay if off way before that, but it's nice to know we have some time.

It's a Samsung somethingorother. I don't know the exact product name....and we were thinking about the Maytag version that's comparable, but after talking to the sales guy and a few other couples looking to buy, we heard that Maytag has all new engineers and the new machines just aren't built like they used to be. So we landed with the Samsung. It's got this cool thing (VRT) that keeps the machine from jumping around during the spin cycle. Very cool. The sales guy showed us the floor display and ran the machine for us so we could see ourselves how this technology works. The spin cycle looked like a freakin jet engine, and the machine started to freak out...then it stopped. The shaking stopped but the machine kept going. So neat to see.

Here are some pics of the floor model. We didn't get the bottom part that has drawers and keeps the units up higher.
The two units side by side
I want to push the buttons

and I want to turn the knob

They get delivered tonight, between 4-8pm. So excited. That wet laundry is probably pretty gross right now so we'll *have* to wash it again!

Steve is also building me some nice shelves and a folding area so I can keep all the laundry stuff together in one place. Right now everything is everywhere.

You know you're getting old when new appliances are SO exciting.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I haven't blogged in so long!

Why? It's because I'm crazy busy at work these days. I got put on a new account (not even sure if I've mentioned it before) but I'm now working FULL 9-10 hour days. I get in at 8am (30 minutes before my office opens) and I don't leave until after 6pm usually. And I eat my lunch at my desk. I'm not complaining - well, not really. I LOVE being busy. It makes the time just FLY and I can't believe the day is over when it is. Days are going by super fast, weeks are flying by. Before I know it, it'll be close to my wedding day!

So what has happened since the last time I blogged. Well, hmmm....Steve got the biggest raise ever because he got approached by another dealership and he went to his boss and negotiated with him. I'm super proud of him, all his hard work is paying off! I'm officially marrying a "Master Tech" Saweeeeet!

Sunday was Mother's Day. We usually split our day between his mom and my mom. We went to his mom's for lunch, but she wasn't feeling up for anything so we just hung out and chatted. Then we went home, took a nap, and went to my mom's for dinner. I offered to either cook or bring food over, but if you know my mom, you know she'd rather cook a gourmet meal for us. So that's what she did. Pretty awesome. We didn't get any real gifts, but we ARE making my mom a mahjong table...OK, Steve is going to do it while I supervise. We got his mom a card, a GIANT balloon and some flowers. I think I'm going to send Turk's mom something in a couple weeks too.

No more wedding updates, other than our invites. My sister finally finished the first layout, which is approved, so now we have to do all the other stuff....the RSVP card, directions, accommodations, etc.

Here's our invite. It's not hi res (obviously, so forgive the quality please):




you can't really see the detail that's faded in the back, but you get the general idea.

Friday, April 17, 2009

and so it begins....

I had my first wedding dream/nightmare last night. I have heard stories of other brides having these dreams/nightmares and I was wondering when I'd have my first. I call it a nightmare even though it wasn't THAT bad...but only because as I was putting on my wedding dress, with the help of my bridesmaids, I realized that I have never gotten any alterations done, got the bustle taken care of...and no shoes. I realized that I had stopped wedding planning at where I am right now (a year out) and the guys had no tuxes since we never went to go pick any out. I don't remember what the girls were wearing....then all of a sudden it skipped to the reception and I was tossing the bouquet to the single ladies (put your hands up!) and it hit the ceiling, fell and no one picked it up.

For some reason I don't remember any of the guys being in my dream. I'm not sure if they were even at the wedding! Ha!

I do have to say though, my dress looked AWESOME on me in my dream. I went to my parents house the other weekend and went to go take a look at it. I want to try it on again, now that I have lost 4 pounds (that's right folks, still holding steady at only losing 4 pounds in 3 months, don't even get me started!) so I'm wondering if the dress will look different on me now. It has a corset back, so I know I won't need alterations really, but I'm just curious to know if there will be a difference. My clothes fit much better, my jeans fit awesome....I don't have a muffin top anymore when I put on jeans fresh out of the dryer....c'mon you know what I'm talking about....maybe I'll take a trip over there again and try it on. Just for fun. Oh and I need one of those underneath skirt puffer outer. You know what I'm talking about? That thing that you put on under the dress to keep it puffed out and big-looking. I need to find one of those.

I'm so excited to be coming down to our 1 year mark. I know, sounds kind of stupid since one year is like an eternity. But's it's pretty huge to us. We've been engaged for 10 months. This 10 months really have flown by. I hope the next year flies too!

Did I mention we're getting our engagement pictures done on 5/23? So excited for that. Steve started running on the treadmill to get in shape for our pictures. Haha...who knew he was so vain!

In other news, tomorrow I have a birthday party to go to. It's for my flower girl Charli! I absolutely CANNOT believe she's 3. THREE! Where did the time go!? Steve and I are going to Target today after work to get her a gift. So fun. Too bad he can't come too since he's working tomorrow.

OH and one more thing: the director of client services and VP of my company (who is awesome by the way) called me into her office. I was a little TERRIFIED since news around this time is never good, but it turned out to be good news! I was asked if I'd like to be put on another account. OF COURSE! Anything to keep me challenged and busy! She said "we would love to have you on XXX account. There has been a lot of turnover for this client and we would like to have someone who will be around for a long time, someone we can trust to take the bull by the horns and run with it." AWESOME. I'm excited! I attended my first meeting yesterday, even though all I did was sit there and listen. But I can't wait to enter new territory and learn new things!

Friday, April 3, 2009

Perspective

I recently found some old friends on Facebook. Well, I found my old friend's little sister and father on Facebook. I haven't seen this old friend since I was a senior in highschool. This is the friend who I met at the tender age of 11, in 6th grade. I have to admit, we got in a ton of trouble together, but being her friend definitely had an impact on how my life turned out and who I am today.

