What the New Year Will Bring

2010 has been an incredibly busy year.

I started a new job with a new team.

I hiked 47km, carrying everything I needed for four days in a backpack.

I spent two weeks in the tropics-- first Hawaii, and then Moorea in French Polynesia.

I made new friends.

I married my best friend.

I gained a new branch of family.

I cheered for my oldest friend as she packed up her life and moved to Vancouver.

I found myself in some bizarre circumstances... Who is that skeleton, and why is Jeff wearing that cap?

And even MORE bizarre circumstances...

My 26 years have taught me that a New Year will bring many new things

This year I expect...

A new baby niece in February. My 2 year old nephew will soon have a baby sister. If you ask him, he is not interested in having a baby sister. But he is very excited to have a "Big Boy" bed with car sheets.

A much anticipated visit from a friend in Toronto.

A second attempt at cross-country skiing. I'll try not to hate it as much this time.

A road race. I'm going to do one this year! I'm not sure about the distance yet, but this is the year!

More than anything, I expect this New Year will bring many, many surprises. I am certain I will be prepared for some of them, but undoubtedly, many will catch me off guard.

Good luck to everyone in 2011!

Surviving Boxing Day

Boxing Day is always a bit of a conundrum. I love shopping! But I hate crowds... But I LOVE shopping! But I hate crowds... Usually the shopping wins out.

And really, who actually likes crowds? As a result, my mom, sisters and I have a plan. We arrive early, and leave early. Last year we arrived at the mall at 9am, and were gone by 11am. We hit a few key stores, got our stuff, and got out!

This year I didn't have anything in mind that I wanted to get, except a few new sweaters for Tom. But after receiving not one, not two, but THREE e-mails from my favourite store, RW & Co. declaring, "First time ever... Take an extra 50% off during Boxing Week!" I was completely (and successfully) brainwashed by their advertising campaign.

RW & Co. sales ad.

This year... It was SO BUSY.

When I arrived at the mall at 8:30am (it opened at 8am), the parkade was practically full. There were people everywhere! Parents with kids, teenagers, mom's with gigantic strollers, elderly people... Everything was busy. Lululemon had a line just to get into the store! RW & Co. was crawling with people. After waiting 15 minutes for a change room, I then waited 20 minutes to pay for my lone shirt. Then I waited 45 minutes in a line at Banana Republic! There were only four people running cash registers, and the line literally wound all around the store.

The line at Old Navy snaked back and forth about four times (as seen below). But thankfully there were 8-10 cash registers running, so the line moved fairly quickly.

Crazy Old Navy line.

It was definitely busier this year than it was last year. As I drove away, there were security guards and police directing traffic!

I feel a little shell shocked, and I'm not entirely sure if all the waiting in lines was worth it. Perhaps next year I'll go shopping during Boxing Week rather than specifically on Boxing Day.

Heh. I say that now... But come next year, I'm sure I'll find myself waiting in lines again...

Happy Shopping!

A Twist on Tuna

A few weeks ago I was signing out of my Hotmail account. When you sign out, you are automatically re-directed to MSN.com, where you are bombarded by flashy ads, trashy headlines and other interesting tidbits. For example, todays headlines are, "Whaaa? Stars who stay the stupidest things" and "Hilariously ugly Christmas sweaters." On that particular day, I happened to notice a link claiming to contain all the tasty casserole recipes from your childhood.

I haven't eaten a casserole in over three years. My mom used to make the occasional casserole, but they were not a regular in her meal repertoire. I remember I always enjoyed her Tuna Casserole. I think it was probably because she would crush a bag of plain old Dutch chips and let us sprinkle them on top of the casserole to give it a little crunch. Don't diss it 'til you've tried it!

Anyway, remembering my fondness for casseroles past, I decided to give a Mediterranean Tuna-Noodle Casserole recipe a try.

Mediterranean Tuna-Noodle Casserole

With Special Thanks to Martha Stewart

(http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/mediterranean-tuna-noodle-casserole)

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for baking dishes

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 pound wide egg noodles

2 red bell peppers (ribs and seeds removed), thinly sliced

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

5 cups whole milk

4 cans (6 ounces each) tuna in olive oil, drained

1 can (14 ounces) artichoke hearts, drained and thickly sliced

5 scallions, thinly sliced

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan

Directions:

1. First, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. Then I make a gigantic pot of wide egg noodles. I halved this recipe, and I still used a full bag of egg noodles. There were a LOT of noodles. I cooked them 2 minutes less than the box recommended so they would be al dente.

