Holidays 2010 and general life update

Hey peeps! I figured I better get a blog post in before January is over. I've really been neglecting this blog, even more than usual, in order to work on our wedding website and do other wedding planning activities.

We had a busy December and spent the holidays in North Carolina with my sis and bro-in-law and then New Jersey/New York with Phil's family. My parents joined us in New Jersey as well to check out the Northeast winter and get to know their future in-laws. Here are a few pictures from our vacation:








January has been fairly busy as well. Phil has two classes again this quarter and when he's not studying, he's interviewing Princeton applicants. He's also been helping me with some of the more logistical aspects of wedding planning, such as figuring out where to block hotel rooms. I've got our wedding website just about finished and I'll post a link here once its presentable. We're also researching honeymoon packages, which is turning out to be fairly simple since we want to take basically the same trip our friends took for their honeymoon last September. They gave us the name of the travel agent they used and I gotta say, travel agents are under-rated. The convenience is unbeatable!

Work is awesome, I love my job in HR. I'm learning so much every day and its just so much more interesting to me than supplier management. I am glad I have that background though because it helps set me apart from other HR folks. The group is already seeing me as the "analytical" one, which is weird for me. But its okay...I'm learning excel like the back of my hand and it feels good to contribute already.

Phil and I are celebrating our 4th anniversary this weekend. It's hard to believe its already been four years, yet at the same time it seems like its been forever (in a good way). I'm already looking at pictures from our first year together and thinking "holy smokes we look young." Time flies when you're having fun!

New York - February 2007

New York - December 2010

Weddings

Phil has recently been doing homework on his laptop in the dining room, thus freeing up the desktop computer, which has all our pictures on it. Thus, I have no excuse not to blog. Thus, time to catch up.

This summer and fall, many of our family and friends tied the knot. Between the end of July and the beginning of October, we got to go to FOUR weddings. Phil was in two of them and I was in one of them. This made for a very busy summer (I think I had either a wedding, a bachelorette party, or a bridal shower all but two of the weekends during this time frame), but I heart weddings and enjoyed every minute of them.

1) First up was my cousin Andrew down in Salem, Oregon on July 31st. He married the beautiful Laura who was literally the girl next door...well across the street, but still! Their wedding was at a golf course in Salem and we had a fabulous time. Our whole family pretty much loves to dance and dance we did!

From left to right: RJ (bro-in-law), Megan (sister), Mom and Dad, me and Phil, cousin Julie, Uncle Roger

2) Next up was my dear friend Sally Jane Lymangrover who married Ryan Connors on September 4th. Sally and Ryan got married at Sanders Mansion in Auburn, WA. Phil didn't attend this wedding with me (he was touring China with his fam), thus I don't have many pictures to post. I ganked a few off facebook and one of my adorable parents dancing which I took with my phone.

From left to right: High school friends Alysha, Sally, Suzie, and me. And yes, that is the same dress I wore to Andrew and Laura's wedding. I also wore it to Sara and Ryan's (see below) rehearsal dinner. Wore the CRAP outta that dress this summer!

3) Sara Garcia and Ryan Roache, our friends we met at the lazy B (Boeing), got hitched on September 18th, and both Phil and I had the honor of being in their wedding party. The wedding was at The Plateau Club (country club/golf course) in Sammamish, WA. Though we did have some rain that day, Mother Nature, or God, or whoever, was super nice and brought the sun out for their pictures and kept the rain at bay until after their outdoor ceremony was done. It literally started raining 5 minutes later, but we were all inside drinking and dancing and being merry :)

A shot from the rehearsal, just to get one more look at that blue dress ;)

From left to right: Julie, Aimee, Sara, me, Christie, Jess

From left to right: Ryan, John, Luke, random guy in white, Jeff, Christie, Julie

Quite possibly my favorite picture of the summer because A) you can really see how much we are enjoying our dresses with the pockets and B) who am I kidding, my ladies (and yes, I mean that in two ways) look fabulous.

4) The last wedding of the summer/fall was that of John Rodriguez and Beth Engel. John is another Boeing friend and we were so happy he met and fell in love with sweet Beth. They got married October 2nd at Willows Lodge in Woodinville, WA. Their venue was gorgeous and OMG, the dessert buffet...there are no words for how fabulous the dessert buffet was. So fabulous, Phil and I have decided to have one at our wedding!

Another blue dress...what can I say, I like blue

Whew! One might think we'd be sick of weddings after all that, but I don't think I could ever get sick of weddings. What's not to love? Happy families, people in love and committing to the rest of their lives together, pretty dresses and flowers, yummy food, free booze, dancing, cake. I mean seriously, is there anything better? I love them so much, I'm making Phil crash one with me this Saturday. We're actually crashing some random couple's wedding. It's business though...we're checking out a caterer who doesn't do tastings but invites prospective clients to crash weddings she caters. Let's hope the bride and groom don't notice us going through the buffet line :)

East Coast Trip Part Four: NY (again) & New Jersey

Yeah, I'm a slacker. Haven't been motivated to blog lately...funny how I blogged MORE when I had homework to be doing than I do now when I have lots of free time.

After our trip to Boston, we came back to Phil's parents' house in Denville, NJ. We rolled into town right in time for a really awesome fireworks show put on by the city. We were joking a bit though because we watched the city blow up the taxpayers' money from a recently built pedestrian overpass, which most people in Denville (or at least Phil and one other guy I overhead joking about it) also think is a huge waste of taxpayers' money. Oh well, such is life. At least I got to see some fireworks on the 4th.

The next morning, Phil, Tim, Melissa, and I woke up bright and early to catch the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I had been to NY 3 times before but Phil had yet to take me to the Statue of Liberty because A) its time consuming and B) its sort of a tourist trap. But I think everyone had a good time. We got to go up in the pedestal and get some really awesome pictures...






















Afterwards, we drove through Hoboken so I could get a pastry at Carlo's Bakeshop (from Cake Boss). Unfortunately, the line was like 2 hours long! (P.S. it was about 100 degrees that day too). So I snapped a picture and we got the heck out of there!


Then Phil took me to the little town he grew up in...Dumont, NJ. We drove by his old school and his old house and the old field where he used to play ball with his friends and it was just the cutest little town ever. We had lunch at a sub shop in town and it was quite delicious. Then we visited the cemetery where Phil's Grandpa is buried so we could bring him some flowers for his birthday. After that we went to Ridgewood where supposedly (according to Albert) there is a really amazing cupcake place. Well...we found a cupcake place, and it was pretty amazing, but Albert did not recognize the packaging of the cupcakes we brought home and thus it was determined that we went to the WRONG cupcake place. How many cupcake places can there be in Ridgewood!? Apparently, at least two.

That afternoon and evening we enjoyed a great celebratory party at Phil's parents' house (for Phil's birthday and my degree completion). The whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma, bro, bro's girlfriend Kay) was there and we played games in the backyard, ate lots and lots and lots of food, and ended the night with a rousing round of Rock Band. I'm definitely better at singing than anything else, but my drum and guitar skills have vastly improved.



It was yet another fabulous day! Stay tuned for Part Five, which hopefully doesn't take me 3 weeks to write this time!