Starlight Mint Wreath

With Thanksgiving over, everyone is putting up their holiday decorations. I typically don't do anything mainly because Chanukah is normally over right around Thanksgiving. But this year is different. Chanukah is at the same time as Christmas so I can put up decorations now and leave them up for a long time.

Now, I don't really have any Chanukah decorations and I am not a huge fan of Christmas decorations, but I did find a tutorial to make a starlight mint wreath last year and it caught my eye. I was intrigued by the project and filed it away as a project to do eventually.

This year I got the motivation to actually do the project. Although it may be a little "Christmassy," I justify it since it is made of candy and candy is for everyone, not necessarily just for Christmas.

So after collecting all the materials, of which there weren't many--foam wreath, starlight mints (lots of them!) and hot glue--I assembled the project which only took a couple hours. Most of the time was spent opening up the mints.

The final project - just needs to be coated with something so the bugs don't eat it :-)

It was a great project and it looks beautiful and rather elegant on the front door. I am now inspired to make wreaths with all different candies to see what other cool designs I can make. I might just have to start a candy wreath line....haha.

Here's to hoping I continue on my creative crafting spree and create many other beautiful things :-)

Thanksgiving 2011

Kevin and I spent our third thanksgiving living together and our first thanksgiving as husband and wife. Of course, just like usual, we cooked a full thanksgiving meal. Although, one change this year was that we abandoned our excel spreadsheet schedule that said exactly what to do at what time. Abandoning the schedule did result in eating an hour later than usual.....but who cares?

In front of our crazy huge thanksgiving meal :-)

It was a wonderful day cooking together. We make such a great cooking team. We had a huge menu. We roasted two chickens, made sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, whipped potatoes, Mrs. Cubbison's dressing, gravy, crescent rolls, our awesome salad, gluten free cornbread muffins, and last but not least our icebox lemon cheesecake.

With no schedule, I seemed to be much more calm about the whole process. In the end we had an awesome meal and were able to spend a wonderful day together.

Of course we had to have a funny picture :-)

I guess I should be cliche and say what I am thankful for......well, I am thankful for life and everything in it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the sickness and everything else that comes along with it. Where I am in my life right now is AWESOME, and it is everything and everyone in my life that has gotten me here.

Here's to hoping that I continue to appreciate everyday of life and everything that life has to offer me :-)

Life as Mr. & Mrs.

After many years of dating and engagement, and what seemed like a lifetime of wedding planning and such.....we are finally Mr. & Mrs.

Although I wish I could tell you that we are in some sort of fairy land with rainbows and unicorns, life is pretty much the same. Everything feels the same, we are back to our normal routines, but we simply have a piece of paper that will give us a tax break and I have to deal with the paperwork nightmare of changing my name.

Don't get me wrong, being married is AWESOME, but that is simply because life is the way it has been. We loved each other and our life before getting married. So the fact that our life is the same and we still feel the same about each other is perfect.

Here's to hoping we have a lifetime of happiness, love, fun adventures, and general AWESOMENESS :-)

First Day as Husband & Wife

After a crazy weekend of AWESOMENESS, Kevin and I spent Sunday having even more fun.

We started the day off by sleeping in, what a wonderful treat after so many busy days. We ordered room service for breakfast which was quite delicious. We had a number of visitors stop by as they began their journeys home.

We spent the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific with both of our parents. It was super crowded because there was some sort of Halloween thing for little kids, but we were still able to see quite a few cool sea creatures.

Cool Pumpkin LEGO man at the Aquarium - I think they were having a contest.

After going all around the aquarium we headed back to the hotel, thankfully Kevin's parents drove so we didn't have to do the walk again. We sat and chatted in the hotel for a little while and then Kevin and I relaxed for the rest of the evening.

We ordered room service for dinner, which was wonderful and we didn't have to go out at all. Instead of anything exciting, we instead fell asleep early which we so needed.

Us just before digging in to our awesome room service dinner :-)

The next morning was our day to head back home. We repacked the car to fit everything in, checked out, turned in our marriage license at the LAX court house, picked up our wedding gifts from my parents and headed back to our home as husband and wife.

It was a wonderful weekend and everything worked out so well. Here's to hoping that we can always remember how wonderful our wedding was and make the rest of our life just as AWESOME.

