thank you dinner

So the other night Mike and I decided to make dinner for my parents and brother and sister to thank them for letting us use their house for our wedding. Now, I of course mean that Mike MADE the dinner, but I helped with the decor and serving and doing the dishes. 

Each place setting had a copy of the night's 5 course menu. And each napkin ring had a picture of the person whose seat it was. The photos were all from the wedding. This was Jim's picture, taken in the photo booth with my other brother Mike and his wife Kelly. Jim sat down and said, "Really?" and I said, "What?" and he said, "I don't remember ever BEING in the photo booth with them!!!"

We stayed with the red theme (same as our wedding) but decided to change things up with a bit of a different/ funky centerpiece arrangement. 

None of the pictures of the food do them justice of course, but here is the potato wrapped potato with chorizo and peas and carrots. 

The chef hard at work making some tacos. 

I was going to take pictures of all the courses to document them but then I got drunk/ busy and missed a few. This is the beef with mushrooms and soy butter. Soy butter (which is just soy sauce melted with butter I think) is AMAZING! I asked Mike why he hadn't made that for me earlier and he said, "Because we were trying to eat healthy!" Oh yeah. 

I'd say the dinner was a success. So much so that I think the fam would even be willing to let us host a party there again sometime! 

the honeymoon phase

Yup, I've become that person that totally neglects their blog.

To be fair, I WAS without internet for a few weeks there. But let's be honest, I am just lazy.

So what has happened since my last blog post? Well, for starters I got married! Still sort of hard to believe.

I had such an unbelievably positive bridal experience. I'm not really a huge fan of having so much attention focused on me... but I will say I liked how everyone was so unbelievably NICE to me! "What do you need? I'll do it." I can't believe how many times I heard that phrase! My friends and family rock!

Transitioning to married life has not been difficult at all... mainly since Mike and I had been living together and paying for stuff together for a year already. I can only imagine how big of a shock it would be for couples who haven't been doing that stuff already. Because living together is MUCH different than dating someone. When you are dating someone the time that you spend together is all about each other. But when you live together you also need to do your own thing. So just because they are in the same room as you, does not mean they need your attention.

I think the hardest part for couples are the little things that drive each other crazy. The not squeezing the toothpaste tube correctly. Or the leaving dirty clothes laying around. Mike doesn't really bother me. I've told him to let me know if anything I am doing is bothering him, but he hasn't said anything so far. It's been pretty idyllic really.

I'm just documenting this so that a few years down the road when we have kids and are driving each other crazy I can look back on our "honeymoon phase" and laugh!

pre-wedding excitement

I guess I should write a blog about this coming weekend... my wedding weekend!... for prosperity's sake.

I don't want to bore you with details and whatnot but it is going to be the best wedding EVER!!!!

I was soooo lucky that my mom and mike's mom both just let me (I would say us, but really most of it was my planning) do whatever I wanted. They didn't try to force their will on me at all and for that I absolutely adore them. Thank you!

Second, I have had so many offers from friends and family to help out that I am struggling trying to find things for all of them to do! That's a great situation to be in! :)

I'm not nervous or stressed out about the wedding. Miraculously I had enough money to pay all the vendors. The house shaped up nicely. We were able to keep our guest list to a reasonable level. True, it's sad that we couldn't invite everyone we wanted to, but we compromised and hopefully those people we couldn't invite will understand. I personally feel that all people who are married and have gone through the trial of putting together a wedding and making decisions like that should understand.

I kept waiting to get nervous or stressed about the wedding but it didn't happen. Sort of like when I was getting LASIK eye surgery. I kept waiting to get really nervous and sick to my stomach and freaked out about it... but I didn't and it was a piece of cake.

The wedding has a lot more variables than eye surgery but I plan to just roll with it and have a good time.

I'm SOOOO glad that I made my theme The Muppets. It has made planning this wedding so much fun. It definitely won't be your same old wedding!

Today I got my first ever spray tan. Which, I will admit, looks pretty awesome. Unfortunately you are supposed to do NOTHING after getting it. Don't touch things. Wear super loose clothes (no bra.) Don't carry bags on your shoulders. Don't rub against things. Don't sweat. Don't come into contact with water- which means don't wash your hands. And definitely don't shower for at least 10 hours. I of course went straight to work which meant that I ended up washing my hands, not once, but at least six times!

I find I don't really want to talk about the wedding because I want it to be full of surprises for people. I mean, not huge surprises, so don't get your hopes up. But I love surprises. Even little ones. That's probably why I haven't been flooding this blog with tons of details about my wedding over the past few months.

Speaking of surprises... Mike is off doing some surprise thing for the wedding which he won't tell me about. I keep saying that I hope he is off organizing a surprise Flash Mob. He tells me not to get my hopes up.