She was like my sister in a way. We shared the fact that I'm Asian and she's half. We loved that about each other. We almost pretended to be sisters to strangers in fact. I spent countless hours at her house, staying up late, sneaking out, smoking cigarettes. Joy riding in our friend Jesse's minivan. So many memories. She unfortunately, due to many things, dropped out of school and ended up in a foster home. We lost track of each other shortly after that....until one random day. I was a senior in high school, I hadn't seen her in probably 2-3 years. She stopped over my house and was showing off her beautiful baby girl who she had named Deana. She looked great being a new mom, but it was very different for me. I was still a kid, partying like there was no tomorrow, had new friends....it was very different to see her as a mom and living her new lifestyle. I had no idea where she was living, who the baby-daddy was or anything about her new life.

A few months later (maybe more than a few) I stopped at her parents house to see her with her now almost-one-year-old daughter. And she was pregnant with #2. Again, she looked great, her family seemed put together again. All seemed well. We went to the park with her baby and spent the time catching up and spending time together. That was the last time I ever saw her.

I recently found her younger sister on Facebook and immediately sent her a message asking about my friend. I was told they are both now living in Hawaii (awesome!) and that my friend now had 3 kids. There were only a few pictures posted, and they weren't great, but from what I can tell, my friend looks amazing and look like she hasn't changed in all these years.

Then I found her father on Facebook as well and found some blogs he's posted over the years. This is where I got emotional. He writes in his blogs about his oldest daughter (my friend) who is serving in Iraq. Turns out my friend decided to get her life in better order and joined the United States Army. She's has served two tours in Iraq (while leaving her two babies behind ---#3 came later). I can't imagine what it would be like to leave your babies behind while you go fight on the front lines. My friend, my sister. She's only 5'2" and maybe 105lbs. Maybe. She was always a fighter and I always knew she'd end up on top. To find out all of this happened while I was going to college, getting a job, moving home, buying a house...to know that she was on the front lines fighting for MY freedom. Ugh. My heart just filled with love, emotion, everything I could imagine. I NEVER thought I'd feel this way. Maybe it's because I had this bond with this one person....and just never thought she'd go through this.

I haven't yet made contact with her personally, just a few messages back and forth to her dad and sister. I gave my phone number so I'm really, really, hoping she'll call. She also just recently bought a motorcycle and has been riding it a lot....HOW FREAKIN COOL. I can't wait to get on the phone with this girl and actually talk to her. I want to hear from her what life's been like. I want to know if she's still on active duty or if she's done with the Army. I want to know what it's like to have 3 kids. I want to know if/when she'll be coming home so I can try to meet up with her. I have this flood of emotion and I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm shocked at my reaction to finding all of this out. I keep obsessively checking my Facebook account, hoping I get a new message from someone in her life.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Time for E-pics!

It's finally time! We booked our photographer a while back and at that time, it was just starting to become fall/winter here, so Steve and I decided to wait until Spring to have our engagement pictures done.

I contacted my photographer www.johnlarkinphotography.com and got a date on the calendar. Saturday, May 23 at 4pm. That will give us plenty of natural light since we'll be outdoors. I haven't quite decided on a location just yet....there is this cute little park that Steve and I take the dogs to that's right down the street from our house. It's got a long, straight trail, with tons of trees towering overhead. I think it'll be super cute there. Then I'm not sure of a second location. I was thinking maybe at the other park, near the canal. We'll see. I'll have to drive around and see what's out there. This is so exciting! It's going to start feeling real soon, now that we're able to actually DO stuff for the wedding.

We're down to less than 14 months now. Ok, I know it's still SO FAR AWAY....but seeing that we've been engaged for 9 months already and that went by pretty fast....I'm really hoping the next 14 months go by fast too! I think once summer really hits, time will just FLY by. At least I hope so!

Monday, March 23, 2009

a couple more wedding items to cross off the list!

Steve was home this weekend so I of course wanted to pack it full with activites and errands and such. I had set up a couple of appointments for Saturday afternoon to check out a couple of hotels near our reception site. I always knew I wanted the Woodcliff to be one of our options, but wasn't sure on the second one. We went and looked at the Woodcliff first, and loved it right away. The staff were wonderful, the place was amazing. It's a full service hotel, so there's a spa, golfcourse, awesome restaurant etc. They offer a shuttle service for our guests, which is pretty awesome, so no one has to worry about driving after they've been drinking. We got the contract, so all we have to do is sign it and send it back. Luckily for us, we don't have to pay anything, just sign the contract and the place is ours. We booked 10 room for Friday night, May 28 and 15 rooms for Saturday night the 29th.

We swung on over to The Brookwood Inn, which is right down the street (convenient!) and checked that out too. It was stunning inside. They are in the middle of renovating the whole place, so that's good! The guest rooms were good too, very nice. We got a chance to check out the bridal suite, it wasn't as nice as I thought...but it was still nice.

We wanted to check out the bridal suites for both, since we know at the end of the night, neither one of us would want to go back to our house. So we were hoping to book the 1200 square foot bridal suite at the Woodcliff and have our entire bridal party come back to our room so the party wouldn't just end.
here is the suite, only it's not renovated yet...it'll be gorgeous when it's done!!! Do you see the spiral staircase??? OMG! I'm so exited!

Also, we got our honeymoon costs from the travel agent over the weekend. It's a little more than we wanted to spend, so we went back and told our travel agent that we'll just stick to two islands instead of three. We originally wanted to go to Bora Bora, Moorea and Manihi. Spending about 3-4 nights on each. And we wanted to have guaranteed overwater bungalows. That was about $3,000 MORE than our allocated budget, so we went back and decided that we would be just as happy spending 5 nights in Moorea and 4 nights in Bora Bora. That was just about in our price range....only it doesn't include food or any excursions. I guess the food there is incredibly expensive ($50ea for breakfast, $75ea for lunch, $150ea for dinner!) YIKES! We're hoping to find some options that include ONE meal. We'll see where that shakes out.

This is the overwater bungalow at the resort we're staying at, the Intercontinental Thalasso

Another view of the bedroom. The bed faces out into the ocean!

The bathroom

The private deck off our room

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Poor Steve....again!