Dance Time!!!

After it all, planning, setup, getting ready, the ceremony, dinner, speeches, it was finally dance time.

What is there to say about the dance time? It was AWESOME. We danced right up to the end and just thoroughly enjoyed it. It was dance music pretty much the whole time. The only slow dance (not the singular) was near the end when the celebration was winding up.

The DJs were great and kept the party going. They danced, played limbo and who knows what else. I wish I could remember every detail, but unfortunately I was having too much fun to notice it all.

Not even on the dance floor, and still dancing away :-)

There was only one interruption to dancing and that was to cut the cake. This is the infamous cake we got at Baskin Robbins on Thursday. We put on our ponchos and suddenly everyone was paying attention. I guess putting on funny looking poncho grabs people, or maybe it was because they knew something ridiculous was going to happen. We cut the cake, or attempted to, which was rather difficult since the cake was still pretty frozen. After finally breaking off a piece of cake, the fun times began. We smash cake all over each other's faces and had lovely blue faces for pictures. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world.

Kerri got one of the best pictures of the cake smashing aftermath - don't worry, I got more cake on Kevin's face after this picture was taken

P.S. the ponchos worked great and our outfits stayed perfectly clean. :-)

I can only hope we can continue to dance for the rest of our lives. Dancing in the car, the living room, anywhere that good dance music begins, we will bust out our incredible white people dance skills. :-)

Speeches

After everyone had sat down with their dinner, we commenced speeches.

It began with Adrienne, my maid of honor. She had not been having the best day so far, but her speech definitely came from the heart. Lionel, Kevin's best man, gave a speech about how Kevin is good at every game or sport you play against him at.

My dad then gave a speech about our wedding was just another special moment that he would always remember. Kevin's parents spoke about how proud they were and how they have seen us grow in the years we have been together.

After those speeches, we then opened up the mic to anyone who wanted to say something. All of the bridesmaids and groomsmen spoke, and then to my surprise my uncle spoke. My Uncle Sid is an amazing man, and I was definitely in shock when he stood up. My surprise continued when he spoke. He spoke about how proud he was of me and Kevin. Even though he didn't really know Kevin, what he did know about him made him so happy. My uncle was happy that we were doing what we wanted to do and seemed to be having a great time doing it. I'm not sure there are any words to describe my happiness in having my uncle say these words. To make my uncle proud is something that I had always hoped to do, and it seems like I have succeeded.

In addition to my uncle speaking, he pulled me aside during the dance time and wanted to dance with me. He told me he was not very good at dancing (neither am I) and he then repeated those same words. He was just so happy that we were doing what we wanted. My uncle expressed his joy for us and how he wished he could have done exactly what he wanted.

I know this is not the most well written explanation of what happened, but it doesn't matter. I, personally, will always remember the words and emotions expressed by our family and friends. And in the end, that is all that matters. My memories will outweigh my horrible writing skills.

I can only hope that we will continue to make everyone proud and continue doing what we want and loving life. :-)

World Record Ceremony?

After all of the prep work and setup, we were ready to go. Everyone was lined up and the ceremony was about to begin.

Kevin, and then all of the groomsmen and bridesmaids walked in. Then it was my turn. I remember asking my parents if my hear should be beating this fast. It felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. I'm not sure what I was nervous about? I knew I was marrying the right person and I knew the room look awesome. I think more than anything I was just nervous to have everyone look at me.

I made it down the aisle, gave each of my parents a hug and took my place on the stage under the chuppah. The ceremony proceeded, with Jeff Kogen officiating. We had written out a script, so we knew everything that would be said. It was beautiful, even though I can't remember much of it.

Photo by Daniel Nguyen - It's amazing anyone got a picture of the ceremony since it was sooooo short :-)

We all walked out after the ceremony and into the lounge to sign our marriage license. Now, it was official, we had the ceremony and we signed the license.

It wasn't until we were talking to guests that we realized how short our ceremony was. Estimate of 9 minutes including walking in and out. Sounds perfect. We did video record our ceremony, but I doubt we will ever actually watch it, but at least we have it for the memories.

I can only hope we will live up to our vows and have a harmonious relationship of equality. In addition, I can only hope that we can continue to be as efficient as our ceremony was. :-)