2. Then I used some olive oil to cook my sliced bell peppers. I sprinkled some salt and pepper on them. It wasn't necessary to cook them long. Just 4 to 6 minutes, until they turned tender.

Tenderizing red peppers.

Then I added the flour to the peppers, and continuously whisked in my milk. The recipe called for whole milk, but I used 2% to make it a tiny bit healthier.

Whisking sauce.

3. In the meantime, I had chopped up the can of artichoke hearts while generously sampling the chopped up products. You have to make sure that the artichoke isn't poisoned, so sampling it is a very important step. It's an added bonus that artichoke is so delicious! I also added some black kalamata olives to the recipe.

Non-poisonous artichoke hearts and olives.

4. Then I mixed everything in with the sauce. That included noodles, artichoke, olives, tuna and chopped onion (because I forgot to buy scallions at the grocery store). I mixed everything thoroughly, and added some more salt and pepper to taste. Then I poured the entire mixture into a 9 x 9 pan, and discovered that that was not big enough. I had to put some overflow into a loaf pan. Even halved, this recipe ended up making 6 servings! Then I smothered the surface of the casserole in parmesan cheese.

Cheese smothered casserole.

5. The last step was to bake the dish for about 20 minutes. I took mine out a little early (after only 16 minutes), because it was already golden-brown, and bubbling away.

Golden bubbly results.

Recipe success!

Tom suggested that next time we should add more olives. I agree. You can never have too many olives.

Nom nom nom!

Have You Seen This Phone?

I have been cell phoneless for the last week. Sometime on Tuesday afternoon, I noticed my cell phone was missing!

I remember texting Tom on Monday as I was getting on the bus. I do that every day to tell him which bus I'm on so he can get on the same one a few stops down the line. I remember after I sat down I was holding the phone in my left hand and holding my book with the right. I often hang on to the phone so that I will actually hear or feel the phone vibrate if Tom calls or texts me back. There have been many times when I have shoved the phone back into my purse, and then missed a call or text because I'm totally oblivious to everything going on around me when I start reading.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened after that. Did I leave the phone on the bus? Did I put it in purse? Did it fall out somewhere else? I have no idea. I left a message on the Calgary Transit Lost Property line, but I haven't heard anything back. I can't find the phone at home, at work or in our car. And unfortunately, the battery is dead-- so it goes straight to voicemail when I call it.

It's not really a big loss. It was a cheap phone, and as I've discovered over the past five months, not a very good phone. It has excellent battery life (I only need to charge it once a week), and I liked the full QWERTY keyboard, but you have to unlock the touch screen at least four times when you are checking voicemail, and sometimes when I make calls, all I hear is a high frequency screeching when the line connects. The biggest pain is that I've lost all my contact numbers that were stored on the phone.

Eventually I'll buy a new phone. In the interm, I've reactivated my old chunky flip phone. I don't mind. I love this phone! This Samsung was my Ol' Faithful. I used it for over four years and never had any problems with it. Plus, as an added bonus, it has most of my contacts in it-- with the exception of missing a few new numbers.

I've been trying to decide if I'll get a Smart phone. I'm hesitant to do so, because I don't use my phone too much anyway. My plan has 200 minutes (which I have never, in four years, gone over) and 250 texts (which I have never used all of). I also pay about $35/month. I like the idea of being able to check my e-mail, or of carrying my music on the phone as well. But I can check my e-mail at any other computer, and I already have an iPod. So... Is it really worth it?

I will continue to mull this over.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or recommendations for a new phone!

100+ Cookies

As far as I'm concerned, the warm and fragrant smell of gingerbread is the smell of Christmas. Gingerbread is a precursor to decorated trees, wrapped presents, snow, hot chocolate and turkey dinners.

Today, Mallary, Jill, Christina, Jasmine and I spent the afternoon rolling, baking and decorating gingerbread and sugar cookies. We had over 100 cookies-- they just kept coming off the pans!

Multiple cookies cutters maximize production!

Dozens of cookies stacked in a pan.

More cookies on the cooling rack.

