2011 in review

Chances are I’m either typing this with a baby on my lap, or in the few and far between minutes baby is asleep (or on someone else’s lap, which is a lot more common), so who knows if it’ll actually get finished by New Year’s… but I’ll try!

Wow… I kind of can’t believe it’s over (well, almost… technically I have three more days, but I’m really doubting anything significant is going to happen.) The time didn’t exactly go fast (except for the past two weeks which have flown by!) but it seemed more, I don’t know, cohesive than other years – everything flowed together. Or maybe I’m just crazy and sleep-deprived. On to the review.

My beautiful little family <3

Highlights:

• The obvious one: meeting (and getting to know) our beautiful and amazing son, Damien Isaac. In fact, I’d even say being pregnant for most of the year was a highlight… weird, I know, but I like being pregnant. (The gestational diabetes, however, I could do without.)
• Dan getting a job, and in graphic design too! (Technically his degree is in product design, not graphic, but we were just happy he got a job in the art field and didn’t have to stock shelves at Walmart or something.) (Which may be what I’m doing in a month so I shouldn’t knock it, lol – see below.)
• Being able to work at the high school I used to attend – unfortunately my job ended in December due to budget cuts so I’m now on the lookout for a new job (well, I will be when I’ve recovered a bit more from Having A Baby), but it was fun while it lasted.
• My sister moving back to town – I know this isn’t necessarily a highlight for her (it’s not exactly a happening place, lol) but I love having her closer :)
• I would be remiss if I did not mention that 2011 was the year I FINALLY (oh holy crap after 10+ years of trying FINALLY) beat Minesweeper on Expert. Sure, it’ll never happen again, but once is enough.

Lowlights:

• We experienced a lot of loss this year. In January I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks pregnant, which was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m actually experiencing a lot of the same emotions now after Damien was born, because now I know how a pregnancy can equal a real baby, and it makes the loss even more real. On the other hand, it’s hard to reconcile the idea that if that baby was born I’d never have Damien… but I think I can love them both and wish there was a world where they could both exist.
• We also lost my maternal grandfather (died the day before Damien’s baby shower) and Dan’s aunt (died on Christmas eve), and in both of those situations the awful timing contributed to the pain of loss I’m sure. I feel bad that neither of those very special people got to meet Damien, and it’s hard to imagine that they’re not around anymore. Obviously we’re still dealing with this and will be for awhile.
• General angst and anxiety from still living at home/not being able to provide for my kid/not being a real family/etc etc… my goal for 2012 is to improve on this!

Fun things:

• Overnight trip to Mt. Shasta for Valentine’s Day with Dan (and Ripley, hehe – we stayed in a KOA so she could stay with us)
• Went to several Giants games in San Francisco
• Trip to Arcata for Dan’s and my 3rd anniversary/our ‘babymoon’ (I was 20 weeks pregnant)
• The first time we heard Damien’s heartbeat (at 11 weeks)
• Seeing Damien for the first time at 13 weeks, and finding out he’s a boy at 19/20 weeks
• Baby shower! (It was co-ed and fall themed and 10x better than any shower I’ve ever been to – thanks family!)
• Is it crazy to put giving birth as a fun thing? But, in a way (a stressful and painful way), it kind of was.
• Thanksgiving wasn’t anything to write home about, but Christmas was fun

Songs that remind me of 2011:

• Three Days Grace, “World So Cold“
• Seether, “Country Song“
• Evanescence, “What You Want“
• Korn (feat. Skrillex), “Get Up“
• Bush, “The Sound of Winter“
• SheDaisy, “Baby Mine” (lol @ the link, it’s the only version they have on YouTube! And it doesn’t play the whole song either… but you get the idea)

Favorite new things watched:

• The X-Files… every season, plus the movies (I am more fangirl about this show than I have been anything since perhaps high school, lol – just a decade or so late!)
• Dexter season 4 (and I just bought season 5 for $15 at Target, so now I just need to make Dan watch it with me!)
• Waking the Dead (a BBC-produced cold case show with great characters)
• Buffy seasons 1-4 (I get really obsessed with watching, get burned out, and get back to it a few months later
• Witchblade (the anime version – LOVED this show, and since I watched it while pregnant the end made me cry)
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (I LOVE Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth and am a little hesitant about the American versions, but will give them a try. I really like Daniel Craig so that should help.)

