Oh Sweet Summertime, cont.

John and I decided to have another go at salmon fishing.  We drove down to Kenai early last Saturday morning (another 3AM departure). I'll admit... I'm not the best travel buddy.  I was good for two hours, then Zzzzzz. I was out like a light!  Anchorage was a little drizzly, so I didn't get to see that great of a sunrise, but the view was beautiful nonetheless.

 After we parked and settled we ventured down to the tent city to see if anyone was catching anything.  Things looked pretty slow. After we ventured back to the Jeep it was nap time!  Despite the uncomfortable sleeping quarters, I was out like a light. (yet again)  John on the other hand... He might have gotten a 20 minute nap. 

This is the "room" a $20 parking pass will get you

 We finally woke up around 8:30 and sat around until the tide came in.   The one thing I'm not a fan of when it comes to fishing is all the waiting you do.

Begley had a lot of fun while waiting 

Eventually the ride was in and we were off fishing!   I almost lost my boots in the water.  The sand creates this suction that makes moving around in the water just about impossible. Thankfully there were safe spots where I could stand and not fear losing my shoes. :)  We might have been out there an hour before we made our first catch of the day. Over the course of 3 hours, fish were caught, fish got away and we threw a couple of flounder back in.

Here is the lesson I learned about fishing... you have to knock the fish out in just the right spot. Here is how my first experience knocking a fish out went:

Beat it twice on the head

Picked the fish up and took it over to cooler to bleed it

Picked up the knife

The fish starts flopping around again.

I drop the knife and start screaming "Noooo!! Dont' come back to life!!!" 

Then I beat it on the head again

John comes over to investigate

It comes back to life. Again.

John officially kills it

Later, while John was trying to clean our salmon, the tide kept creeping in further and further. So while John is cutting away on the fish, I'm chasing after my boots that were floating away, chased down the wet wipes that the tide wanted to take, and tried to keep the cooler from floating away so we wouldn't lose any fish.  It was a workout!

We attempted round 2 of fishing when the tide started going out.  I lasted about 20 minutes.  This is what we were dealing with....

Waders of water.  :)

After 20 minutes in the water,  I was beyond exhausted, wet, cold, and I reeked of fish.  We ended up staying in Kenai until 6, hoping that salmon would reappear.  They didn't :(  Then we had our adventure home.  Much like the trip to Kenai, I lasted 2 hours and I was out.  I did manage to get some pictures :)

Here is one thing that can be difficult to deal with- all the daylight. This picture was taking around 10:30PM. 

Despite our exhaustion we were super excited to see a double rainbow on the way home :)  

Alaska has been a great adventure that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world :)

Going Bridezilla!

Just kidding! 


Almost.

I'm finally a month out from going "Miss" to "Mrs". It's exciting and nerve wracking all at once. I'm excited to begin this next chapter in my life, but I sometimes worry that John will get tired of me testing the fire alarm when I cook dinner. ;)  Planning our wedding has been the most exciting, frustrating, time consuming thing I have ever done. Part of me understands why some women go all "Bridezilla".

Growing up I never spent a lot of time envisioning my future wedding. All I knew was that I wanted a small intimate wedding on the beach. Fast forward a decade and I'm looking at a large wedding in a church. Not entirely too sure how that happened, but I can't complain since I get to marry the man of my dreams :)

Went dress shopping with some friends last August.  It was a blast!

Throughout all the Pinteresting and wedding website lurking I have learned one thing- weddings can make women develop a case of the crazies. If you've ever watched the show Bridezillas, you know how bad some of these women can get. If you haven't watched it- check out this Bridezillas clip.  Seriously, these women need help.  Early on in the planning process, John made the mistake of referring to me as a Bridezilla. I wasn't being one, and now he occasionally gets to watch the show with me to remind him how good he has it. :)  If there is anything that I've learned from Bridezillas, it's how not to act when planning a wedding.  When things have started to fall apart, I do my best to keep myself composed.  Truthfully... this is what I look like on the inside. 

I remember the day I realized that the address that is on the invitations was not the actual address of the church. Yeah... what church buries their physical address in a contract? My church does :)  I cried a lot that day.  Thankfully I was able to laugh about it the next day, and just kept laughing as other things fell apart and I attempted to put them back together.

Truth be told.... I could try on wedding dresses all day.  If only just to mock myself in them.

Planning a Florida wedding from Alaska hasn't been a cake walk by any means.  Looking back, I'm thankful that all the "big" contracts fell into place fairly quickly.  Note to any business owners out there... if someone asks you to not call before a certain time, please don't.  I scratched a handful of vendors off my list because I was receiving phone calls at 4:30 in the morning.  In the end it has been the "little things" that seem to have taken up the most of my time. It shouldn't be that hard  to decide on a hair piece. Well, Google provides over 9 million links when you google "White flower hair clip". Who has time for that????? Don't get me started on programs. Uggg... I don't want to admit how many hours I've spent looking at them. Part of me is tempted to cough up more money and just order some instead of DIY. 

Since I started working, I have done a lot of event planning/coordination.  When I'm planning for someone else, I get my panties in a wad if anything goes wrong.  For myself? I'm a roll with the punches type of person.  Address wrong on the invites? Meh, we'll make phone calls and update everyone. Bridesmaids dresses arriving in different shades of "Tea Rose"? Hey, I get to have a popular ombre themed bridal party! If it rains on my wedding day, you might just find me outside dancing in it. Seriously, I just want August 17th to get here already.

At the end of the day, as long as I'm getting enjoy dinner, drinks, and dancing with the ones that I love- that's all I need.  Despite all the stress of wedding planning, maybe I won't go all Bridezilla after all. Just don't hold me to that day before my wedding, lol.  If you see my eye twitching though, please pass me a drink!