In the past when I've decorated cookies, I've always used store bought tubes of icing. This year, Mallary wanted to make use of the bags of icing sugar taking up room in her cupboards. She made icing in her stand mixer, and we created our own colours with food colouring. Red turned out as pink, orange turned out a little peachy, and blue and green were shades of pastel.

Mixing up icing.

We spooned icing into Ziploc bags and piped icing from them. We used Smarties, Swedish Berries, Gummy Bears and sprinkles to decorate.

Evil Santa.

A plethora of colours.

Tom and I have already gorged on the cookies I brought home. Those were some tasty cookies! I'm sure they'll be gone by the end of the weekend.

An excellent start to the month of December!

Packed and Ready to Go

My shoe boxes are packed and ready to go! This year, I was able to put three boxes together. One for a little boy (age 2-4), one for a little girl (age 5-9) and one for an older girl (age 10-14). I'll be taking the boxes to a drop off center this afternoon.

I can hardly imagine how exciting it would be to receive a box like this! It's nice to know you're making someones day a little brighter.

Operation Christmas Child

About 15 years ago (when I was in grade 5 or 6) my friend and I put a shoebox together for “Operation Christmas Child.” It was so long ago, I don't remember our initial motivation-- but I think we did this as a school project. And for years afterwards, (probably until I was in High School) I would receive mail from the organization asking me to donate again. Back then I never did, but I've decided that this year I have both the time and the means to put a few shoe boxes together.

Operation Christmas Child is a program funded by Samaritan's Purse. Each year at Christmas, they do a nation-wide collection of shoe boxes full of toys, and school supplies for children in less developed countries. This year, shoe boxes will be going to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua in Central America and the Caribbean, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela in South America and Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Although Samaritan's Purse (and therefore Operation Christmas Child) is a non-denominational Christian organization, this does not mean that a child must be of the Christian faith in order to receive a shoe box. Christian literature is not added to your box, and children are not required to take Bible classes in order to receive aid. These shoe boxes are given unconditionally to children of all religion, gender or race.

National Collection Week runs November 15-21, 2010 (i.e. next week). If you'd like to fill a shoe box, I'd be more than happy to deliver it to a collection center for you. Or if you don't have the time to make a shoe box yourself, I'd be more than happy to take a cash donation and make a shoe box on your behalf. Due to my shoe addiction... I have a lot of shoe boxes!

Information on what can and cannot be put in shoe boxes can be found here: http://www.samaritanspurse.ca/occ/PackaBox.aspx

If you have any questions-- go ahead and ask!

Enjoy your weekend!

"Fun" is Her Middle Name

Jill submits to being bingo-stamped.

Jill is turning 26 today, so here's a shout-out to her

I met Jill in May of 2008 when she joined our team at work. Having already spent a year as the youngest member of the team, I was relieved to meet someone who was my age. We worked together for a year and a half before we both moved teams again, and went our separate ways. If you could call it that. We're working four floors apart now, and I still spam her daily.

Here are some things I've learned about Jill over the last couple of years.

1) Jill is easy to be friends with.

Seriously! I'm not sure if I have ever met someone who is so easy-going. Jill once told me, "I don't do drama," and I think this is the reason why she's so easy to be friends with. This leads me to my next point:

2) Jill tells it like it is.

She is so forthcoming and direct that you never have to doubt the sincerity of her response because she'll always tell you what she thinks. If she thinks you're being an idiot, she'll tell you, "I think you're being an idiot."

3) Jill will try anything once.

Sky diving, canyon swinging, zorbing, pottery throwing, volleyball playing. Anything.

4) Jill is a fun-magnet.

If Jill is not having fun, she will find a way to make the situation fun! She has boundless energy.

5) Jill likes country music.

No description of awesomeness needed.

I think meeting Jill all those months ago is one of the best things that could have happened to me. Sometimes you meet people who have an innate ability to change you-- and Jill is one of those people for me. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I am by nature an introvert. So for me to get along with someone as extroverted as Jill is a bit unusual. Without even realizing it, Jill has shown me that it's not so difficult (or scary) to step outside your comfort zone once in a while. And for that reason, I think Jill is a pretty remarkable individual.

Happy Birthday, Ol' Girl!

A Dose of Normal

Since August, life has been crazy. Build-up to the wedding kept us busy, followed by prep for our honeymoon, followed by our actual honeymoon. When we returned home, we were back to reality, but by no means back to our regular, everyday, normal life.

