Two years on Snowdrop Tree!

It's crazy to think that we've already been in our house for TWO years! We closed on the house December 31, 2007 and moved in January 20, 2008 - only six months into our dating relationship. Yes, we were on the fast track to a long, but now slow, life together!

Well, two years in our beautiful house was also two years of living in, what the home builders call, a 'master-suite'. Which basically means no door from the bedroom to the bathroom. Which means, dear Krista who loves her sleep and HATES the mornings was woken up every morning, for two years, at either 5:45 or 6:00 AM, sometimes lucky to not get woken up until 6:30, since Mike's an early riser and gets to work so early! Every morning when he would get up and hop in the shower, I had the light shining DIRECTLY on me while I was in bed, not to mention the annoying noise of shower water running down the drain! Ear plugs and little face masks over my eyes just didn't seem to help me sleep through it. BLASTED!

So, as part of our two year anniversary celebration to ourselves, we decided FINALLY to install a door! Yay!!!!!

This was the BEST investment yet that we've made on the house. I had to share the before & after pictures and say thank you babe! Thank you for being such a great man and for taking care of your 'needing-to-sleep-in-every-moment-I-can-before-we-have-kids-and-I'll-never-get-to-sleep-in-again woman! It was pretty cool to see the process of having the door installed, I gotta say. But home improvements and home construction has always been second nature to me and I've never minded it. Growing up in a house with a General Contractor and an Interior Designer will do that to you. So I loved to see it take shape and progress to what is now the best door I've ever used in my entire life! Haha! I never thought something so simple would be so great!!

The first morning we had the door, Mike got up, showered, got dressed and left for the day and I didn't hear a thing! He came over to me and leaned down to give me a kiss when he was leaving for the day and I woke up shocked that I hadn't heard anything! That door must have super powers!

Not to mention, after two years, Mike was finally able to turn on a light in the bathroom and walk into the closet and flip on the light and actually SEE what he was getting dressed into that morning! And thank you to our neighbor Scott for getting it all set up for us. That was the BEST $650 we ever spent!!

So here's what the doorway looked like BEFORE the door....

And here's what the doorway looked liked after the sheetrock and texture went in...

And finally, the finished product! I LOVE that door! Can't tell you how many times I've come around the corner though, and have run RIGHT INTO IT! I keep forgetting it's there!!

Photos of the Venue

I finally got some pictures rounded up from 4th of July a couple of years ago at Chuck & Tywla's house. Here's a picture of Mike and I in the backyard, which is obviously now where we're getting married. I wanted to provide some pictures so the family could understand more what the backyard looks like.

And, here are some pictures Twyla's assistant emailed over to me to help me with the chairs, but it also shows you the idea behind what we're trying to do for our centerpieces. (These pictures are from a dinner party that Chuck & Twyla had at their home last year for their 30th wedding anniversary). Mike loved the way these hurricanes & leis looked on the table, so we may use their idea. We originally wanted a really long table for all of us to sit at for dinner, too, but unfortunately right where the table is set up is where I need to walk down the "aisle" so we'll, instead, just set up a bunch of rounds. Now we just need to figure out the extent of my aisle and where we'll have the actual ceremony. That is still TBD.

Twyla

The Ring....MY Ring.....My....Lovely....Ring!!!