Seriously? Did this really happen? Tuesday, Steve's bike somehow got tipped over and had significant damage to the right side. I get a phone call yesterday around lunch time and it's Steve saying "you won't believe what just happened" - My first thought was "please don't tell me your car is messed up" and he says "YUP - THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT" - OMG really? His buddy was backing out and apparently hit his car and someone else's.

Steve will need a new bumper and fender. Awesome. Can this week get any better?

Tonight we're heading over to Cycle Stop to go order the parts he needs for the bike. It'll be about a week before the parts get here and then Steve will have to put it all together.

What a way to start a season eh?

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Poor Steve

Yesterday was the first day this year that Steve got his motorcycle out on the road. It's been stored in our basement for the last 6 months. He's been babying it, cleaning it, put new steel brake lines on it, etc. He just couldn't wait until it was nice enough out to bust it out and go for a spin.

He called two of his buddies over to help bring this bike upstairs. I'm sure you're all wondering how the hell did he get it inside the house and down the basement stairs??? Well folks, to keep this short, he built a ramp, complete with traction with little bumps along the way to be nailed to our basement steps. He then got someone to come over and help him slowly get the bike down the steps. Luckily for us, our basement stairs are almost directly across from our garage door that leads into the house. It was very simple actually!

So last night he goes for a quick spin and since today is so nice out, he decided to take it to work. He parks the bike where he normally parks his car, in a "lot" out back, near the back door of the shop. He goes out to smoke a cigarette, enjoys how nice his bike looks, goes back inside to work. His friend runs in about 5 minutes later and tells him that the bike is laying out the ground. On the right side. The RIGHT side? How the hell did it fall on the right side? For those of you who don't know how you park a bike, the kickstand is on the left and you turn the handlebars to the left as well, to lock it in place. Wind couldn't have made this thing fall. It wouldn't just topple over on it's own. Steve thinks someone wanted to sit on it or something and it fell over when that person didn't know how to get off it. Or someone just pushed it over. Either way, with no collision on the bike, it's likely going to cost us $2,000 to get all the parts to fix it. Great. Fucking AWESOME.

So tonight, we're heading to Cycle Stop to buy the parts we need to fix it. Luckily, it's only cosmetic. Luckily, he wasn't on the bike when it fell over. Luckily no one is hurt and it's only money. I know, sounds weird to say "it's only money" but in reality, if something can be fixed with money, I'm not that worried about it. We have our health, we have our jobs, money is just that. Money. We'd rather buy parts from the actual dealer, so that if something were to happen to those parts, we'd be backed up. If we were to buy them off an Ebay seller for instance, once we pay, it's our deal. No guarantees.

Poor guy. First day out on the bike and this is what happens. And he wasn't even around when it happened!

Friday, March 13, 2009

busy busy week!

This week has been insane for me. My co-workers (along with my supervisor) were in town from Minnesota for our annual State of the Agency off site meeting. They were in town from Tuesday until last night. It's our jobs to make sure they have entertainment, dinner, etc while they are in town.

It just so happened that the Jersey Boys were performing, so our entire agency went to the show after our offsite meeting. It was amazing! I didn't really know what it was supposed to be about, until I read the program and realized it was about the Four Seasons and their journey to stardom. These songs bring back crazy memories for me. Big girls don't cry was one of my faves since one of my all time favorite movies is Dirty Dancing.

Thurday night we went to dinner and hung out on their last night in town and we kept it pretty low key. We all know that I'm not really into going out and drinking a lot and having a hangover and still having to come to work. No thanks. Not my cup of tea thankyouverymuch.

This weekend Steve and I are going to our friend Rich's new house. He just bought it and closed last week! We're bringing all types of food over and such to welcome him into his new home. So fun! Also on Saturday we have plans to go chat with the Tahiti specialist at the travel agency we met with a few weeks ago. I can't wait to hear all about it!

There aren't too many other updates to write about...dad and mom are in Thailand...dad is coming home on March 21 and mom not until April 9. Oh - Jennifer actually texted me and told me that dad's store (Rite Aid on Park Ave) is closing! WTF?! He's been at that store since it was Fay's, Eckerd, he's been there over 20 years! But being a pharmacist, he's lucky there's a shortage and he'll be able to get transferred to another store. Hell, he could even hop around and find the best opportunity. I know Wegmans offers a $5000 or something signing bonus. Pretty sweet. But it's just weird, to think that the last 2 years he works before he retires he has to be somewhere else. I never would have thought in a million years that his location would shut down. It's so sad. I remember going there as a little kid with my mom to pick up prescription or whatever. Insane to think he'll be somewhere else.

Well, other than that...not much else is going on...other than me and Steve waiting so impatiently for spring/summer to get here. The last few weeks of winter always just drag on and on and it gets so damn annoying. It'll be 50 one day, then 20 the next. I can't keep up. Just fucking change over already!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Travel agent

This past weekend, after the fun-filled activities were over and our out of town friends had left to go home, Steve and I decided to head over to the travel agency at our local mall to ask a few questions. I mean...it's never too early to start planning a vacation right?

We got there and it was surprisingly busy. We waited about 15 minutes before anyone could see us. We went into it knowing what exactly we were looking for. We know we want to go to Tahiti, and then island hop to Bora Bora, Moorea and then Manihi as our last stop.

We know we want to stay in the overwater bungalows at each of our stops. A lot of the resorts have regular rooms that are on the island, but Steve and I want to make sure we get to stay in one of those special huts (we have to book early to guarantee an overwater bungalow since there are so few of them). And not only do we have to specify that we want to stay in one of the huts, but we have to specify that we want all the amenities - I don't anticipate spending a ton of time in our room, but c'mon, we all know Steve and I. TV junkies. We need TV at night before going to bed. Having AC is important to us as well - it'll be an average of 85 degrees (the water temp is like 75 degrees!) so I know we'll get a little too warm if we didn't have AC.