When we got home, there were thank you cards to write, wedding registries to close, a sadly neglected house to clean, birthdays to celebrate, turkeys to be eaten, laundry to be washed and errand after errand to be run.

And when we were finally done all that, Tom decided to head to Seattle, and I decided to head to Toronto.

My friend, M, left Calgary over a year ago to start a new career. She wasn't able to make it to our wedding, so I booked a flight out to visit her. It is only for two days, but it was a much needed visit.

Me and M, post-gelato.

Weather in Toronto wasn't anything to rave about last weekend. It was about 15 degrees and overcast. It also rained for most of Saturday night, and part of Sunday morning. However, the trees this time of year are absolutely beautiful! Calgary had a very nice autumn this year. The leaves turned the most vibrant shade of yellow I have ever seen. But because Toronto has a wider variety of trees, the myriad of colours was fantastic!

Now that I am home, I am ready for a little normality. This weekend couldn't come sooner!

Happy Friday!

Back to Reality. Almost.

Sunny days, prime for snorkeling.

Plentiful flowers at the resort.

Lily pads in the koi fish pond.

On the boardwalk between overwater bungalows.

Me on our personal balcony.

Crab hanging out by the kayaks.

Collapsing walls of the extinct volcano.

Tom and I at an outlook point.

A papaya plantation.

A pineapple plant.

Rooster strutting his stuff.

Island views.

Mauruuru (Thank You), Moorea!

Days always pass so quickly when you are enjoying them.

The mornings always seem to be the best part of the day in Moorea. As soon as the sun starts to rise over the horizon, we are very aware of the houses across the lagoon where some of the locals live. Daylight beacons the roosters that live there, and so begins the never-ending shrieking of, "Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!" "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOO!" For the rest of day (and sometimes into the night) we can hear them crowing away. If the air condition is on, or the wind picks up, the noise is drowned out for a little while.

It has been very windy here. We overheard a couple last night telling another couple that it is usually breezy, but has been more so than normal on this visit. It is a continuous wind-- it doesn't seem to gust. But it is moist and humid.

An example of the wind.

Since it is always moist and humid, my hair has reached epic proportions of hugeness. In 2005 when I was in New York with Ashley and Kim, it rained a lot, and it was also humid. Both Ashley and I found our hair getting bigger and bigger. We compared Ashley's gigantic hair (which is much thicker than mine) to a lion's mane. We called her Simba, in honour of the Lion King (and the lion in the Museum of Natural History)! I'm pretty sure my hair has surpassed Ashley's Simba mane.

Tom has another sunburn. I'm happy to report that unlike his Hawaii burn, it is an even, all-encompassing burn this time. No patches from uneven sunscreen application. I'm sure he got it because he spent so much time snorkelling! He is trying to stay out of the sun, but I don't know how long that will last for!

Eating meals out here has been very interesting. Yesterday we ate breakfast at 8:15am, and then didn't eat again until 6:00pm for dinner. I didn't feel particularly hungry in the interm. We has the most amazing crepes for dinner. Crepes are delicious in any country. My savoury crepe was ham, cheese, mushroom and egg. Tom's was seafood in cream sauce. Then we both had a dessert crepe as well. Mine was aptly named "Le Bounty," and was full of chocolate, banana, coconut, and almond, topped with whipped cream and coconut sorbet. Tom's was similar-- chocolate, pineapple and coconut with whipped cream.

Amazing dessert crepe, "Le Bounty."

After dinner it was dark, but the water was very still and clear. Near the crepe bar there were lights over the water, so we watched about a dozen black tipped reef sharks circling underneathe us. They were maybe about 1m to 1.5m in length. They aren't around during the day while we were snorkelling, the just come it at night.

Black-tipped Reef Shark.

Coconut is delicious in all forms. Raw coconut, coconut sorbet, coconut bread, coconut milk... Coconut cookies! It also seems like everything I try is made of papaya. Papaya jam, papaya juice, papaya ice cream! Yum!

Today was our last full day. We went on an auto tour of the island. We stopped at a distillery and sampled some various types of fruit alcohol. We also went to some beautiful vantage points for scenic photos. I'll post those another time though!

Tomorrow we'll be heading to the airport in the evening. We unfortunately have to take a red-eye to get home. I'm glad we have a few days of weekend to get ourselves back to normal in Calgary. The staff at the reception desk says that since we have come here for our honeymoon, we must come back every five years for our anniversary. That doesn't seem like a hardship to me!