Well, my WORST nightmare just came true. Here's the before-story to what actually happened, and then, I'll describe, what actually happened.
So, I'm sitting in my sister's kitchen last week while visiting Boise for work and we're talking about my ring. Yes, I gush about my ring, I LOVE my ring, I think it's gorgeous (as I'm sure everyone gushes about THEIR rings). Yes, I'm talking about my engagement ring. Well, some random girl at the gas station had told me how much she loved my ring when I was giving her my money to buy my Pepsi, so I was saying to my sister how nice it was to hear a total stranger say, Oh my God, your ring is gorgeous. I never know what to say to that. I want to say, "I know! Isn't it?!" But then I don't want to sound full of myself. So I just politely says, "Thank you. He did a GREAT job!" And I was on my way. So, my lovely sister decided to jinx me right then and there and say, "Um, aren't you worried about losing it, or damaging it or something? I mean, you don't ever take it off?" Yes, she said it just like that, sounding all Valley-Girlish, promise. (Although, she really didn't sound like a Valley Girl. But for the sake of this story, it helps). So, I'm like, 'No, Lori, I'm not worried about losing it or something happening to it. It'll be fine....I mean, what could happen to it? I won't lose it! I mean, yeah, it's a little loose, and I really should get that taken care of, but what will happen to it! It's fine!"
So, that's the pre-story to the story. So, I head home, come home to my honey, and go on about my life. Until, the next morning.
Mike and I decide we need to get outside and take Wiley Bear for a walk. Hey, maybe we'll walk down to the local Einstein Bagel for some breakfast. Well, halfway there I knew Wiley wouldn't make it the whole way (I promise, I wanted to go back because of Wiley, not because I LOVE walking or anything...) so we headed home to get the car and proceed to Einstein's. We pull up, Mike says, what do you want to eat? I said, I want that little protein plate breakfast, and as I put my hands together and make like a little bowl shape with my hands, I happen to notice down on my band that - wait for it - a freaking diamond is missing from the band!! I flipped out! And then, upon further inspection, I turned the ring and looked down the other side and BLAM! Another diamond was missing. I flipped out and started hyperventilating and was like, Mike, Mike, Mike, babe, oh my God, what now?!?!? Yeah, somehow, I don't know, maybe because I was holding the leash, my ring suffered a fracture, a slight fracture, but enough to fracture the stupid ring and basically split it right down the freaking middle, from one side to the next, and in the process, lost two of my precious diamonds. Couldn't believe it.
So now what?? Well, I am officially ring-less for the next two weeks. My finger is naked and I feel horrible. Thank God Mike didn't freak out on me or I don't know what I would've done. He looked at it and said, it's fine, it's fine, we'll get it fixed. I'm so glad that in my times of panic he remains calm.
So, today I said goodbye to like my third most loved thing in the world. But, the good thing is that, my ring was a little too big. Well, almost one size too big, but I didn't want to be without my ring so I never wanted to get it sized. Well, since I lost two diamonds that were in a perfect line, they're just going to remove one more diamond, on the other side of the ring, and then they'll actualy size it down so it fits. And then, Lori, I won't have to worry about it falling off and me losing it! Right now it's a size 5 & 3/4, and I'm a 5, so the only good thing that's coming out of this is that I'll actually have a ring that fits me now.
So then we can go about our normal lives, and I can feel engaged again, as soon as I have my blingy bling bling back ON.

The Wedding Date

Well, this is the first official post to our new blog! I wanted to start this blog to keep everyone up to date with the wedding details and as it gets closer, I'll post a lot of the information about the "big day" here. So please don't think me rude if I just direct you to my blog in case you have a question that I already answered here! :-) I am just hoping anyone who wants to know what's up can come here, and my family can get some information on what they need to know about the wedding details from here. This is more fun than sending out a blast email to everyone anyway!

Well, Mike and I have officially set the wedding date! I got my dress probably three months ago (first things first!) and we decided that after the holidays die down and we get back to normal then we would take a few minutes to look at the calendar to see what day would work best for us. Drum roll please......May 29th it is! Yes, that is THIS May 29th. We're getting married in 4 1/2 months. That will be PLENTY of time to plan the wedding because we've decided to have a small, family-only, intimate ceremony. So to all of our friends and close loved ones that will not be there for our special day - it doesn't mean we don't love you and want to share this special day with you. It just turned out that WHERE we're having the wedding just happens to be at our DREAM location but because of the WHERE, we need to keep the numbers down to a minimum. So that meant parents and siblings only.

So now, you might be wondering, where is this dream place? We have been so fortunate, because of a long-term relationship Mike has, to be honored to have our wedding at the home of Chuck & Twyla Martin. Mike has worked for Chuck for now 12 years! He is like a son to them (the son they never had). When we got engaged, we asked Chuck & Twyla to dinner so we could tell them the great news. We met at this little Italian restaurant in Crystal Cove (Newport Coast) and Twyla said she just had this feeling that we were going to tell them we were engaged. So when we told them the news, after they congratulated us, Twyla said, you can use our house! Well, on the way to dinner, I had told Mike, wouldn't it be a dream if Twyla said, hey, have the wedding at our house! And here she was, offering! We couldn't turn her down, we didn't want to turn her down, but we also knew that we could never have 100 or 150 guests roaming around their house so that would have to be the sacrifice we made to have our wedding there. We decided it's worth the sacrifice of having a huge wedding, to have the most beautiful home and backyard overlooking the ocean as our backdrop. (I added a Google Map image of the house, above. Just look for the little, yellow flag. That's the backyard where we're getting married!)

For those who don't quite know where Chuck & Twyla live (which is probably everyone), their house sits on 9 lots in a very high-end, gated community in Laguna Beach called Smithcliffs. Their backyard is the ocean. Their yard is gorgeous and overlooks a private beach below, and straight ahead is the Pacific Ocean. It's exactly the backdrop we wanted, but the backdrop you have to pay a LOT of money for if you want to get married there. So we are VERY fortunate and VERY lucky to say our "I Do's" there, and so grateful for Chuck & Twyla opening their home to us, and our families, to make it a very special day. I can't wait! So excited! Now that we've picked the date, it just can't get here fast enough!

So, family, get ready to head to Orange County for May 29th. Yes, Memorial weekend. But we aren't leaving for our honeymoon (to Maui) until Tuesday, so we can actually spend time with our family all weekend! It'll be worth the travel down here, I promise!

I LOVE YOU KRISTA

I LOVE YOU KRISTA