Books read: See this list, which isn’t complete (especially for November/December), but it’s the closest I’ve ever came to keeping track to what I read in a year. Next year, I’m afraid, the list will be significantly shorter – I always vowed I wouldn’t be THAT MOM who never read, but holy crap, it’s hard to read with a newborn who constantly needs your attention, and when he doesn’t, you’re so sleep-deprived you can’t focus on anything (or there’s something else you need to do.) That said, my MIL gave me a Nook for Christmas, and I’ve found I can sneak a few minutes of reading in during night feedings (when I’m not playing Sudoku or checking my email…) Though paper books will always be my first love, e-books may be my saving grace as a reader and a mom.

Goals for next year:

• Be the best mom possible to Damien :) (and the best wife possible to Dan, too!) (and pet-parent to my furkids) (you get the idea)
• Become more self-sufficient – even in a crappy economy, you can only live with your parents for so long…
• Find a job of some sort, to help with the whole self-sufficiency thing
• Take a few classes, so I can 1) finish my degree (FINALLY) and 2) not have to pay back my student loans!)
• Experience as many new, fun things as possible!

 

mini anniversary trip

Even though Dan is only working part-time, his work schedule is so weird (Fridays, Mondays and Tuesdays) he never has more than two days in a row to take off. So for our anniversary trip to the coast, we decided to leave Wednesday morning and come back Friday morning (he doesn’t work until Friday afternoon.)

Which would have worked perfectly, only I happened to be twenty weeks pregnant the week of our anniversary, and there were a whole heck of a lot of medical-y things my doctor’s office wanted to do to me during that week. Oh, and they wanted to do them Wednesday and Friday, leaving only Thursday unscathed. Thankfully my appointment Wednesday was at 10am, which left the rest of the day for Fun Times, but my Friday appointment was (gasp) 8am. If we decided to stay both days, we were going to have a verrry early morning ahead of us. We decided to play it by ear and left on our trip without solid plans.

On Wednesday, our actual anniversary, we left right after Doctor’s Appt #1 (where we got to see Baby Boy being adorable) and drove to the coast. It’s a 4ish hour drive on very windy, scary roads, but it’s pretty so that helps make up for the death-defying moments, I guess. Dan was driving, and I did almost get us killed by encouraging him to run a random red light in the middle of nowhere – what can I say? I thought it was a four-way stop kind of thing – but it turned out to be a construction site with a one-way road and traffic coming the wrong direction. Luckily there was a shoulder to veer into… Again, oops!

Sadly, our hotel wasn’t quite as nice as others in the chain we’ve stayed at in the past. It was really tiny, kind of worn down, and located directly next to a McDonald’s drive through (nothing like hearing people order burgers all night!) Oh, and our bed was made of cardboard and our pillows (two tiny, tiny pillows) were made of paper. So that part kind of sucked, but at least it was clean, and the TV got cable. If we come back, I’ll definitely pony up the extra $10 per night to stay in one of the many nicer hotels surrounding our little dingy one.

Clam Beach, as depicted by my cell phone... oops, left my camera at the hotel : P

When we drove into town, the very first thing I wanted to do was go to the beach. Yay beach! Even though it was only 60°F or so, the sun was shining and it was actually quite nice (the wind, on the other hand, was mean.) I had two beaches on my Things to Do list, and Clam Beach was closest, so that’s where we went. It was gorgeous! Hardly anyone was there, and there was miles and miles of unblemished sand (which seemed a lot less beautiful once I realized walking miles over said sand while pregnant and off balanced is no small feat. Guess that was my workout for the day.) There were really cool sand dune ‘caves’ (aka dents in the ground) everywhere that people used for their picnic base, or to fly kites from. I wanted to be closer to the water, so we trekked down to the packed sand and found a log for a little bit of wind shelter.

My hair looks all wonky from the wind, I swear!