While we were there, the lady we were talking with told us that she's really not the one we want to be speaking with. She's the Mexico expert, while her counterpart who was busy at the time, is a Tahiti expert. She's passing all our information to her and we're hoping to hear back from her sometime this week. Anyways, she pulled up some flight information, just to see where we'd be dollars wise and as it turns out, it's much cheaper than what I had found online! She pulled up information for this May too, so by booking early for next May, we should get even a better deal. It was about $500 less PER plane ticket! There are a few options too, we can get a direct flight out of JFK, which would be ideal - we can get tickets to NYC for pretty cheap around here. And a direct flight?! Awesome. The other option is to fly out of LAX. My mom has already said that we can use her mileage to get out there for free...but if we can manage it, we're hoping to book the direct flight from JFK.

We can't technically book anything until July of this year, but it's coming soon! We will be so excited to book something! What's nice about working with a travel agency is that even if we book super early, they always keep an eye ot for specials and discounts and we can get them applied to our trip. So we know we won't be paying MORE for anything...Another really cool thing is that instead of purchasing stuff from our bridal registry, people can call the travel agency and help pay for our trip! Steve and I have so much stuff already and have been living together for so long that we really don't need any household items. This is sweet.

Not only that, but the agency can pre plan and pre book our activities while we're there. We will seriously show up with our itinerary in hand and have everything already planned for us. Awesome. We won't need to worry about this, or that, or planning something last minute.

Annnnd. To book the entire trip? We just need to pay for our flights and a $150 deposit. The remaining amount is due 35 days from when we leave. We can drop in and pay off our balance whenever. This will be a HUGE help - we won't have to cough up ALL the money right away, but we can chip away at the balance as we go. Sweet!

I don' t know why I've never thought about a travel agency.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

back from Minnesota

I spent a couple days in Minnesota this week - my company threw a party for our numerous guests out there and a bunch of us were able to go and have a good time. I got up at the ripe hour of 4:15am Tuesday morning and headed to the airport, with luggage, purse, and laptop in hand. Our direct flight was very easy, (I was a little nervous, after watching a few plane crashes over the last couple of weeks) we landed safely on the ground on time. We gathered up our team (14 of us!) and headed over to our new office.

Once there, my wonderful supervisor had bagels and coffee ready to go. I was able to do some work before having to set up for the party, which was good that I didn't lose an entire day of work.

The party started at 3:30 with a tour of the new office, then we headed to some presentation that discussed the impact of the economy on our businesses. Very interesting. Then it was time to eat, drink and be merry!

Clients were happy, had a good time and said some really nice things about us. (Phew!) Even though my one client was incredibly inappropriate the entire time (I don't think she has many friends), it was a good time! I'm so glad I was able to "bond" with her on a social level. Definitely helps the professional relationship.

The party ended abruptly at 9:00pm CST, and our team headed to the bar for some more drinks and some more food! (Have I mentioned lately how much I love my company!?) We got back to our hotel rooms around 11:00 CST, so it was time for bed. At this point, I had been up for 19 hours! Wow...I was surprised I actually hung in there!

The next morning, we promptly left the hotel at 8:15 and headed to the office to do some work before heading to the airport at 9:30. Got some work done, said buh-bye to my fellow co-workers and headed back en route to Rochester. We made it to Detroit on time and got to our gate and made it back to Rochester safely and on time again. Props to easy traveling.

Got home, hung out with Steve for a little bit, waited for Nick to come into town and then headed to the auto show. We saw some amazing cars there and had a good time! Today is my Friday too. Steve has the day off tomorrow and Nick is coming back into town from California tomorrow morning, so I decided to take the day off and hang with them.

So, I'm trying to get through today and then 3 day weekend here I come!

Wedding updates: I was finally able to ask Jami to be a bridesmaid! OMG I have been waiting for MONTHS to be able to ask her and she said yes! Steve and I took Kyle, Jami, and Korin out to Cheesecake Factory last Friday to a) ask Kyle and Jami to be in our wedding and b) thank them for saying yes. We knew it'd be a little expensive to treat everyone, but in all reality, they are going to be sacrificing and spending some money to be in our wedding too, so we thought it'd be a nice gesture to treat them. Kyle also said yes, no surprise there! It was really fun asking them. Steve is going to ask Nick to be his best man too sometime this weekend...I can't wait!

We also put our deposit down for the DJ. One more thing to cross off my list. Yay!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Valentine's Day

We don't normally do anything outrageous for Valentine's Day. We never have. We generally do a simple card and I get some flowers and chocolate.

This year I asked Steve if there was something particular he wanted, and he replied "meatballs and sauce" (I have to get used to this answer, considering I'm about to marry an Italian man!) So I started my grocery list right away of all the stuff I'd need. You see, Grandpa Teenie's meatballs and sauce are special, very special and therefore needs special ingredients. I got up Saturday morning knowing that I'd be battling the crowds at Wegmans. I try not to go to Wegmans on the weekends, knowing how insane it can get. Or, I go when I don't have plans that day, so I can spend my time fighting for space in the aisles, finding the picked over items that I desperately need, etc. This Saturday though, I was on a mission.

I spent two hours at Wegmans and made it home by 11:00am. I started cooking right away. The meatballs and sauce taste so much better after it's been cooking for a few hours. I spent the next 3 hours leisurely making about 150 meatballs and like 14 gallons of sauce (ok, maybe not that much, but a lot!) I was going to try to make it to Michael's and Target, but I'll have to tackle those later in the week.

Steve had to work until 5pm, so that gave me plenty of time to get ready. I picked up a card and chocolate truffles and two movies. We planned on keeping it very low key. Just the way I like it. Steve made it home and we snuggled in to our movie time. We watched Wall-E (AWESOME) and The Strangers (not awesome at all). I have to say, the food was awesome as well, I wasn't sure if I had nailed the taste, but Steve said it was so close, he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference! That made me super happy, to be able to make these dishes the way Grandpa did.

Steve bought me roses, chocolate and a card. I love his cards. I love how he takes the time to write stuff in them. I keep them all in my "Steve box" that I have upstairs...it's getting full, but I hope to go back in that box when we're 90 and look back on our old memories.