Mauruuru, Moorea! It's been lovely!

Chocolate Chip Promise

Steve in Rat's Nest Cave, March 2009

Every time I think about how long I've known someone, it makes me realize how fast time flies.

People are getting married, having babies... And Steve is officially a year older!

Today is Steve's 26th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Like some of my other good friends, I've known Steve for ten years. You'll likely remember him from previous posts-- you can't forget Steve!

Here are some things you might (or might not) know about Steve.

1) Steve is a collector. He has a huge collection of comics, a huge collection of music, a huge collection of TV and movies on DVD and a huge collection of Rock Band songs. Steve does not mind sharing or loaning parts of his collections. Steve is rather generous.

2) Steve is an excellent writer. I'm not sure I would have started blogging if Steve hadn't had his blog all those years ago. Unfortunately for the world, Steve doesn't write too much any more. Boo!

3) Steve considers violence to be the "Neanderthal's way." Steve will cut you down with his words before he'll ever smack you around.

4) Steve is sometimes referred to as Stevie or Steve-o. I'm not sure if I've ever called him either of those names. This is sort of a boring tidbit.

5) For the first 23 years of his life, Steve had never eaten cheesecake. He preferred to stick with desserts he was familiar with. Steve also prefers chocolate chip cookies, and adds extra chocolate chips to his recipe.

Steve, I hope your 26th birthday was awesome. I hope someone made you some chocolate chip cookies with extra chocolate chips! And if someone didn't-- I promise I will make you some when I get back.

Enjoy your day!

Moorea, French Polynesia

View from the overwater bungalow.

Tom and I arrived in Tahiti yesterday without any major problems. Our little overwater bungalow is lovely. We have everything we could want here-- incuding a private balcony and a ladder straight down to the water in the lagoon. Last night the water was so still and clear you could clearly see all the colourful fish swimming around. There is also a glass portion of the floor so we can see the water and fish going by beneathe us.

We sat with a chatty older lady on our flight to LA, and had lots of time before we caught our flight to Papeete, Tahiti. Air Tahiti Nui is a pretty awesome airline! We got a little package as the flight was taking off that contained ear phones, socks, sleeping eye-masks and stickers indicating whether we should be left alone to sleep, or woken up for meals.

The weirdest thing for me was adjusting to hearing French all the time. When the flight took off from LAX, the staff immediately switched to French as their primary language. All around us people were speaking French. I think that is my first time being immersed in a different language. Since I am primarily a visual learner, I've always found learning languages to be difficult. I found it a bit unsettling to hear an unfamiliar conversations going on around us. I soon realized that this wasn't a major problem. All the flight attendants were bilingual, and so far everyone we've encountered has been as well.

During our flight to Tahiti, I looked a little closer at our flight informaion. I realized that our flight home was booked wrong. I blame this entirely on the wedding. If I had not been overwhelmed in wedding planning for the last three months, perhaps I would have noticed that our flight from Papeete to LA leave at 11:30pm on October 8, and arrives in LA at 10:45am on OCTOBER 9th. Perhaps we wouldn't have booked our flight from LA to Calgary on October 8-- a day too early! We've e-mailed our travel agent, so hopefully she'll be able to rectify our bad planning!

You might be wondering why I am blogging on our honeymoon. You know... Don't I have better things to do?

Heh, this is the wonderful thing about relaxing. I can do whatever I want!

This morning we woke up at 6:30am (10:30am home-time, we are four hours behind here). At that time the sun was out so Tom read on the balcony, and I read in bed. Then we went for a swim, ate breakfast at the restaurant, went snorkeling, and have gone back to relaxing. My efforts at snorkeling were short lived. It is overcast, and VERY windy right now. The water was incredibly choppy, and all my inefficient flailing (i.e. attempts to swim) tired me out. In fact, it is so windy right now that every once in a while you can feel the slight swaying of the bungalow.

We will surely have eaten our body weight in pineapple and coconut by the time we leave. I never get tired of how delicious and fresh the fruit is out in the tropics!

Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow. If not, we will make the best of it!