I spent a good half hour in the water (only up to my knees, because 60 is not that warm), chasing waves and collecting pretty rocks, until these little swimming things started biting my feet. Then I retreated to the towels with Dan, where we watched a baby horse do very silly things – there was a stable nearby, and the owner was trying to train him. At one point he tried to come over and be friends with us, but he thought that meant sitting on Dan, and the owner wasn’t too keen on that (neither were we – even though he was a baby, he had to weigh 200-300 lbs.) I did get to nuzzle his cute little head, though. :)

Dan loves having his picture taken, as you can tell

After the beach we were hungry, so we headed into Arcata to hunt down an Italian restaurant. We ended up at Abruzzi, where we ate delicious pasta and I tried not to burn myself on the candle-lamp on the table (I kept forgetting it was on fire… it looked like a lamp!) There was an ice cream store in the same building, Bon Boniere, where we ate The Most Delicious Ice Cream Ever (it was all homemade!) We walked around town a little bit, looking at the cute stores (all closed, since it was evening)… and discovering that pot smoke makes me sick when I’m pregnant. Perfect time to visit Humboldt County, huh? (I just had to give all smoky clouds and be-dreadlocked individuals a wide berth. It’s not personal, I swear.)

Pretty trees! (Dan took this)

The next day was cloudy and cooler, and though it wasn’t so great for the beach, it was the perfect day to go hiking in the redwoods. We drove over to Arcata Community Forest, which has nearly 800 acres of gorgeous forest and is all owned and maintained by the city of Arcata. Since it’s not a national park, there are a lot more opportunities for recreation (lots of bike, horseback riding, and even dog trails) and it was super clean – seriously, I didn’t see a single speck of litter, even in the hollowed-out trees that seem to make natural trash cans. Color me impressed!

Baby & me in the redwoods - I'm wearing Dan's jacket because mine won't zip over my belly, lol

We wandered through a city day camp to find a trail that went into the forest itself, and finally found one that didn’t look too taxing. Luckily it was a fairly short loop (maybe 1.5 or 2 miles?) otherwise I think I would have died out there – it was soo humid, I had to pee about halfway through, and my balance and breathing were pretty crappy (once again, thanks baby.) (Well, I would have hated the humidity either way, so I guess I can’t blame baby for that.) Also luckily, it was beautiful, so I didn’t mind the discomforts (too much.) We saw lots of huge hollow trees, a family of banana slugs, and a tree growing out and over a ten-foot stump – oh, and an adorable brindle French bulldog. :)

Dan in one of the giant stumps

Oh, Dan played in lots of things too. I mostly tried to keep breathing, and took pictures of him playing in (and on) things.

Now he's on a stump...

…and eventually we made it back to the main part of the park, which was still full of day-camp kids (and random kids playing on the playground. Oh, and dogs too – there are a LOT of dogs in this town.)

This is the crazy tree-growing-over-a-stump I talked about earlier - weird! (Dan took this one too)

Since it was cold (well, not in the forest, but in the rest of town) and looked like rain, we decided against the beach and instead went back into Arcata. Humboldt State has a teeny-tiny natural history museum, and museums are always good for rainy days, so we went to check it out. They had a ton of cool fossils, bones, and various other body parts from ridiculous animals, plus some great exhibits of local flora, fauna and animal life (the crabs of California part? Okay, that scared me a little. Some of those things look like evil space spiders!) We spent some time communing with a hive of bees (inside a plexiglass box, so you could see everything), though we never did locate the queen. I also really liked all the hands-on exhibits – even though I’m a big girl and know not to touch museum-y things, I remember how hard to keep my hands to myself as a kid.

We were getting hungry, and even though we were in a new town that I’m sure was full of unique restaurants, Dan felt like Denny’s so to Denny’s we went. (And it was delicious too!) After that it was getting kind of late in the day, and it wasn’t warming up, so we made the executive decision to drive back tonight rather than staying another night and leaving in the wee hours. I made sure our extra day in the hotel wouldn’t go to waste by taking a nap, then we packed up the car and were off. Since I was the one driving, I have to say I was thankful to be driving those scary roads when I was fully conscious (and so was Dan, so he could talk to me), something I couldn’t guarantee for a 4am trip. (And yes, this time I actually stopped at the Random Construction Stoplight.)