Then Sunday, I got up early and hopped on the treadmill. I was showered and ready to rock by 9:30am. Korin and Jaime were coming over at 11:30 to go to bridal show together. It was held at Casa Larga, which was cool, but there were SO many people there! It was unbelievable! You have to register before going, and it seemed like they registered far too many people. As soon as we walked in, we got bombarded with vendors trying to talk to us. It was quite overwhelming, but good at the same time. I have already booked most of the services that vendors were there for. I already booked the florist, so I didn't need to stop at that booth. Same thing for venues, DJ, dresses etc. It was a good time though and we signed up for another show on March 15.

We're booking our DJ this week and sending in our $75 deposit. One more thing to cross off the list!

Friday, February 13, 2009

3 pounds

Finally. I've lost 3 pounds. This 3 pounds have been gone since Wednesday night. After all the complaining I did about not seeing any results. This is just a teaser. My pants definitely feel looser, the pants that have never felt loose, feel loose. This is good. Just. Gotta. Keep. It. Up. If things continue to go how they are going, I should be reaching my goal weight by May. Just in time for our engagement photo session, my boudoir pics and summer!

I'm also going to be trying this ACAI berry drink. It's supposed to be this new super food if you will. Loads of antioxidants, and all that good shit. It's supposed to help with skin issues, metabolism, energy, etc. Let's see how it goes. I have one bottle that will last me about 1.5 weeks. If I like the taste, I'm going to buy a case that should last me a month.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I'm cooking sauce and meatballs for Steve. Then I think we're going to rent a movie and hang out.

Sunday I'm going to a bridal show at Casa Larga with Korin - who by the way asked me to be in her wedding! I'm so excited that I get to share this journey with her! Her wedding isn't until October 2011, but we've been friends for life, so we know we'll always be there for each other. I can't wait to go through this with one of the most amazing, selfless people I know. It's going to be great sharing ideas, destressing each other etc. We need each other. Her fiance is going to Iraq soon and will be home at the end of this year, that's partially why they want to wait until 2011...so as soon as he gets home it's not "ok, now you're back, let's plan this wedding!" It'll give them a chance to live together as a couple and be "engaged" together before they get married.

So many things going on in the near future! I love it!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Progress?

I'm on week #4 with the treadmill. I haven't lost any weight, but my scale probably isn't the best. I want to go this weeked to buy a digital scale.

I'm not discouraged...yet...but I swear, I better see some results soon. Do my pants fit better? Yes, a little. Do I have more energy? Yes, I have to say I do. But honestly, I wanted to lose about 1 pound per week...and I haven't. I've been watching what I eat, not snacking as much etc. but it doesn't seem to be helping! I know, losing weight isn't something that happens quickly, but seriously? 3 full weeks and NO results?

Instead of going by pounds, I've been told to get a tape measure and do it by inches.

I'm going to up the ante. I'm going to stop treadmilling every other day and start doing it every day. I'll give myself a break on the weekends, but I'm going to start doing it Monday through Friday. And I'm going to go out and buy some DVDs on weight lifting so I can add that into my routine as well. I don't want to bulk up until I've gotten to my goal weight, so I don't get discouraged by gaining muscle weight.

Hopefully the next weight update will be good news. I have to do it. I'm getting boudoir photos taken in Spring for Steve. I have to look good. We're going to Bora Bora for our honeymoon. I have to be able to wear a bikini.

Monday, February 9, 2009

I think we've decided on our honeymoon. Really.

We've gone back and forth with ideas on where to go for our honeymoon. The most rational idea is to go to Hawaii since my Aunt Vivian owns a condo there. We'd be able to spend 1 week at her condo free of charge, then hop on over to another island and stay there for about a week or so.


But then...Steve mentioned how he wanted to "splurge" - like really splurge. He mentioned Bora Bora. It's been an idea floating in our heads for a couple months now, but I think we're really going to do it. We are pinching our pennies and hoping for the best. Now that it's in our heads though, we don't want to settle for anything less. It's going to be expensive. We know that. But we also know that we will probably never be able to take a vacation like that again.

I looked online recently to see what types of packages they offer and found a 11 day, 10 night honeymoon deal. 4 nights in Moorea, 3 nights in Bora Bora, and 3 nights in Manihi (all in those awesome huts!) There are little additions you can add to your package, like a private sunset cruise, private dinner on the beach, etc. I'm getting so excited looking at all of this! I even looked at flights (for THIS May because, well, 2010 calendars aren't out yet). I'm thinking though, if we book early enough and use a travel agent, we might be able to shave some costs off of what I researched. We might be able to get some kind of deal. We'll see.




Thursday, February 5, 2009

a few wedding updates


I'm sure I've mentioned that we'll be visiting Casa Larga this weekend to go see the DJ company perform at an actual wedding. I'm excited. I'm hoping we love what we hear and are able to book them next week.

I've also always known what I wanted to do for favors. I want to somehow include my heritage into our wedding without making it a huge, red, Chinese wedding. So, I've decided on these:
Take out containers as favors filled with cookies. I will be using a white box with blue ribbon. Maybe I'll add a monogram sticker. (I already bought 200 of these boxes! They were on sale for .29 each!)

Here are the placecard holders I want. So cute!

Tonight Steve and I are going to send our deposit in for Pastor Jack and get that all settled. I have the agreement form, I just need Steve to initial and sign it. So, hopefully by next week, we'll really have all the big stuff booked and done with. I'm still looking for a white archway to stand under during the ceremony, but I'm not having any luck. My florist (Wegmans) does not have them and other florists are hesistant to rent out something if they aren't "dressing" it. So we'll see. Maybe I'll scratch the whole archway idea. We'll see.

And Fatima (Nick's mom) will be taking me to Michael's to check out the stuff they have there for centerpieces. I can't wait. We're going to go in early March, when the new stuff will be out.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Moto GP

Steve and I have never taken a vacation together - just us. I mean, never. We've gone camping for a few days together, but that's not really vacation...at least not to me. When we went out to California for his sister's wedding, we met up with Nick, Dan and of course his parents where there as well. So, lately, I've been bugging Steve to take a vacation with me. Just a little one. Nothing insane, nothing crazy, nothing too expensive. I mean, we ARE saving for a wedding here. So something random came up one day when Steve was watching motorcycling racing on TV. I asked if he'd be interested in actually going to one of these races. Of course, the answer was yes. Even though I'm not totally into bike racing...I think it'll be fun! I hopped on the computer to find the nearest race. There are only 2 in the US. Most of the races happen in Europe, where motorcycle racing is much more popular.