Day 2 of Marriage

Dear Tom,

Today is the second day of our marriage. You are still in bed. You caught a cold (possibly related to your rowdy bachelor party the weekend before), and had improved a bit over the week prior to the wedding. But the activity of the wedding and the contact with all of our relatives made your cold worse. You sound like you have a frog jammed in your throat, and you are trying to hack it up (along with a lung). You called in sick at work today, and I hope a day of rest will leave you much improved. We leave for our honeymoon in four days.

Many people have told me that their wedding day is a blur in their memory. There was so much going on, they don't really remember all of it. This was not the case for me. Having spent so much time organizing and preparing for the big day, I spent very little time worrying about the details, because I knew they were taken care of. So I dedicated the rest of my focus to absorbing everything in.

I have come to one conclusion, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We are a lucky couple to be surrounded by so much love and friendship.

Years from now, when our kids ask us what our wedding was like, I will tell them it was perfect. I will tell them that we wrote our own vows, that I sniffled through them all, and that you dispensed a constant supply of tissue out of your tux pocket for me. I will tell them that you made your groomsmen, Andrew and Jeremy hold on to the used tissues-- which they did without complaint. I will probably not tell them that instead of promising to "compromise for you," I promised to "compromise you." They probably won't understand that until they're older...

There will be a lot of stories to tell, not all good. We will remember how my sister was lucky to avoid major injury when she was rear-ended on her way to the venue. She came to the wedding and MC'd anyway, later realizing that she'd probably had a concussion.

We can tell our nephew, Dylan, how he ran down the aisle to deliver our rings not once, but twice! And how he refused to come near me all night. The big white dress seemed to make him bashful and shy.

We will remember that Jeremy shaved his head into a mohawk. That Ashley and Heather teared up during their speeches. That Andrew had the room in stitches during his toast. We will remember that our candy buffet was a huge hit! The candy was gone before dinner was over. We will remember that your grandma was touched to walk down the aisle with you, and that your cousins Melia and Taylor had a blast on the dance floor. We'll remember how excited our parents were, and how nervous my dad was to give his speech. We'll remember all the work and thought Kelly-Ann and Lisa put into the slideshow they made for us, and the kind words my brother-in-law, Chris, shared with us later in the evening. Of course, we'll also remember how Steve danced himself sober, how Ben kept trying to "kiss" me, and how Jeff kept popping up with his instant camera! And we'll never forgot how much help everyone offered without being asked. Billy and Ashley D., and especially Shauna-- who I've heard kept the "dream team" in line.

We'll remember how many congratulations and good wishes were offered to us from our extended family, friends and colleagues.

But most of all, I will remember how everything about the night felt right. You were so at ease while you were thanking everyone, and so happy. You saw humor in everything-- like when you popped open the back of my dress during a particularly dramatic kiss, or when there were bugs crawling between the layers of my dress after tromping through a field for our photographer.

I love you so much. Our big day was better than I could have imagined. There was no better way to start our life together.

Amanda

Ever Closer

The big day is creeping ever closer!

Things have been so busy, it's hard to believe there are only four more days until we're married.

But first-- there's some business to take care of!

A big congratulations to Amy & Scott! The newest addition to their family, Skogan Matthew, was born at 11:38am on Tuesday, September 14. Skogan was 7 pounds and 4 oz. He is likely the luckiest little newborn around, considering how awesome his parents are!

A belated Happy Birthday to my birthday twin-- Tammy!

An even bigger HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my nephew, Dylan, who turned 2 years old yesterday. His mom and dad had a birthday party for him on Sunday. It was his first time blowing out candles. And was he ever excited when he got the hang of opening up presents!

Rehearsal dinner coming up on Thursday night!

Flowers to pick up on Friday. Family come into town.

Busy, busy!

Hostile Takeover

Less than two weeks-- 13 days to the wedding.

Basically every spare moment I've had in the last few weeks has been dedicated to the wedding. Planning, organizing, listing, documenting, double-checking, e-mailing, painting, gluing, washing, boxing, wrapping...

And if the wedding has taken over my mind, this weekend it has also made a hostile takeover of our house.

We haven't seen the surface of our kitchen table in over a month, because I'm always in the process of painting or construction decorations.

There are tissue paper pom poms hanging of every door, knob or handle.

Pom pom explosion.

I went to Costco with my parents to buy candy for the candy buffet.

Note the multiple tubs of sour soothers...

And I started packing boxes full of items that will need to go the venue on the day of.

Boxes are piling up.

13 days until we can have our household back to normal!