Christmas Wish List

It's a little crazy to me how early people start marketing/decorating for Christmas.  But since everyone is doing it, I thought I might as well share some of our list.

I decided that what I really need to take this blog to the next level is get a real camera. I'm not trying to become a professional photographer, but I do need a better way to document things besides my iphone. I'd really like to get a solid easy for beginners dslr camera.

 Kyle's big birthday/Christmas wish item will be a new gaming console....either the PS4 or the Xbox One. My money is on the Xbox but we'll see.Money donations will be contributed to the console fund. 

 After all of the awesome wedding gifts we've received..There's really only one kitchen item we still find ourselves in need of:

 I'm all about the online boutiques right now and my favorite is definitely Kiki LaRue! I loved their maxi dresses in the summer and now I'm all about the sweaters and ponchos! You can check them out here

 

 I'm also allllll about the adorable prints you can find here

Lots to be thankful for this year. Excited to give some thanks before the Christmas season officially begins this year. MY tree won't be up until after Thanksgiving.

Lovely Little Weekend

I had such a great weekend with my husband. I think I've had a little post-wedding blues and it's been hard to get back into the swing of things. A lot of people ask about how married life is. The truth is that not much has changed. We lived together before and were functioning as a married couple beforehand. There is an extra warm spot in my heart to be legal though.  We continue to grow and learn together...and continuing to date is a big part of that. This weekend felt like one big date weekend.

 

I did have to work on Saturday but Kyle always makes a point to do something fun after I get home from work. Our Saturday included some shopping and a date night at Chuy's.

 

Sunday we laid low, did some chores and met my dad for lunch at Twisted Root. It was delicious. I know that's old news around here but we forget to try new places ( Don't worry..we got in a Company Cafe breakfast today.) 

 

We are pretty lucky that some of the random holidays I have off from work are also bank holidays so we were both off of work today! We treated ourselves to breakfast at our favorite spot and then ran some errands ( read: chores). Our errands included three grocery store stops thanks to my high maintenance food needs and our addiction to Trader Joe's chicken sausage. Seriously, if you haven't tried their sweet apple chicken sausage you should get in your car right now.  

 

 We also picked up this cute little cacti.

 

 

I've had this itch lately that I just can't scratch. I think that since the wedding.. I am SO SO fu;filled in my home life and relationship life that it has made me examine the other parts of my life. You only get one and you are in control of it. I know that is pretty vague but I promise to expand a bit more later.

Going along with that, I've been contemplating the direction of this blog...knowing that it would be beneficial to narrow the focus just a bit. However, I still haven't decided exactly what my plan is so you will have to suffer through some random life ramblings for a bit longer.

And if you're reading this, you must be interested in some way so I must not be doing too badly. I'm open to blog focus ideas! What would you enjoy reading? What topics do you enjoy reading from me?

Friday Favorites

Random Things I'm Loving Right Now!

Vintage Letter Lights

If you were wondering what to get us for Christmas.. wonder no longer! Maybe someday I'll be able to talk myself in to spending that kind of moolah on a fun decorating item. 

 

Orange Is the New Black

I'm a little bit behind on this because once something REALLY blows up, it makes me kind of think ehhhhhhhhhhhhh. I eventually ran out of shows though and decided to give it a try. ( Kyle and I have some shows that we reserve to watch with each other and then we, okay mostly me, have some shows that we have the okay to watch by ourselves). I have to admit that it took me a couple of episodes (and I'm not sure that I made it through a single whole episode without closing my eyes at least once) to really get in to it. There is a whole lot of graphic sex scenes/ scenarios that just really aren't my thing. Everyone knows ( and makes fun of me for the fact that) I'm a big baby about that kind of stuff. It just doesn't do anything for me in a TV show. I like interesting story lines and witty dialogue versus shock value.

Overall, I really enjoyed this first season and will definitely watch the next one. So far there hasn't been a netflix original show that I haven't enjoyed and don't plan to continue watching ( see also: House of Cards)

Allegiant

 

This is the third and final chapter of the Divergent series and so far I'm loving it! Let's be real here... I love some good, easy-to-read, young adult dystopian fiction. YA is the ultimate de-stresser for me.  This is the last one out of the several different series that I started reading a couple of years ago when I got really in to YA dystopian novels. I really enjoy that they are so predictable. You want the movie ending to be happy, ya know?!?

Seeing How Much the Kitties Missed Kyle

 

If you combine Danger + Mayhem, Kyle is definitely the favorite. Mayhem is pretty equal (although he used to favor me), but Danger definitely prefers Kyle. She  has slept on my side of the bed a couple of times since we've been home though so maybe she's coming around!