Even thought it was but a tiny trip, I’m still glad that Dan and I got to do something fun and out of the ordinary this summer, especially since once baby comes we may be housebound for a long while. (Although I’m convinced I can be the kind of parent that travels with their kids – both Dan and I traveled ALL THE TIME when we were little – there’s really no predicting how baby will react. And, well, the money thing too. So we’ll just see how it goes I guess.)

anniversary

It’s Dan’s and my 3rd anniversary! Which means not only have we been married three years, but we’ve been together six! And it’s been awesome, too. :)

We’ve had a great day. This morning was baby’s anatomy scan, so Dan and I got to see our little boy being cute (he yawned! How do you even yawn in utero? He was a little wigglebug, too) – and confirm that yes, indeed, he’s a boy. (We saw the cord AND the boy parts, so there’s no question.) Then we headed out to Arcata, 4ish hours away, where we’re staying for a few days. We went to the beach (and met the silliest horse ever), got delicious Italian and ice cream for dinner, and walked around town. Now we’re watching TLC (hooray for Toddlers & Tiaras night, lol!) and have plans for redwoods and beach visits tomorrow. Woo! Yay anniversary!

happy daddy’s day

To all the special daddies…

My daddy & me

…and to those who will soon be daddies! (That means you, Dan. I <3 you.)

Introducing Baby, who will join our family sometime in December!

(Learn more about Baby here)

quote

While downloading the entire internet today, I found this quote, which is really similar to my current favorite quote and may even surpass it:

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. -Sam Keen

(from It Works For Me!, which – you guessed it – features a pretty free printable of the quote)

blog challenge 14

Blog Challenge 14 – A picture you love

Well, there are a lot of pictures I love. But because I had a tiring week, here’s the first one that comes to mind:

<3

(reposted from June 2010)

blog challenge 9

Blog Challenge 9 – A picture of your friends

Here are two of my best friends:

Baby on the left is Daylene; baby on the right is me. Fall 1987.

This is my cousin Daylene. We met when we were babies – I obviously don’t remember it, but at least according to this photo we were pretty darn small (and we may have met before this, for all I know.) Our moms are first cousins who were pregnant at the same time, and we were even due on the same day, May 1. Daylene came early and I came late, so we ended up 13 days and 1 minute apart.

Riding bikes in Daylene's neighborhood (I'm on the left - gotta love our dino helmets!) Summer 1994.

Day & me camping at Spirit West Coast. Summer 2002 (I think... we went a lot.)

We became friends when my family moved to Redding in 1995, and we went to elementary, middle and high school together, and eventually college too. Daylene was a bridesmaid in my wedding. Right now we both live in Redding (again)while we try to figure out what to do with our lives (life after college sucks, people!) She’s an amazing person and I’m lucky to know her. <3

Going to Six Flags for my 19th birthday! May 2006.

I’m also lucky to have my very best friend in the entire world close to me almost always – I made sure of that, because I married him.

Eighth grade banquet – we didn’t go together, I just liked taking pictures :) Winter 1999.

Dan and I met in fourth grade, when he was nine and I was eight. We went to school together all through elementary, became friends in junior high, and became close friends in high school. Our ‘first date’ was technically a banquet our freshman year in high school, and though we liked each other we didn’t date for another five years.

Picture day, our senior year. Fall 2003.

After high school we emailed all the time, and did fun stuff together when I was in town. The summer after my freshman year I was back in Redding, single and depressed, so I decided to ask Dan out on a for-fun date. He said yes, we went to Land of the Dead, and we never dated anyone else ever again.

Tiny Latte and Java!! Fall 2005.

(We also intend to live happily ever after, but that, as always, is a work in progress.)

On vacation at Catalina Island. July 2010.

for valentine’s day

For Valentine’s day, a day late – my favorite love song from the past year.

Little supernovas in my head
Little soft pulses in my dead
Little souvenirs and secrets shared
Little off guard and unprepared

I was never good enough to find
I was never bad enough to mind
In the middle I will do my best
Take me in your arms and leave the rest

I will give you anything to

Say you want to stay, you want me to
Say you’ll never die, you’ll always haunt me
I want to know I belong to you
Say you’ll haunt me

Together, together we’ll be together, together forever

Little variations on my page
Little doors open on my cage
Little time has come and gone so far
Little by little who you are

I can see the patterns on your face
I can see the miracles I trace
Symmetry in shadows I can’t hide
I just want to be right by your side

I will give you everything to

Say you want to stay you want me too
Say you’ll never die, you’ll always haunt me
I want to know I belong to you
Say you’ll haunt me

Together, together we’ll be together, together forever
I belong to you

Stone Sour – Say You’ll Haunt Me

my broke-ass wedding

When someone is getting married, they usually do one of two things: 1) get a few new credit cards for that gigantic, expensive extravaganza they absolutely must have, or 2) make a budget and then seek out every little way to save money along the way. Despite what wedding TV shows will tell you, more and more women are realizing that the first attitude is ridiculous – who wants to start their new life in debt, after all?