Hmmmm...the one in Laguna? That seems to be either sold out or tickets aren't available. I mean...a trip to California would be nice...but Laguna seems expensive. Our only other choice is the Moto GP in Indianapolis at the end of August. We're kind of using the excuse of our anniversary for this trip. By the time of this trip, we will have celebrated our 4 year anniversary! I can't believe it's been almost 4 years already!
So for the past week or so, I've been busy digging up details for this potential trip. To fly there, it'd be about $500 for the two of us. Gas would be about $150 each way if we chose to drive...and it'd save us about $200. Hotels in downtown Indianapolis aren't cheap by any means. We don't want to stay in a Super 8 Motel either by the way. We want to enjoy our hotel room. We don't want to feel like we have to rip the sheets and comforter off the bed and sleep fully clothed so as to keep the bed bugs away. This has proven not to be an easy task.


I have found that there seems to be a lot to do in downtown Indianapolis. So I think we'll have plenty to do if we decide to go.

Stay tuned.

Monday, January 26, 2009

birthday weekend celebrations

Well, it's another year past. Steve's birthday was yesterday and mine is tomorrow. Steve had to work all day Saturday, so I spent the day with my friend Jen, whom I've known since high school - she just had her second baby, so I made a lasagna and brought that over so she wouldn't have to cook. She has an almost two year old, Josh and little baby Jack is only two weeks old. Cutest thing ever. I seriously can't wait till it's my turn. Josh is like Jen says "a category 5 hurricane" and it's true. Ben was picking up the house and Josh was running around throwing everything on the floor. It was quite fun watching those two! I held Jack as long as I could - thinking how much he looked like Josh when he was born. But what's weird, is that Josh now looks white. I mean, blonde hair, blue eyes white. Jen is half Filipino and Ben is...you guessed it. White. When Josh was born, he had super dark hair and looked part Asian. As he grew, the Asianess wore off! His nice, dark hair fell out and was replaced by the blonde hair. Don't get my wrong, he's probably one of the cutest kids I've ever seen. I was hoping little Jack might maintain some of his heritage...but Jen's thinking, since he's so similar to Josh...that he'll eventually turn too.





So later that night, after my baby fix, we met up with my parents at a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Steve requested something different this time, and man....the food was GOOD! And it so happens to be Chinese New Year, so the dragon was out, the kids in the restaurant were all trying to get a glimpse and perhaps even give the dragon a "hong bao" which literally means "red bag" or "red purse" and money is usually in these little red envelopes. It was fun.





Then, after dinner, we headed over to Rich's house to hang out for a little bit. We made it an early night and left around 11:30 or so....I was of course tired and ready for bed at that time so it was fine by me!





Friday night I had started cooking for the weekend. I told Rich I'd bring over meatballs, so Friday night, as soon as I got home, hopped on the treadmill for about 30 minutes, got started with making the meatballs. I was up making meatballs for about 3 hours! 100 meatballs. Grandpa Teenie's recipe so I can't tell you what in them...but MAN they are GOOD. Then, Saturday, before going to Jen's, I was up making her lasagna. Then Sunday, since we had lunch plans with Steve's parents to celebrate our birthdays, I made another lasagna to bring over there. It's Steve's favorite and it beats take out any day. Hmmm...

Then, after lunch, we headed over to our friend's house to do some snowmobiling. It was cold. But fun.

Steve's parents got me new free weights (YES!!!!) and he got a part for his motorcycle (of COURSE).




My parents I think gave Steve cash and I got a GORGEOUS pair of diamond earrings. I was SHOCKED! My mom really surprised me with that one! I had been bugging her for probably 2 years now...she gave me diamond earrings a long time ago, and I, of course being so responsible, lost one on a NYC subway. Before I knew it...it was gone. Me bugging her had been a complete joke, since I'm now an adult and don't need my parents to buy me stuff (I had already told Steve it was on his list!) and they completely surprised me!





Oh, and my sister bought me the book "Eat. Pray. Love" By Elizabeth Gilbert. I can't wait to read it. I've heard so many wonderful things about this book. I can't wait to snuggle up and dive right in.





And I have to post this:





You know you're a redneck when....
you have a gas hookup to your pick up truck and your snowmobile is hanging off the end. Who says there's no room!?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

BOO YAH AMERICA!

We have a new president. Hooray! I was able to watch the inauguration during lunch yesterday with a handful of coworkers. We had two TVs going all day so anyone who was interested could stop down (or up) to watch this historic day unfold.

Besides a little hiccup when Mr. Obama was being sworn in, it went off without a hitch.

I was thinking, that while Barack was walking George down to the helicopter, that he was saying in his ear "thank you George W, for what you've done, thank you for leaving me with this crazy mess to clean up"

I'm excited.

I'm ready for change.

Let's see what you can do Mr. President.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

First real treadmill workout

Maybe I shouldn't use the word "workout." BUT, last night, after dinner at my parents' house, I hopped on the treadmill. I'm still learning how to use it, but man oh man. It was fun. Kind of. I was on it for approximately 45 minutes, I started out with a quick walk, slowly increasing to a jog. Then the "workout program" kicked in and it would slow it down, but increase the incline. Once I figured out what program I wanted to do, it did this the entire time. It'd speed up, decrease incline for maybe 5-6 minutes, then go back down, and the speed would increase. It was good. I really did feel it. I was sweating like a pig, my heartrate was increased. I definitely felt like I had "worked out." So, I gave myself a star on my calendar. My coworker told me how motivated it'd make her if she gave herself a star for working out. Once the calendar gets more filled, the more motivated she became. So, I'm doing the same thing.