So there you have it! Some Friday favorites! I'm trying to blog more regularly again now that the wedding is over so let me know what random entries you enjoy and think I should continue!

Honeymooning

Kyle and I decided to use our honeymoon to visit a part of the country that has been on both of our bucket lists for quite some time....the pacific northwest!

On Monday morning we flew in early to Seattle, where we grabbed a rental car and roadtripped it to about two hours north to the small town of Lynden, WA. This was our home base for the week (Thanks Tom for letting us use your timeshare hookup!)

We spent Monday evening just getting our bearings and getting settled. On Tuesday morning we decided to drive in to the larger town close by....Bellingham. This was surprisingly the only day it rained on us!

We walked around town a bit and eventually found a beautiful park that came complete with waterfalls!

Those who are close to me know that apples are one of my most favorite foods ever so you know that we had to find an orchard ASAP!  They were some of the BEST apples I have ever had. I probably should just order apples straight from orchards in the fall and have them shipped!

 

On Wednesday we decided to drive up to Vancouver, BC. It was a pretty easy hour and a half drive. We got an awesome deal on a downtown hotel.

 

 This was our view from the 29th floor!

We spent the majority of the day wondering the city. Vancouver had just enough of an international feel without the culture shock I have experienced in other countries! On Thursday, we explored a bit more before heading back to Washington. For the whole week, we used Yelp to help us pick food and site seeing destinations! We found a delightful french restaurant for brunch on Thursday morning. I had a bit of food anxiety because the menu was mostly in French and when you have a severe food allergy like me...You get worried! I couldn't even use my phone to look things up because I didn't want to pay the outrageous international data charges! ( We didn't need it enough to buy a plan). Luckily I could recognize enough to order what I thought would be pretty safe..a delicious skillet with rib meat, potatoes and eggs. It was amazing!

 Since we were a little late for whale season, we decided to go to the aquarium!

 While we were admiring the beluga whales...These two little girls walked up to the glass and held hands while singing " Baby Beluga...live wild and free..." at the top of their lungs. I was pretty sure my heart was going to explode from all of the cuteness.

If you ever venture up to Vancouver, I highly recommend you check out Stanley Park. This is where the aquarium was located but is also a GORGEOUS park with amazing views of the bay and the downtown landscape. I was too busy admiring with my eyes that I forgot to take a picture. Oops!

We headed home Thursday evening to rest and get ready for our next adventure, San Juan Island!

It was about an hour drive down to catch the ferry on Friday morning. The San Juan Islands include a few islands, but because we were limited in time, we chose to go to just one. The ferry was a gorgeous ride!

We wore our "play clothes" and grabbed some snacks in order to enjoy a full nature day.

 We didn't see any whales but we did see quite a few seals! San Juan Island was honestly one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been to.

 

 On Saturday we drove back to Seattle to explore before we flew out on Sunday.

 We visited all of the tourist spots ( Pike's Place Market, Space Needle, etc.). It was unfortunate that it was a Saturday and a mad house every where we went! I loved the vibe of Seattle though. It was really fun to explore!

I have to admit that a honeymoon that relied on a lot of teamwork was a nice test for the beginning of our marriage.  We had to do a lot of communicating to figure out specific plans and figure out how to drive ourselves around unfamiliar cities (especially when we didn't have our phones in Canada!). Kyle has always given me a hard time about my lack of map reading abilities but I think I was doing pretty awesome by the end of the trip. I like to use the "follow your instinct" method. It's genetic. ( Wink, wink mom!)

I'm really excited to be home again and back into our normal routine. There haven't been any major adjustments in our daily life since getting married but there is something special about being an official family. I feel like this is the beginning of this next major part in our lives and I'm so excited to experience it with my best friend!

 

Been A Long Time...Shouldn't Have Left You

Without a dope beat to step to. Anyone?!?

Welcome back to me! Now that things have slowed down a bit around here, I thought I'd get back to this little love of mine. 

We did it folks. We are MARRIED.

 

Everyone talks about how fast it goes and they are so right. A lot of parts about that day/night are blurry. What's not blurry though is how appreciative we are of both of our families and amazing wedding party/best friends.

Thank you to our wonderful best friends for being the best people ever. We love you guys.

And we really could not have made it happen without the support of our fantastic families! I've heard horror stories about families not getting along, let alone working together seamlessly on the wedding! Kyle and I are incredibly lucky to come from such fantastic loving families. I'm so pumped to be a part of Kyle's and he feels the same way.