After getting married once and never planning to do it again, I pretty much avoid wedding stuff, but recently I randomly stumbled upon sites like The Broke-Ass Bride, which are all about saving money and still having a gorgeous wedding. It made me think – I had a pretty awesome wedding myself, or at least I thought so, and my wedding budget was waaaaay under the $15k many of those women call ‘broke-ass’. So I decided to try to break my own wedding down and see how broke-ass you can possibly get.

Invitations & Programs

• The invitations and programs were a matching set purchased at Michael’s and printed at home. Cost: $100 for invites, $40 for programs.

We printed straight on the vellum; it turned out very pretty.

• The thank you notes were in a similar (but cuter) pattern and purchased at Target. Cost: $52
• Total Cost: $192

Apparel

Bride:

• I bought my dress at a warehouse bridal store called Bridal Mart (yes, I know) in Rancho Cordova. I originally wanted something cheaper, like a white prom dress, but I found absolutely nothing – until I tried on the dress I bought, which I loved. Cost: $500

Dress, full-length

Dress, detail

• My shoes were beaded cream flip flops with a platform heel, which I found randomly on sale at Kohl’s. Cost: $10
• I ordered my jewelry – a silver/faux pearl necklace and earrings set – from Jessica’s Wedding.  Cost: $30

The only photo I can find that shows the necklace and earrings - sorry for all the boobs, I was signing the guestbook here

• Underwear: I bought shapewear (that’s a fancy word for Spanx) from Torrid and a gorgeous garter from Brides’ Village. Cost: underwear $40, garter $20.

Garters - one for throwing, one for keeping - from Brides' Village.

• I did my makeup myself, but I did buy some new eye shadow and mascara from Target or someplace like that. Cost: $10
• As for my hair, I got highlights done a week before the wedding. A stylist friend did my hair for free as a wedding present; in it I wore a pretty silver flowery barrette from Icing. Cost: highlights $50, barrette $10.

The hair!

• Total Cost: $670

Attendants:

• Bridesmaids: Much like my wedding dress, I looked all over for cheap but cute bridesmaid dresses… and then I fell in love with green and ivory flowered dresses from Macy’s, which weren’t quite as cheap as we were hoping, but were far too cute to pass up. Cost: $50 (each, but we only paid for one – my youngest sister’s, since she was 13 at the time.)

Beautiful bridesmaids during the ceremony (featuring cute flowergirl!)

• Flower Girls: I found adorable brown and cream sundresses at Ross. Cost: $15 (each; we had two bridesmaids.)

Blurry-but-cute photo of the flower girls

• Groomsmen: We found brown dress pants from JC Penney’s and long sleeve, brown and tan pinstripe shirts from Old Navy (on a HUGE sale!) Cost: pants $25, shirt $7 (per person; we had three groomsmen.)
• Total Cost: $176

Groom:

• Dan wore brown dress pants and a long sleeve ivory shirt from JC Penney, and brown dress shoes from Famous Footwear. Cost: shirt $25, pants $40, shoes $50.
• He also got his hair cut a week before the wedding. Cost: $15.
• Total Cost: $130

Dan with 2/3rds of his groomsmen - aren't they handsome? :)

Rings:

• I bought Dan’s titanium ring from Amazon for $80.

<dan’s ring>

• Dan bought my ring, white gold with tiny diamonds, from the JC Penney’s website for $120. (Note: sadly, I can’t recommend this. I’ve had to replace my ring three times because a gem fell out, and it’s ridiculously hard to replace it despite our lifetime warranty. Right now I’m wearing a sterling silver fake wedding ring because mine broke yet again, and we can’t found the printed warranty to send by mail to the company yet again. When we have more money, I want to buy a better made ring.)

My pretty but oh-so-fragile ring... *sigh*

• Total Cost: $200

Location

Our wedding location was just to the right of this; we used that picnic table as our gift table. Mt. Shasta and the lake are so pretty in the background!