I ended up walking/running for about 2 miles (it started over once I realized what program I wanted to use, so that's why it's an approximate, I don't exactly remember where it landed once I started over). I burned about 350 calories (I know, not a ton, but I'm still starting out!). I'm going to do it again tomorrow night, Friday night and Sunday. 4 times per week. Then I'll alternate with weights on the odd days.

Operation get skinny has officially started.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Need a new camera

Like I had previously mentioned in a previous post...I'm in dire need of a new camera. I don't take nearly enough pictures. I want to document our lives in its current state...I don't want to forget these memories. But, the question is, what camera should we get? I'm thinking about this one.

I'm not an electronic freak by any stretch of the imagination, so I've asked my sister to give me some advice. I don't want to spend a ridiculous amount of money on one, but I definitely want a good one that will last a few years. I feel like I'm not capturing enough moments with Steve. During Christmas last year...I didn't take not one photo. It makes me sad. I used to bring my camera with my everywhere I went. Everywhere. I used to be "that girl with the camera" - people used to get pretty annoyed that I was always snapping shots, but looking back, I'm so glad I did!

So, hopefully soon, after I pay off some bills (and pay a large chunk of the treadmill bill) I'll make the purchase.

And hooray! The treadmill is getting delivered today, between 9am and 11am. Steve is home to make sure the delivery happens smoothly. Can't wait to try it out! I'll make time tonight, even though tonight is going to be quite busy getting us ready for our weekend away.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Surprise party and moving to Las Vegas???

Steve and I have a bunch of friends who have birthdays in January: Tom (8th), Nick (12th), Nikki (16th), Steve (25th) and yours truly (27th).

We don't normally do anything special for our birthdays, we all live in different cities and just haven't ever done anything to celebrate. Steve and I usually just go to a nice dinner, drink some wine...and spend the evening together. This year, we're not even doing gifts.

Nikki decided a few weeks ago that she wanted to throw Tom a surprise 25th birthday party. Of course I was in as soon as she told me about it...so invitations went out and the party is this weekend. I'm psyched! I haven't seen Nikki and Tom since September. It's about time! So, Nikki invited a bunch of friends from here in Rochester and we're meeting up at her house Saturday afternoon while Tom is out rabbit hunting with her dad. I just hope we can pull this off and not have him find out!

I've got Hudson booked at his kennel already, so we're all set there. I feel so bad leaving him there...he doesn't look back at us ever. He just willingly goes with whoever has the leash in hand. It makes me kinda sad that he doesn't look back. Luckily for Shelby, she's so good, that Steve's mom can watch her while we're gone. She's one of the most well behaved dogs I've ever met. Ever. Hudson would be up on the couches, leaning and suffocating Steve's poor mom. And his dad isn't too fond of Hudson anyways...so he'll be at the boarding kennel. This is the same facility where he took his OB classes and they are really a state of the art facility. I also signed Hudson of up for group play and I can see on a webcam what's going on! I know, I'm a freak about my dogs. I just know poor Hudson isn't going to sleep and his poor little nose is going to be raw when we get him back on Sunday. He never sleeps there and catches up on sleep when we get home. And his poor little nose turns pink from sniffing the bottom of the door...poor guy. It's not THAT bad....but you still feel bad that he's left there without knowing anyone. What's nice about this place is that I can call whenever I want and they are always super nice and willing to give me an update. The last time he was boarded, he got sick so the staff there called me and asked if it was OK to give him some meds that would help his belly. And they took him out more than the 6 times they are supposed to...so that made me happy too.

I will promise to try to take more pictures from now on. I really do want a new camera...both cameras I have now are both hand me downs from my mom. They are OK, but I would like something newer and better. The one Canon I have is seriously like 7 years old and the other little Canon I have is like 4 years old. Nothing special and takes "eh" pictures. Maybe this summer Steve and I will invest in a new one. But, I plan on taking the camera with me to Binghamton this weekend, so I'll try to get some new pics posted soon.

Mom is going to be going overseas to Thailand in January 28th. She typically goes overseas to get away from the bitter cold winters here in Western NY...and she'll be gone for approximately 2 months. Dad is joining her in March and spending 3 weeks with her there. BUT, as the title of this blog mentions...mom and dad are buying a second home in Las Vegas. At least that's the plan for now. They have a trip planned for April to do some house hunting/meeting with the builders to see what they want, how much, etc. Then, if they decided to do it, they'll go back sometime during the summer to close the deal. I think I might go with them then, once it's all finalized...to help buy furniture and decorate. It'll be fun to have a place to visit in Vegas. I mean. It's Vegas! They plan to move there for good once my dad retires. Which kind of sucks for Steve and I since my mom said she was going to watch our kids for us so we didn't have to pay a ton of money for daycare. We'll see how things shake out. Either way, I'd so much prefer my parents buy a house in Las Vegas, in the Continental United States, versus moving overseas, which was their other option.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

DJ

We met with one DJ company last night www.gosoundsystems.com. I had read good reviews about them on theknot.com and also got some good references from people I know who had used them. They have been in the business for 35 years and currently employ 12 DJs. The experience ranges from 5 years to 24 years. The lady we first met with, Joetta seemed to be really, really cool. Cool like I felt like I could sit and chat with her for hours. She seemed to know a lot about weddings and all things related. I really liked her right off the bat.

What's cool, is that they allow us to go "see" their DJs working, so we can get a feel for one or another or whatever. She gave us a list of upcoming events (a wedding at Casa Larga on 2/7!) that we can stop into to check out. We just have to be dressed properly and obviously not crash the wedding. We can just stand in the lobby area to get an idea. We really want to see the Casa Larga wedding, to see how the room looks and stuff when it's all set up. I'm excited for that!

My only concern would be that I don't want to get someone who has only done a handfull of weddings in his/her career. I'd like to have someone really upbeat, had done a ton of weddings, knows how to get a crowd going etc. I think being able to go see a DJ work in person will help us make the decision. We would also get this year's rate for next year. I've found that a lot of the vendors we're working with is doing this. I guess it's a good thing that we're planning so early! And Joetta made a good point. Doing everything this early makes sure that we get what we want. We won't be stuck with "whatever's left over." So that makes me happy.