I don't feel like we even got to talk to everyone that we wanted to at the wedding, but please know that we are so grateful for your presence! I can't wait to get the photographers' pictures back. I know they will be incredible.

Now Kyle and I are excited to start our (much calmer) married life. Thanks to all of you we had a fantastic honeymoon. I'll be recapping the trip later this week!!! 

26 Days!

Pretty much the only thing on my mind right now is wedding, wedding, wedding. Hence the lack of blog posts. I don't want to wear you guys out before you even attend the main event!

If "wedding brain" is a thing, I definitely have it. Amazingly enough, I haven't grown tired of looking at wedding related things although I have grown tired of making decisions. Kyle has been super nice to me by taking me out on dates to my favorite places where I can eat things like this:

Our Friday night consisted of Company Cafe and a movie on the couch. Somehow, I escaped my teenage years without ever seeing Varsity Blues. Now I finally know what James VanDerbeek is talking about in that commercial.

I had to work on Saturday morning so Kyle took advantage of the free time to clean his car (he's obsessed. Love you!) and get in some disc golf. We then ventured out for lunch to this delicious place:

 

We don't go out to eat often so twice in one weekend is a treat! They recently started offering gluten free bread and you know I have to support that! I'm simultaneously grateful that being gluten-free is such a fad right now and incredibly annoyed that everyone thinks you are a super hipster if you are gluten free. Oh well. YOLO!

Just kidding. But for real, you only live once. Maybe. 

We used today to catch up on some chores and relax to the max. Apparently it was the start of some big American past time? I can't really remember. I've been trying to figure out who all these guys are on the television today. My favorite moment was definitely when Kyle paused the Atlanta game to say "Hey! That's the guy from the Bravo show!" Clearly we share TV time. ;)

I have to admit that "wedding brain" has me seriously uninformed about current events. All I want to look at and read about are incredibly girly and glamorous things. I'm heavily lusting over everyone's pictures from New York Fashion Week.  That's incredibly unlike me, so don't worry guys, Normal Allison will likely be back in about five weeks.

My shower and bachelorette party are coming up next weekend! I promise to share some of that delightful-ness with you all.

 

Kyle and I are so grateful for all of the help and support we have had for this wedding as well as for us as a couple. We are so excited to see our closest friends and family soon!

The wedding website has been updated a bit so feel free to head over and check it out. If you are coming from out of town, I really suggest you book your hotel room if you haven't already! It's quite a busy weekend with the State Fair and football games going on.

You be the peanut butter, I'll be the jelly.

Kyle and I have talked recently about the whole "getting cold feet" thing. It's safe to say that neither of us are worried about that at all. In fact, I'm a little more sure every day. 

 Today was the perfect example.

I've had a basket of clothes sitting on the floor for about 2 weeks. Somewhere around then I lost motivation to keep hanging up because my closet was a disaster zone. My wreck of a closet has been looming over me and I've been trying to psych up to clean it for the last week. I finally decided that this weekend it had to be done.

Once I started I realized that I was really going to have to clean out two closets, my main one in my bedroom and another one in the guest room that I have been storing random clothes and crap in. I got far enough in to make a huge mess before I got overwhelmed and really wanted to quit. Yes, quit...with a huge mess all over my bedroom. Because that's how I roll. I get an idea ----> I bite off more than I can chew ---->I get overwhelmed ----> I give up ----> I get upset because I can't do it / quit. 

Kyle saw this happening and immediately rescued me. He gave me a game plan. Here's how it went:

I focused on one small part at a time ( much more mentally hand-able for me). I worked my way through one closet and then the other just piling up the clothes that I need to get rid of. He put the clothes in bags/ baskets and made multiple trips while I worked to donate them. I then was able to move all of my winter clothes to the guest room closet and hang back up all of my work/summer clothes.  

I am not joking when I say that he probably took 10 bags of clothes (and a laundry basket of old shoes!) . I had a couple of bags of clothes still in a closet that I packed a year ago when I cleaned out once before. Oops. We then cleared out all of the wire/ broken hangers and took them to the dumpster. It took about two hours but now we both have clean closets and a clean bedroom.

And without Kyle, I'd probably be sitting on top of huge pile of clothes surrounded by tangled hangers and trash bags crying, trying to figure out how I'm going to get to my bed to sleep tonight. ( <-----hey mom, you were wondering where that girl you used to know went...There she is!)

 It seems like something minor but let me tell you, it matters. It matters to have someone who knows your face well enough to read your feelings right away and know exactly what to do.  His strengths mirror my weaknesses and for that I will forever be grateful.