One month and counting!

Today John and I celebrate being married for a whole month! Woo hoo!  To celebrate, we did the adult thing- went to work, had leftovers for dinner, John brought home flowers, and I was FINALLY added on as John's dependant.  We have spent the first month of our marriage battling with an office on base as to what defines being an Alaska resident. According to them... its receiving a PFD.  For us, it's my DL, voter registration, fishing license, etc. Thankfully we won the battle :)

The past month has been a whirlwind of activity.  We got home from Florida and we jumped right into work stuff. I've been having computer issues at work, so I've been working through lunch to get caught up/stay caught up.  The IT department has been hearing a lot from me lately :(    I have missed going to the gym on my lunch break. I never thought I would say that, but I do.  Maybe once work events get on a roll I'll be able to start going to the gym again.

Life has been full of house projects.  Over the course of two weekends John and I got the outside of the house ready so we could get some photos.   The basement is close to being done!

I'll admit.. we did take some time to sneak out to the state fair :)  I have never been to the Alaska Fair and was pretty excited about the trip!  Of course I had to stop by and see all the super awesome 4-H stuff. :) (Yes, I'm a little biased)

Who doesn't like a good lumber jack show? ;)

(It's supposed to be a carved rabbit)

Thanks to all the wonderful Alaskan sunshine- the veggies can get pretty big! 

Yes, those are pumpkins in the back.  Unfortunately the largest one had to be disqualified since it had an imperfection on the outside. However, it comes in at a whopping 1,400 pounds.  The owner fed the pumpkin 300 gallons of water a day.  You can check out more of the story here. 

As fun as the fair was, I definitely paid for it.  Within a week I had a sore throat and really bad congestion.  I was kind enough to share it with John. (I did try to blame it on his co-workers, but unfortunately, no one else in the office had been sick).  I'll admit... I can be a big baby when I get sick. So a big thanks to my husband for putting up with me and making sure I was taken care of. :)

In addition to me having to go to the doctor, our fur babies had to go to the vet as well :(  Begley has a mass on his gum the vet wanted to recheck (thankfully it hasn't changed any).  The cat on the other hand... Oh boy- where to start!  The vet diagnosed her with kitty acne. Which is probably a result of the automatic cat feeder we bought, which is made of plastic (apparently cats are sensitive to plastic). This is the same "automatic" cat feeder, that I'm pretty sure close to starved my cat while we were in Florida.  The feeder was working when we left, but the cat seemed like she was starving when we got back.  After a little investigating I found that the feeder either 1) was feeding her late 2) wasn't feeding her at all  3) would feed her 6 or so pieces instead of 1/4 cup  or 4) would feed her a random 3rd time during the day.  Needless to say, I am not happy with Petmate right now and will more than likely be shipping that POS back to them very soon along with a nasty gram. I will NEVER recommend the Petmate's Infinity feeder to any pet owner. EVER.

 So we are all on the mend, all while working, busting our butts on the house, and John has started his Master's program back up. Yes... we often find ourselves asking each other "what's for dinner". I hate to admit it, but some nights I have resorted to cereal in a desperate attempt to save time and still feed myself. 

Oh the joys of adulthood :)

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!