• After looking at several locations in our area, Dan and I chose our favorite – the park around Shasta Dam – and it happened to be free! This included the location rental itself, parking for our guests, and use of the very nice visitor’s center bathroom (I even got ready there.)
• We rented white folding chairs and tables from a local equipment rental place. Cost: $430.
• We looked into renting an easy-up canopy, but found it was actually cheaper to buy one at Costco. Price: $200 (and we’ve used it a ton since then too!)
• Total Cost: $630

Flowers

• We bought calla lilies from Pacific Callas to make the bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, and groom and groomsmen boutonnieres. Cost: $170
• We then assembled the bouquets and boutonnieres with faux pearl pins, wide green and cream ribbons, and florist tape (which my grandma happened to already have.) Cost: $10

Bridesmaid and bridal bouquet - also, the pretty back of my dress!

• We ordered wrist corsages for the mothers from a local florist shop. Cost: $15 (x2)

My mommy's hand!

• For aisle and table decorations, we ordered sunflowers and white roses from Costco and picked hydrangeas from my parents’ yard. We put them in metal buckets borrowed from others and purchased at home improvement stores. Cost: $150.

Sadly, this is the best photo I can find of the aisle flowers, but you get the idea

• We made corsages and boutonnieres for all other important people with leftover white roses, pins and floral tape.

Maid of honor Kaeli's handwriting on the homemade corsages

• Our flower girls carried tiny metal buckets (from the Dollar Spot in Target) filled with rose petals from Costco. Cost: $8.
• After the wedding, the bridesmaids and I put our bouquets in tall glass vases filled with green and clear glass, which decorated the cake and food tables. Cost: $35.
• Total Cost: $403

Cake

The wedding cake (with my pretty bouquet!)

• After taste testing, we discovered that Costco cheesecake was just as delicious as the more expensive alternatives, so we bought a whole bunch! We did ask the bakery to leave off the whipped cream border and the scoring, so we could cut the slices however we wanted. Cost: $200.
• We bought a three tier cake stand from Bed, Bath and Beyond, then cut three of the cheesecakes into circles to fit. Cost: $30.
• Dan and I made our own cake toppers by buying wooden letters (our initials) from Michael’s, painting them white, and putting dowels in the bottom. My very artistic aunt then used leftover ribbon and pins to wrap the cake, and decorated the top with the letter toppers and more white roses from Costco. Cost: $8.

Refreshments

Yummy food! (The three middle platters are what we bought; everything else was borrowed)

• Here are two big ways we saved money: we didn’t eat a full meal (it was more like a since our wedding was late morning, it was more of a snacky brunch), and we didn’t serve alcohol. Believe it or not, the majority of the food was donated from my church. We asked a friend (and former teacher) to be our wedding planner, and she managed to come up with so many people to help. For food we had strawberries, cheese and crackers, and croissant sandwiches, and we drank delicious punch.
• We did buy ceramic and brass food stands to serve the food, and disposable (but the fancy kind of disposable) plates, cups and napkins to eat it with. Cost: $80.
• Since it was a hot summer day, we gave out water bottles before the ceremony. Cost: $38.
• Total Cost (for us): $118

Decorations

• At the entrance: galvanized metal bucket full of water bottles to give guests, guest book stand rented from local rental place, hand-painted sign made from wood and paint from Michael’s (in a flower pot I already owned). Cost: bucket $15, stand $14, sign $8.
• As for our guest book, we found a gorgeous book made from recycled flower petals at Target. Cost: $12.

Guest book and stand

My sign & flowers

• Gift table: gorgeous green and tan boxes for cards from CVS, rented tablecloth, wedding photo frame from Hallmark. Cost: boxes $20, tablecloth $8, frame $20.

Gift table, minus the gifts - this was at the beginning of the day

• Everywhere else we pretty much decorated with flowers, so – see the ‘flowers’ section.
• Total Cost: $97

Photographer

• Yet another family friend (and the husband of our wedding planner) donated his photography services. (Don’t we know nice people?) He also took our engagement photos for free.
• After the wedding, the photographer gave us the photos on a CD and we printed them ourselves at Costco. We’ll probably print more later, but right now we’ve printed about $50 worth.
• Total Cost: $50

Officiant

• We asked our pastor, who’s known us both for 10+ years and didn’t charge us for the ceremony.
• We did, of course, have to get a marriage certificate from the county. Cost: $75.
• Total Cost: $75.