So we're going to chat about this more - along with having a deeper conversation about Pastor Jack. We liked him. He was good. He didn't blow me away or anything...but I don't think anyone would. We'll see where things shake out.

This week is proving to be a good one. This weekend is Tom's surprise 25th birthday party. Nikki is throwing it for him at their house and invited all our friends to come down. We're heading over there around 12-1pm Saturday and helping to set up while Tom is out with Nikki's dad...we're hoping he can keep Tom away until 6pm! I'm not sure how this will all work out, but I'm super excited! I haven't seen Nik since September I think!

And one last thing. It's fucking cold outside. High of 10 today and tomorrow? High of 5. Awesome.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

ok ok ok! Stop talking about it and freaking DO IT ALREADY!

That's right. I'm done talking about it and I'm going to make some changes. Last night, Steve and I bought a treadmill. The NordicTrack T7 Si Treadmill to be exact.

I'm THRILLED. I'm so tired of complaining about my weight and how I've ballooned in the past 3 years. 30lbs. That's right folks, I've gained 30 pounds. That's a lot when you're only 5'2". So, we had seen this treadmill on sale at Sears a week ago and tried it out. We wanted to buy it. But, of course, we didn't. Finally, after thinking about it and how I could get 0% financing on it until February 2010, I figured, the montly payments on this is less than a gym membership at my local recreation center. I still have money left over from my bonus and I thought, what better way to use this money than to get this and finally get fit?!?!?

I have already started eating better, watching my portions and what types of food I put in my mouth. I'm starting out really slow. I love food. I can't give it all up just like that. So, for instance, instead of buying chips and dip, I'm buying multigrain chips with hummus. And I'm not snacking past 7pm. At least I'm trying not to snack past 7pm. For dinner the other night, I had a half a piece of pesto/sun dried tomato stuffed chicken breast (they were HUGE), a small scoop of rice and two servings of peas. After that, I had a clementine. Each morning I'm starting out with a tall glass of OJ (this counts as 1 fruit serving). I'm motivated. I have to be. But, the thing is, this is not just for my wedding. This is a lifestyle change.

I think I am going to start out walking on this beast 3-4 times a week. Slowly increasing to a jog. Then slowly increasing the incline. We're putting this in the basement, where we have a TV, couch, etc. so I can watch my shows, while doing something active. My goal is to lose 15 pounds by April 30 so when it's time to get our engagement photos done, I'll be good to go.

The treadmill comes with an iPod hookup, speakers, fan, cupholders, 12 pre-programmed "workouts" (I have no idea what this means), and adjustable cushioning (which is really good for Steve's back). I'm sure there are more features, but I can't remember.

It gets delivered next Friday (which kind of sucks because we're going away that weekend so I won't be able to really USE it until we get back).

I can't wait. I know I can do it. I know I can be skinny again. I just have to put my mind to it.

So what really kick-started me to do this? Steve and I over the holiday break got my shoe closet in order. (I will have pictures to post later). During the "clean all the shit out of the closet first" part, I came across a TON of old college photos. Spring break in Daytona, FL. Yep. Me in a bikini. Something I haven't seen in AGES. Something I don't want to think about....there were SO many pictures of me about 20 pounds lighter and I got sick thinking about how I have let myself go. Even in 2006, I remember wearing these really nice jeans...that I ended up giving to my sister a few weeks ago. The fact that she looked SO good in them really sucked. I thought "Damn! I used to look that good!" so here I am. Motivated to wear a teeny, tiny bikini when Steve and I go to Bora Bora for our honeymoon. I refuse, absolutely REFUSE to wear a one-piece with a skirt. Not for me. No thanks.

I'm going to start a "journal" or something similar. I might even do it here so I can track my progress.

I will post my current weight (not until the treadmill arrives) and what I've been eating each day. Then, I hope, as the weeks go by...I'll see some progress. I have 14 weeks to lose 15 pounds. That's about a pound per week.

Wish me luck!

Monday, January 5, 2009

woah...update

Wow - it's been so long since I've blogged! I'm not exactly sure why either...I don't have any new pictures to post...I really want a new camera so I can get more into taking photos.

Hmm...what's happened in the last few weeks...

Christmas was good, I ended up being sick for most of my time off, which totally sucked...but I'm glad that I was able to take some time off. Christmas Eve we spent with Steve's parents, ate some really good filet mignon and opened our stockings. Christmas morning Steve and I had our own little Christmas and opened our gifts to each other. Then we headed over to his parents' house again and did the whole thing over there again. We were having turkey for lunch, so I made Grandpa's stuffing, sweet potatoes, and squash and we brought the turkey over the night before so they could get that started before we showed up. It was really good! I'm pretty proud of myself on how well things turned out. After we ate, we opened more gifts and hung out and just enjoyed being around family. Then, we stopped home to take care of the dogs, then headed out to my parents' house to have Christmas dinner with them and open even MORE gifts! It was good, a lot of running around, but after that, Steve and I had 4 full days of NOTHING do to. It was glorious. Or so I thought. Nick came home the Tuesday before Christmas and the boys went out to the bars. I chose not to go, since I thought I'd have plenty of time to go out...so I let the boys have a boys night and I stayed home, cozy on the couch. Well, after all the festivities, I ended up getting sick Friday. I was sick until Tuesday! I even had to all off of work so I could get better.

Work last week was good, we had Thursday off for the New Year, and Steve and I didn't do anything for New Year's Eve. I never make it to midnight and I really tried this time too! We ended up falling asleep around 10:30 and Steve woke me up at mignight to kiss me. Then we went to bed. We really ARE old people! Haha...it makes me laugh at how old we act.

Saturday mom and I went to Pittsford Wegmans to check out the florist there for the wedding. They are really, really reasonably priced, so we went ahead and signed the contract right away. Steve and I are meeting with Pastor Jack this Friday evening...so I'm super excited about that. Then we have a meeting with the DJ next week too. So, once all of these are done and booked, we're done with the big stuff. Then it's just on to the little details.

It's fun, now that we're able to say we're getting married "next May" instead of "May, 2010" It sounds so much closer now!