Music

• We asked my cousin-in-law to play acoustic guitar for us during the processionals and recessional (I walked into Andrew Lloyd Webber’s All I Ask of You from Phantom of the Opera and we walked out to the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand, in case you were wondering!) :) And yes, he did it for free.
• Another cousin agreed to do sound for the ceremony and reception, and we borrowed sound equipment from our church. For the reception, we attempted to do the iPod DJ thing… unfortunately, our iPod decided not to work with the sound equipment, so that was a bummer (and one of the few things about our wedding I’d do differently – we should have had a backup CD just in case.) (Oh, and if you’re interested, here’s the playlist we intended to play!)
• Total cost: None (just a little bit of regret)

Favors

• …We didn’t really do favors. We did, however, do bubbles – I found some on sale at Target that already had ivory bows and faux pearls on the lids. Cost: $50.
• Total Cost: $50.

TOTAL COST:$3029

What’s funny is that I’ve always said our wedding cost 3k, but I never actually calculated it. I was only $30 off! And despite pulling off a wedding for less than what most brides pay for a dress, we had SO many people tell us they loved our wedding, and that it was one of the most beautiful, simple and enjoyable weddings they’d ever been to. So! You don’t have to pay a lot to have a great wedding… you just have to work hard, get creative, and know a lot of nice people. :) (Oh, and marrying the love of your life helps too!) 

For our wedding story, see here, and for more info and links see my Wedding Planning Site.

blog challenge 3

Blog Challenge 3 – Your first love

I look at these blog starters and think, “these should be so easy!” But really, they’re not. (Check back in two days for “your siblings” and you’ll see what I mean.)

So. First love.

From at least the time I started school (at age 5 or so) I’ve had crushes on boys. I continued these alternately silly and obsessive crushes right up until junior high, when I had my first boyfriend. To be honest, I think I liked some of my stupid crushes more than boys I actually dated, at least at first. I was committed to these (hopeless) (nonexistent) relationships. I wrote letters (never sent, thank GOD.) I taped photos to the back of my door, where I could hide them if embarrassment was a factor.

The sad thing? Most of these crushes weren’t even real people. Just like millions of other girls out there, I was in sad, sad love with actors, musicians, and celebrities of all kinds. My earliest boycrush memories, like every other girl born in the ’80s, include Devon Sawa, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and later Leonardo DiCaprio (oh my gosh, I was pathetic with this one) and Josh Hartnett (well, at least the latter two still have careers.) My parents were (and are) high school teachers, so I did have the occasional infatuation with an Older Boy – high school seemed SO mature back then. I had crushes on boys my age too, but I went to a really small school and it seemed as if you could be a Girl To Have A Crush On (aka pretty, cool, but unrelatable) or a Girl To Be Friends With (which allowed me to be as weird as I actually was. Which was pretty weird.) So I chose the latter and was friends with the boys instead.

Which is probably why, going into high school, I always dated my friends. I couldn’t imagine going out with a boy I knew nothing about and had nothing in common with. On one hand, it set me up for a good future – I married my best friend, after all. On the other hand, every time a relationship ended (aka I was dumped, which is what always happened) I lost a friend.

I should point out that, three paragraphs later, I still haven’t addressed First Love. Obviously, my childhood crushes weren’t Love. I’m not sure if my actual boyfriends qualified, either, though I certainly thought I was in love. I’ve always been a serial monogamist – my shortest relationship ever was six months, and my first relationship (at age 12-13) was nine months. Back then, I hated it when people told me I wasn’t in Love, and with literally every guy I dated I thought “maybe we’ll get married someday.”

Ironically, I’ve known my husband since I was eight years old. We were classmates from grade four to grade twelve, and we were friends (even close friends) in high school. I even told him I loved him and secretly thought we’d make a good couple (I even had a long-standing bet with a friend that I’d kiss him before we graduated, which didn’t happen), but I never dated him because I was always dating someone else.

This is a very long-winded way to say: I don’t know who my First Love is. It could be one of those many crushes from way back when. It could be my first boyfriend, who (sadly for me) was the best relationship I’d have for years (and, for the record, he’s still a great guy.) It could be the first guy I capital-L loved, who I dated before my husband and was absolutely crazy about. (Unfortunately, I was also just crazy, and combine that with us just being too much alike and you get a relationship that doesn’t work.) Or it could be my husband, who I could have fallen in love with at any point but didn’t get around to it we were (mostly) adults. (And I still love to pieces, thankfully not literally.)

So, um. Hopefully tomorrow’s challenge will be easier… lol